DIY: Making Meaning Your Way

Making Meaning through your creative work takes courage.
It’s an intensely private work, which in our culture is always slightly suspect. When you see the serial killer being led away from the crime scene, you always hear, “He kept to himself,” or “He was a loner,” as if those things are somehow intrinsically bad and wrong. Yet that’s where a lot of creative work is done–by yourself. Alone.

One person's chicken is another's Little Red Hen

Making Meaning starts from scratch.
Sure, you may have played with kits. And you may well be using many leftovers from various kits to make your own stuff. But you are working with your idea. You aren’t assembling anything, and you aren’t using directions supplied with a kit. You are moving into uncharted territory, and you are alone. And you love it.

Making Meaning means you write the rules.
The way you make meaning is your way. Not your neighbor’s, not the rich and successful writer, musician, dancer, or gardener you admire. You get to fail, try again, and then succeed. And that trip is what makes it so very satisfying. Because it involves creative play, messing up, and fixing it all by yourself. Making meaning brings satisfaction because it involves triumph over obstacles. The major obstacle is often your own thinking.

Making Meaning is not a consumer activity.
You can buy a kit and make something, but it doesn’t make meaning. You can buy paint-by-numbers, scrapbooking kits and cards, you can complete step-by-step wire-wrapping jewelry and wind up with a product without one scrap of meaning making. You may feel empty after such an activity, even if you have completed a gift-quality product.

Making Meaning is a Little Red Hen project.
You remember the story of the Little Red Hen. Her friends–the cat, dog, mouse, chick (it varies from story to story) don’t help her plant the wheat, cut the wheat, take it to the mill, or bake the bread. But they all show up to eat the bread. And after all that work, she doesn’t share the bread. She eats it by herself. Is she selfish? No, in this story the other animals aren’t starving, they are hoping to share in her success without having done the work. The Little Red Hen has made meaning in the bread and is eating the joy of her work.

Making Meaning is a goal in itself.
You’ve written a book? That made meaning. Publishing it is another story. The joy you feel in writing is the success. Publishing is an administrative task that will make you feel proud, inadequate, fill you with “shoulds” and bring out detractors, admirers, and hangers-on. That’s a step beyond making meaning. Making meaning is a journey.   It can have many goals that don’t make meaning. Make sure you notice when meaning-making stops, you don’t want to confuse the journey with reaching a destination.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She has a website for writers who want to keep an art journal, and a website for her business training. Both have coaching sections.

Making Meaning With Your Decision

The earth heaves forward and you see the place where dawn will polish a hole in the sky.
You are the creator, this is your doing. You can call up the dawn, or you can step into the shadow.
Or you can step into the light and cast a shadow, falling in front of you.
You can wait until the sun is in your face, your shadow falling behind you.

You wonder if this creation is good, will sell, will become viral and make you a success, famous, a celebrity, rich beyond belief. You aren’t sure you care.

Genesis. Pitt Pen, watercolor pencils © Quinn McDonald 2009 All rights reserved

So you ask your committee to speak up.
The “Devil’s Advocate” who warns about the thing you haven’t thought of yet.
The Critic who says the public wants it smooth and cool, and you feel hot and sweaty.
The Marketer who says your portraits aren’t of pretty people, they are raw and ugly.
The Expert who says that people don’t like  hard edgy words now, they want it soft and easy.

You love this work, this scooping out of meaning from the blood-sponge of your heart.
You love it, but this Committee seems to know. Who is right? Who knows enough to advise you?

Sun pushes up the dawn. It’s time to know. Either you or your shadow will step into the shoes that leave deep marks and walk across the face of the earth.
This is no one else’s decision.
This is yours to know.
This is your creation.
For this one heartbeat, you are the Creator.

© Quinn McDonald 2009 All rights reserved

Altered Book: Fahrenheit 451

The Big Read is an idea sponsored by the Valley’s libraries. Each year a book is chosen and libraries sponsor events to encourage people to read that book. One of the events involves artists–I was one of the artists chosen to alter the book for a display at one of the libraries. This year’s book is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

What makes the book interesting is that the 1953-written book has elements of  current reality–a society obsessed by television and celebrities, a fear of intellectual discussions at social functions, a minority kicking up a fuss about books, which are subsequently banned from libraries, and my favorite, a love of wearing earbuds and being plugged in to programmed music.

