Getting Over Disappointment

Note: The winners of the creativity coaching will be announced tomorrow. So you can still leave a comment on yesterday’s blog to be eligible.)

A few weeks ago, a class that I was looking forward to teaching didn’t make. For those of you who don’t teach, “not making” means not enough people enrolled to make the class worthwhile for the location or for me. For an instructor, it’s a blow–to income, to pride, to the schedule.

In my case, the Inner Critic (after all, I spent most of last year writing about the topic) showed up with the usual bus of relatives to tell me that . . . well, you can imagine. You have an Inner Critic, too.

An ancient Chinese stone seal. The writing says, “Do not become complacent with victory; do not become frustrated with defeat.”

And because I am well-trained by the Inner Critic, I listened and began to follow that bitter and logical voice. Maybe I should stop teaching. How will I ever reach my audience if the classes don’t make? I’m sure you’ve got your own list. And that’s the point to today’s blog. There are better questions to ask yourself after a disappointment.

The first one is my favorite:

1. What did I want to happen? Well, let’s see, I wanted the class to be full, and everyone happy to experiment and eager to work. I imagined happy faces and great art results. That alone cheered me up.

2. How would the class have achieved that? Once I had the happy class in mind, I imagined them working on the project I planned, and in three minutes realized that I wanted to change some things about the class. Now, this is a habit I have, that no class is the same one twice, and that fiddling with the class content is something I do regularly. That put me in the feeling of doing something familiar and fun.

3. “What’s the worst that could happen here?” This is really a grim question. I used to ask it all the time to prepare myself. Instead, I asked, “What’s the best that could come from this?” The answers surprised me–more time to update the class, create a handout with a bonus extra, and run the class closer to the new book launch.

4. Where does it hurt? In my case, pain of failure always hurts in my chest. That was an immediate need. A few deep breathing exercises helped, and a walk made the pain leak out of my body.

Disappointment is a part of every life. How fast we bounce back determines how fast we recover and move on.

—Quinn McDonald would have been happier teaching the class. Having the opportunity to make it better is a gift.

The Mother You Didn’t Have

If you spent more than 15 minutes looking for a Mother’s Day card because reading the sentimental ones made you feel like a hypocrite, sad, or guilty, welcome to today’s blog.

Prickly plant seedhead.

If your childhood was happy and you had a mother who gave you everything you needed and no card is sweet enough, today’s blog is not for you. And most likely, you are with your mom, being happy.

Anna Jarvis, who invented American Mother’s Day in 1908 was angered by the commercialization by the early 1920s. So you are not alone if you think the holiday is a lot of hype for cards and candy. Most likely, that’s not your heartache. You never had the mother you wanted. The one who comforted you and praised you and loved you when you were unlovable and  helped without anger when you sewed the pieces of your gingham skirt together backwards. Twice.

Maybe you chose not to be a mother and everyone asks you why, or you wanted to be a mother and it didn’t happen for you and you are still pretending that’s just fine.

It’s complicated. Whether your mother was cruel or uncaring or clueless, the pain is there. If your mother is still alive, you probably won’t be able to have the big turnaround, awakening and happy ending your friends keep promising you. If your mother is dead, you may replay scenes, wondering if you had acted differently, if the results would have been different. You’ll never know, but a wild guess tells me No. Some things can’t be changed, fixed, or healed. And never by one person. Two people, a mother and her child, might be able to cobble together a relationship, but it’s hard.

The relationships between mothers and daughters is always hard. There is unwritten jealousy between age and experience and youth and naivete. There is anger in lost opportunities and unmet expectations.  For some, the fact that you were a daughter was enough of a disappointment to fill a lifetime. I ran across this quote yesterday, whose poignancy was hard to read:

“Remember that every son had a mother whose beloved son he was, and every woman had a mother whose beloved son she wasn’t. ” – Marge Piercy

But here is a truth you might want to hear right now, today, on Mother’s Day. You cannot be anyone else except the person you are today, with all your faults, experiences, hardships, joys, stumbles, successes and backslides. That is also true of your mother. No matter what happened, your awareness and work brought you to where you are today.

And starting today, you can choose to be generous and kind and patient. Maybe

The long shadow doesn’t have to haunt you.

not with your mother, but with the women who surround you. The ones who work with you and don’t meet your expectations. The pretty ones who get promoted ahead of you.  The ones who don’t take the opportunities you wanted and they have the freedom to turn down. All those women you meet on your path during the day. You can swallow the angry remark. You can wish them well. You can choose not to judge. That is your choice now. And choosing that freedom instead of choosing retribution is worth celebrating. Today and every day.