In my approach to altering the book, I chose the idea from the final scene of the book, in which people become living books. Readers live in books, so I created a row-house made of books. In the image below, the central house is Fahrenheit 451, surrounded by other book houses.The pages of the central book are stuffed with message tags.

Altered book, Fahrenheit 451. © Quinn McDonald, 2009

Each house represents a genre: mystery, science fiction, art and poetry. Because love of nature was banned in the story, the two houses on the left represent winter and spring, and the two books on the left represent summer and fall.

Altered book detail, left side © Quinn McDonald, 2009

Altered book right-side detail. © Quinn McDonald, 2009

The tags are all quotes about books, all  from famous people. Ray Bradbury’s own quote, “You don’t have to burn books to destory a culture, Just get people to tstop reading them,”  is there, as well as Salman Rushdie’s quote, “A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it or offer your own version in return.”

Detail of book tags, © Quinn McDonald, 2009

In the heart of the book (I chose page 98 deliberately, as 98.6 Fahrenheit is the normal temperature of the human body), there are flames on one side and a matchbook on the other. The matchbook has a burning match on the cover, and the inside “matches” are the spines of books that have been banned in the past.

Right side detail, matchbook © Quinn McDonald, 2009

The matchbook itself is surrounded by paper flames that have already consumed the page of the book.

The tags are removable for easy reading, and can be used as bookmarks. I hope the book is displayed in a way that allows people to touch it and play with it.

Banned books as matches, detail of altered book, © Quinn McDonald, 2009

I read the book when I was about 10 and just discovering science fiction. My first big literary shock was discovering that Bradbury had made a mistake, paper bursts into flame at 451 Celsius, not Fahrenheit. Yes, I stuck a piece of paper in the oven to see it burst into flame.

It took me a long while to accept altered books. The thought of ruining a book was overwhelming. But the lure of transforming a book that was scheduled for the shredder into a piece of art won me over.

The satisfaction of planning out a concept and carrying it through was really satisfying. I am honored to have been chosen for this project. And yes, I do custom altered books to honor a special event or person.

–—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also teaches people who can’t draw how to keep an art journal.

Living a Wabi-Sabi Life

Wabi-Sabi—Appreciation of the Imperfect and Impermanent
You are looking in a shop window at a beautiful dress. Suddenly, you see the reflection of a young woman behind you, also looking at the dress. She reminds you so much of your younger self– fresh, eager. You smile at the recognition of the wonder of this moment.

That fragile moment of recognition is part of the Japanese concept of Wabi-sabi– the beauty of things impermanent or incomplete. It contains a profound appreciation for things modest and humble. As an

Bonsai and shadow © Quinn McDonald, 2007

aesthetic, it honors things imperfect and unconventional.

A Different Approach to Success and Abundance
Wabi-sabi is the release of control. It avoids beating up the creative soul for not achieving perfection. Recognizing and embracing our imperfections allows room for growth. The only result of demanding perfection is certain failure. Perfection is impossible, and while we live in a culture that loves people who are “passionate” and “give 110%,” we seldom feel passion for our daily lives, and it is impossible to give more than all. Perfection is a cruel boss. It leads to giving up, depression and anger rather than eagerness for growth and improvement.

Living a wabi-sabi life means letting go of the stress of competition, relentless achievement, and replacing them with a willingness to let life find its own pace. It allows for space to trust that opportunities will appear, and a willingness to let the world unfurl without having full control over every activity. It is a life stripped down to what is valuable, rather than randomly acquired. It is not living without, but rather within.

In a wabi-sabi life, you recognize all things are impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete. Once you open the door to imperfection, a creative force rushes into your life, making it possible to risk, to try different solutions, to explore your creativity fully. Which leads to living a creative life–work and business combine to create a full, rich and abundant life.

How to Live a Wabi-Sabi Life
One of the hardest things to do is live in the moment. We are always planning—what to have for dinner, what time to pick up the kids, what to do if that promotion doesn’t come through.

Bittersweet © Quinn McDonald, 2007

We live our lives in the past, reviewing our mistakes, and in the future, planning on contingencies and how to handle what will happen next. The current moment is empty as we rush to control—ourselves, our lives, the lives of our children. We try to control our creativity, what we make, even our intuition.

Certainly planning helps organize our time and leads to action. But when we begin to plan for every possibility, guess at every motive, fill every second of the day with planned activities, meetings and obligations, we exhaust ourselves and our families.

We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Often we can’t influence the future. What we think of as failure is simply a lack of knowing. You don’t always have to know. And you don’t always have to be in control. Take off that heavy obligation of knowing and controlling and take three deep, slow breaths. Then decide right now. In this moment. To live and grow. And leave perfection behind. And let creativity take root in your life.

–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach. She teaches journal-writing classes, including Wabi-Sabi Journaling and raw-art journaling (c) 2007-9 All rights reserved.

QuinnCreative Newsletter Returns

Some months ago, I stopped publishing my newsletter, Imagination Works from QuinnCreative. There were lots of good reasons: The newsletter was ten years old, I’d originally kept the addresses in an address book, because I sent a paper newsletter. Once I created an online one, I knew that some people weren’t getting the letter anymore, those who

Raw-art-journal entry, Inktense pencils on paper, © Q.McDonald, 2009

got it at work often found it in the spam filter. OK, I’ll admit it was a lot of work putting it on my website, and fads change–people didn’t want a newsletter through email, they wanted it on a website, now people don’t want to be forced to click on links in emails to take them to websites they think might contain mal-ware.

Once I discontinued the newsletter, the emails started.  “What happened to the newsletter?” “Where was that article you wrote on failure?” “I went to your website and there’s no newsletter!”

My mistake. There are many reasons to start up the newsletter again.  A lot of people don’t want to read a blog every day, don’t want to troll my website to see when a new class is coming up,  and want to know about living their creativity out loud as artists, writers, and just plain people. So I’m bringing back the newsletter with a really simple title: QuinnMcDonaldNewsletter.  It’s not fancy, it’s simple writing through a Yahoo Group.

You can go here and sign up:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quinn_McDonald_Newsletter/join

Anyone can sign up. It will come the first and third Sunday of the month, via this Yahoo Group.

Tip of new logo for Quinn's Raw-art-joujrnals

Sundays so people who are in the “Sunday Slump”–that uneasy time of week at the end of the weekend and before the beginning of the work week–will have something interesting to read.

I don’t sign anyone up, I don’t spam anyone. I’ve sent out invitations to a few people who have told me to bring the newsletter back. If you want to receive the newsletter, please go sign up. It will contain links, stories, ideas on living a creative life. Because I still believe that we don’t find meaning in life, we make meaning. The newsletter will be delivered through a Yahoo Group, but it is a newsletter. No photos, no websites, no fancy design. You won’t be required to do anything. I chose Yahoo Groups because it makes it easy to subscribe (and unsubscribe) and for me to mail out.

Yahoo Groups also creates automatic archives, which I could never do, and it was a constant source of questions. Now people can search the archives for previous posts.

Thanks to all for letting me know what you want. I sure hope this is it!

The Pencil © Quinn McDonald, 2005-9

The “Perfect” Journal May Be A Mess

“What does your journal look like?” one of my class participants asked. She was putting away her own carefully crafted art journal filled with delightful patterns and colors that she had copied from magazines.

“What do you think it would look like?” I asked, knowing where this conversation would lead.

Thinking in circles © Q. McDonald

“Your journal would have exquisite artwork on every page, with beautiful handwriting in lovely colors. And the whole book would be perfect–no mistakes. You’ve been journaling a long time,” the participant said with the joy that comes right before the bubble pops.