–-Quinn McDonald’s mother has been dead for almost 10 years, and the shadow still falls across the path on some days.

Evolution of Koi

When artists are juried into a show, one of the standard requirements is that the piece contain “the hand of the aritst,” or sometimes, more directly, “the fingerprints of the artist.” What juries are looking for is evidence that an artist has a personal viewpoint, an original take, a fresh viewpoint. That concept was one of the great lessons I learned in the collage class I took this weekend.

I started with a traditional Japanese koi painting, done by many artists:

From there I did the underpainting, trying to keep to the original shape. But already the chop, the red-square signature block was gone,  the image was rotated to make it horizontal, and the traditional poem was gone. The painting also gave the fish a lot more background.

In class, there were problems to solve. To keep the original background smooth and even, I’d have to apply a single sheet of paper over the board, re-apply the fish, then collage them on. While that’s a choice, it didn’t feel like collage to me. I wanted to show movement, ripples, even waves of active fish swimming.

While in Sedona, I visited a gallery that was having a showing of the instructor’s work, and noticed that in a collage she did of koi, there was a distinct splash of ripples.

After some thought I decided to move away from a monochromatic background, and create the entire setting as a field of ripples, in blues and whites and ivories.

Not only that, but when I was working, the instructor told me that the koi did not have to be orange and black, that a more impressionistic view was fine, even desirable. She suggested several different pieces of paper that worked well, but weren’t orange or black.

In the end, I decided that the original placement of fish–orange on top and the shadowy gray on the bottom, was what worked best. The image isn’t complete, but this is where I am now:

It’s not the traditional koi, it’s the constant movement of koi, creating a push and pull of color and action. As artists, we interpret the world in our own way, and when we talk about it to others, we show them what we see through our eyes via artwork–collage, writing, idea presentation.

This evolution of koi is personal, my vision. Several members of the class didn’t like it,(which is fine with me). That’s the point of art–it’s not really meant to please, or to match the sofa or drapes. It’s meant to show a view of the world through the artist’s eyes, and satisfy the artist in some way. If it pleases others, well, then, that’s a great bonus. Had I decided to create a piece that pleased the majority of the class, I would have pleased no one fully. Least of all myself. In creating a piece that delighted me, I can explain a viewpoint clearly. For me, that’s art.

--Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach working on creative projects.

The Underpainting

This weekend I’m driving up to Sedona to take a collage class. It’s a type of chine collé in which you create an underpainting, then, following the shades of the colors, collage over the underpainting.

Our homework was to create two underpaintings–one of an apple (so the class will all be working on the same idea) and another underpainting of a different topic.

The chicken in an underpainting.

I wanted to do a koi underwater, but the sketch showed me it would require too much detail work and be too difficult. So I did a chicken, instead. I don’t paint with acrylics, and I have no idea how to do a real underpainting. I work with watercolor pencils, watercolor and inks. But I leaped in and tried it anyway. I hesitated only a bit, and then I thought, “This is a class I am taking to step way out of my comfort zone, so I might as well feel weird about it.

Minimalist koi

I then went back and created a totally minimalist koi drawing. I think the background will be hugely interesting, and I can’t wait to work on it.

While I was working on the underpainting, I thought of what a good idea it was. You put down the shapes and colors you want, and it makes the detail work easier–less filled with instant decisions.

It’s not that different from an outline for writers. A guide that helps you see the big picture. And of course, it’s the same thing as envisioning the future, or a success in life. Once you’ve seen where you are going, it’s easier to take the steps to get there.

So, tomorrow, off to Sedona for a get-away class! And yes, I’m taking the computer because I have work to do at night. No rest for the wicked!

–Quinn McDonald seems to have something about chickens. The one above made her laugh.

Mind Over Chatter: On the Road to Minneapolis

Minneapolis has an incredible resource called the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. It teaches book structure, printing, marbling, and other book arts skills. And best of all, I’ll be there on the weekend of May 18 and 19, teaching Mind Over Chatter: Confronting Your Inner Critic Through Deep Writing and Mixed Media Journaling.  There is also a round-table discussion on Inner Critics on May 17 (Friday) evening.

Loose leaf journal page: gilded, dried leaves, double-exposure film photograph, on painted and stained watercolor paper.

What will the participants do in two days? Deep writing and art journaling–a combination I love teaching because of the incredible results that come from giving yourself time to write what you feel.

Art journaling is often more about art and less about journaling. But deep writing as an intuitive and creative tool transforms your art journals into rich explorations instead of a collection of completed pages. Come explore and experiment with both writing and art techniques and then combine both on loose leaf journal pages. Students will make “Monsoon Papers” — a surface design technique that requires giving up control with astonishing results — and a folio for completed pages.