Silently, I handed her my journal. It has a water-stained front cover and the elastic is over-stretched. She opened it, and gasped, involuntarily. She had opened it on a page in pencil, with an ugly sketch of a thing that might be a butterfly followed by several swashes in pencil. She looked at me in real doubt. I was the teacher here? She flipped to another page. A drawing done diagonally across two pages, with a not particularly good illustration of a hand reaching up to find a pen on a table.

The participant looked at me with pity. “This is yours? Is it recent?” She was horrified. How could the instructor in a class have a journal that was so. . . ugly?

The class had gathered and I held up the ugly butterfly page. “When I saw this butterfly done in repoussé  and chased on a pendant, I loved the Asian feel it had. When I drew it, as an illustration, it was flat, missing the raised element of the repoussé and the deep outlining of chasing. The Asian influence came from the technique, not the illustration, and I didn’t understand that until I did the drawing. Had I added shading and definition, added a framed,  it would have looked like the pendant.

“Why didn’t you?” Another participant asked.

“I learned all I need to learn from what I had drawn,” I said. “Having learned it, I noted it on the page and then could move on.”

“And the . . .hand?” another participant asked.

“Hands are hard to draw, but this was not about the hand. This was about breaking the page–creating an artificial edge with a diagonal line across the page. Elizabeth Perry is an expert at it. I was not, so I practiced, and gave myself a chance to copy my own hand at the same time.”

My journals are not little artworks ready for framing. My journals are explorations on translating what I see into a flat surface. My journal is about experimenting and failing, and knowing why I failed. My journals are about experimenting and succeeding and knowing why it worked this time. Some pages have instructions for an idea, some a diagram that makes sense only to me. Some pages are beautiful, some are not. My journals are my work, my thoughts, my ideas, and they are not perfect. They can be a mess on the way to pretty good. And that’s why my journals make me indescribably happy.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and recovering perfectionist.  Quinn is also a life- and creativity coach who helps people through change. She teaches people who can’t draw how to keep art journals.

It’s Not God’s Fault

“If it doesn’t happen, it wasn’t meant to be.”  I’ve been hearing that phrase a lot lately. Or, worse, “If it’s meant to be, things will fall in place. If not, God didn’t want me to have it.” I don’t understand this whole way of thinking. And I don’t

Want tomatoes? Water your own plants

believe in it, Although I do believe in God. I don’t believe our every tiny whim is a deity’s responsibility.

If that way of thinking were true, I’d never have to water my garden (God would provide rain at the necessary times), prune the fig trees (they would grow perfectly to grow their fruit) or work hard for something I wanted (because if it’s supposed to happen, it will drop it into my lap).

Blaming God for our lack of initiative doesn’t seem right. It negates our free will and allows us to blame failure on God. It doesn’t allow us  responsibility for our own mistakes, or the wisdom to fix them.

Worst of all, that kind of thinking makes God the victimizer. Most of us have gathered a lot of evidence that we are victims in life–think of how often we say, “If only. . .” If only our parents had given us what we needed, we would have had a better career. If only we’d gone to a more prestigious school, we’d get that promotion. If only our boss had played fair, we wouldn’t have been laid off. The list goes on into eternity.

When we become victims–of a deity, of others, even of ourselves, we become powerless. We lose. It’s an excuse to give up, to blame others.

We usually reach for drama. When we are the star of our own drama, we can make other people sorry for what they did. Except they aren’t. And their refusal to accept all that responsibility fuels our anger and victimhood all the more. As long as we don’t let anyone off the hook, we don’t have to pull ourselves out of our mess.

There is an amazing way to change your life. Let others off the hook. They aren’t suffering over hurting you. You are. If you stop blaming them, stop creating drama, stop showing them how awful they are because your life is a mess, and spend that energy in righting your rocky life, and putting it together, you will use your own creativity to heal yourself.

You don’t have to wait for anyone. You can do it on your own. Your own creativity is waiting to be used. No one else can use it for you. No one else can want a happy, prosperous life for you. But if you want it for yourself, and want it more than blaming others—from your parents to God—you will be able to find the gifts in your life and use them to build a future of your own creation.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life– and creativity coach. She helps people through big changes in their life.