There will be a good deal of experimentation, and because the pages are loose-leaf, they can be re-worked and then selected and sequenced in various orders with different results.

Folder for loose-leaf journal pages. Monsoon papers, stitched.

I don’t teach often in the Midwest, and I’m already looking forward to meeting book contributor T.J. Goerlitz, whose enthusiasm for the Center made the connection for me. What a find! (Both TJ and the Book Arts Center).

You can register on this page, scroll down as the workshops are listed by date, and May 18-19 is closer to the bottom than the top.

There is early-bird pricing and joining the Center will give you a break in the price as well.

I’m so excited about this class.Deep writing, Monsoon Papers and loose-leaf journal pages all in two days–explore your journey, art journaling, and discover yourself in deep writing. I hope to see you in May in Minneapolis!

–Quinn McDonald will be doing a lot of traveling starting in May. There will be more announcements as the workshops develop.

Authority Neurosis

This weekend, I was talking to someone for whom I have great understanding–someone with an bit of an attitude about authority. Maybe even an authority neurosis. Someone who doesn’t like being told what to do or how to do it. I know this feeling. What we hate in others is what we hate in ourselves. What we admire in others are our own good qualities. And that gives us a hinge to authority troubles.

Authority figures show us our own unclaimed power. The part of us that didn’t make it to the top of the heap, the part of us that, our Inner Critic tells us, just doesn’t quite cut it. And we become angry at those  in leadership who are not as bright, talented, disciplined as we are, but who made it to the top anyway. They got discovered. They had mentors.  And since they don’t deserve respect, we don’t give respect. And that’s where thinking trips over its own shoelaces.

No one is going to come up and ask to mentor you. No one is waiting to hand you the Crown of Retribution and congratulate you for your leadership. See that cape on the ironing board? The magic is not in the cape. It’s in the story you tell yourself about the cape.

Some people believe what authority figures tell them to believe. A few more believe what their friends tell them. But everyone believes their own story—the one they tell themselves. And once you believe it, you tell it to others and they believe your story, too. The one where you never got the breaks. About being overlooked and under-appreciated. And then others don’t give you breaks, overlook you and under-appreciate you. Because you told them to.

Tell yourself that cape is yours,. Then iron it and put it on. It’s time for you to step up and re-claim the powerful bits of yourself you storied away, hoping people would disagree with you.  Being a leader doesn’t mean being given power. It means working with people who believe in you.

Be the person people can believe in, and you’ll have your power. If you believe in it yourself.

—Quinn McDonald is a believer. In herself and in others.

Images from: A Pretty Cool Life.com

Perfectionist Makes a Postcard

Flipping through the completed postcards I’d made for iHanna’s international postcard swap, I decided two of them weren’t good enough. The Inner Critic agreed with me, so I sat down this afternoon to make a few more cards.

While I had fun, nothing turned out well enough to include in a postcard swap. The Splash ink explorations led to experiments, but nothing worth putting on a card. The new paper just in for my class in Sedona is colorful, but the card wasn’t special.

I know that any time in the studio is time well spent, and since tonight was trash take-out night, I cleaned up and picked up the paper towels to throw in the trash. There was a blue and purple one and a green and yellow one from the Splash Inks. And. . . the blue and purple one looked like sky, and the green and yellow one looked like a line of trees on one side.

I tore the paper towels into shapes, added a piece of handmade paper, and  made a postcard from them. The poured acrylic from last week, which was nicely dry, became the moon. I sewed over the edge and there was the last of the postcards, ready to send out. No time in the studio is wasted, ever.

Here are eight of the 12 postcards I made:

The brown/orange ones (mostly):

And the  blue-red ones:

–Quinn McDonald is still arm-wrestling with her Inner Critic. He won’t like the new book, either.

The Perfect Journal

After making the technique samples of loose-leaf journal pages, I knew the perfectionists in the class would want to walk away with a bound journal. After all, the class was Journaling for Perfectionists. I came up with an idea for binding individual pages into a book, but then I was stumped for what to put on the cover.

It came to me, as most good ideas do, while I was out for a walk. Using rubber stamps, I wrote “Perfection” in a badly-spaced rubber-stamp script, cut the paper slightly at an angle and used it on the cover of the book. I find it perfect for a class on perfectionism.

The pages are held together with tape, in this case, a paper tape that allows me to vary the amount of space between pages so the signatures line up.

The next book will use the tape only as positioning piece. I’m going to sew strips of grosgrain ribbon over it to create a more permanent and attractive way of holding the pages together.

The book contains several poems I love, both popular and not well known. In this one, by Lorna Crozier, from her book Inventing the Hawk, I created one page that looked like snow drifting from the sky on one side,

and a page of bright winter colors with tissue paper snow on the other.

Here’s the poem:

The Angel of Numbers

In heaven the season for mathematics
is Winter. Chalk falls from the blackboard,
covers the earth.
The angel who invented arithmetic is trying
to get rid of zeros.
She erases and erases the boards
Then starts again

Assigning to the numbers already in the air
Their own lost stars to live on,
their own dark infinity
to name.

* * *

—Quinn McDonald is creating a course on writing poetry. The research is deeply satisfying.

 

The rest of the book:

 

 

 

 

 

The center spread:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the inside back cover:

Un-Messing Up a Journal Page

In the North Light photo studio today, I created several projects from the book, while Christine took photos and Amy took notes. I expected to make mistakes and have things go wrong (my Inner Critic followed me from the airplane) but they did not. Christine solved some tedious instruction problems, and Amy made the day race by. I had fun. I made and threw a snowball for the first time in about five years.

And no journal pages were harmed in the production of the journal pages. But we do occasionally mess up a journal page. You can rip it out and burn it, deny it happened, or simply use one of these way to repair it:

You’re working in your journal and one of the pages doesn’t work out. You don’t want it to mess up the rest of the journal, so now what? You’ll know what I’ll say first–that your journal is not a piece of perfection, that some pages will work out better than others. And I’ll know your reply–tell me how to make it work. Here are some ways to fix a journal page that didn’t work out:

1.Cut it out. Trim the page out about an inch from the spine stitching. Put a sturdy piece of cardboard or a cutting mat under the page and cut with an art knife. You’ll get a better cut than with scissors. You now have a stub left in the book. You can attach another page here. Complete the page first, so you know it’s exactly what you want in this part of your journal. Attach with tape or glue.

If you use glue, you’ll want the stub to be on the back of the insert. Put the glue on the stub, after putting a protective page underneath the stub. No sense gluing pages of your journal together.

2. Take notes. If there is room enough on the page, make notes about what you would do differently the next time. This helps you feel better about the mistake. It also helps you learn how to avoid repeating the mistake. If there is not enough room on the page, cut out small rectangles of paper, make your comments on them, and glue them into place on the page you don’t like.

3. Cover it up. There are thin papers that will hide the work, but translucent enough to add interest. Parchment or tracing paper, and some kinds of washi–rice paper–do a good job. You can also add a piece of transparency film or mylar. Transparency can be colored by running it through your printer to put a colored image on it. (Make sure your printer will take transparency film first.) Transparency film can also be dyed or stamped with alcohol inks. Mylar can be tinted with colored pencils or inks.

4. Paint over it. If you don’t mind a thicker page, cover the page with collage or paint. If you are going to paint, use a heavy body acrylic or gesso to start. You’ll get muc better coverage than watercolor or thin acrylics. You can also cover portions with masking tape and paint over the rest of it. Collage works well because you won’t be able to write on paint very easily.

Your inner perfectionist should find one of those methods the right way to keep loving your journal.

–Quinn McDonald is an artist and writer who is having fun at the photo shoot for her second book.

Perfectionist Practices

In creating samples for the book, I do the art first, then write about it. So the first page I do is an experiment. I riff on an idea, create a few takes, and then finally have a specific idea.

I did the riffing earlier this year, getting to the point where I knew the sections of the book and roughly what the artwork would look like. So all I had to do was make the final piece. And how hard can it be to do a card if I already have the idea and several samples?

Turns out, plenty hard. Because in my head, this next one had to be perfect. And once it had to be perfect, it never was. Card after card didn’t turn out, looked lame, wasn’t what I meant, had unflattering colors. I made mistakes, and when I started over, I made different mistakes.

And time after time, I realized that the card I made when I was just riffing was the card that worked best. The cards in the first group were made with full interest and no fear. There wasn’t any pressure to perform or have it be perfect for the book. It was great the way it was.

That was a big lesson I needed to learn again: when you are playing, you do your best work. When you are working, you are tense and there are too many people watching  and speaking–at least in my head. My crew consisted of imaginary critics: future readers of the book,  my mother, a caricature of my editor (who is incredibly nice in real life) and Sister Michael Augustine, who was responsible for my learning how to write right-handed in 7th grade. Oh, my inner critic was there too, with the family.

Your best creative work is done in play. Who knew?

–Quinn McDonald is writing a book on inner heroes and inner critics.