Theme Thursday #5: 6/11/09

This weeks theme is pen and notebook reviews, with a bit of thrift store fashion and studio-mixed ink tossed in to make it interesting.

Last week, I introduced Pen Addict. Little did I know he has another blog,

Image: ravensclaw.wordpress.com

Notebook Addict. In today’s blog he quotes Murderface and his Reciprocral Crap Exchange on Quo Vadis notebooks, which I mentioned last week. Both of these writers have a clear, easy-to-understand manner and keep you from buying lots of stuff you don’t need and just the fine stuff you must have.

You might think a cat of an impossible color is a fashion site, but the blog’s author is writing a book and the blog contains excellent links for writers. The author does make the most of her thriftshop expertise, which makes for some great pictures. She’s a Zimbabwean living in New Zealand, so don’t skip this blog.

Unposted reviews pens he’s used, but he also mixes his own inks. The link is to the contents of his backback—pens, notebooks and notes. I’m relieved that I’m not alone in taking three or four pens with me as well as a journal or two when I leave the house.

Theme Thursday is a post I create every week for creative play. You can join, too. Simply post three (or more) links on a topic you are an expert on or one that delights you. You can post them on your blog and leave a link in the comments.

Below are previous Theme Thursdays.

Creative Play 6/4/09

CreativePlay 5/21/09

Creative Play 5/14/09,

Creative Play 5/7/09

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also  manages four journals that travel the world.

Traveling Journals: Changing the Rules

When I decided to create four traveling journals, I kept the idea pretty close to the 1000 Journals Project because that was a good model. As the journal entries unfolded, several interesting events took place:

Red traveling journals

1. Creative Insecurity. The person who started one of the journals has a great deal of art talent. In a class, one of the participants said, “I’m glad I’m not following her.” I didn’t understand, so she explained, “Well, if I saw this great art, I’d feel bad. What could I do that would be as great?” I had never thought of the journaling experience as being competitive, I had thought of each person contributing something new and different, a new perspective. But I’m sure that competitive perspective is not unique.

2. Not enough journals. With four journals, I can’t have a class work on them. If a class has a dozen people, no one will have enough time, and keeping the ones not working on the journal busy will short-change the one who is working on it.

3. Time constraints. Each person keeps the journal about 10 days. Mailing takes about three days. I have people from Australia, Bosnia, the Phillipeans and other countries signed up. The waiting list for one journal is already four months. A long waiting list was one of the problems that people told me about with the plan.

4. Lack of meaning-making in the concept. Circulating the journals is an administrative task that I don’t find compelling or packed with meaning-making.  I have to ask people not to create pages that are too thick to keep the book from closing comfortably. I hate restricting imagination and creativity.

What to do? I asked participants in the creativity incubator, I thought it over, and came up with some great alternatives. If I circulated loose pages, most of the above problems would be solved. If I circulated loose pages to create on while people were waiting for the books, and encouraged people to do both, the resulting creative rush could be exciting and fulfilling.

If I gathered the loose pages and created inventive ways to bind them, well, then, I could also have a creative experience. This sounded like a workable idea. It also changed the art experience to a completely different journaling experience than the one created by Someguy, the person who ran the 1000 Journal project as an art experiment.

Solution that re-tooled the project:

• You can still sign up for the red traveling journals. You sign up for them, and I
  

  Re-purposed book

  manage them, scanning and posting the pages as they come in and sending them out again to the next person on the list. You can see the list of where the books are, and who will have it next here. You can sign up for more than one journal.

• You can also sign up for loose pages. You won’t have to wait for them, because I have them pre-cut and ready to go. You can create FAT pages (layer papers, add photographs, use multi-media techniques) or FLAT pages (writing, drawing, watercolor, thin collage) depending on your style, art, ideas, and imagination. You can use one of the themes from the red traveling journals (travel, dreams,  or Summer in the Sonoran) or make up your own.
• There is only one rule: Because I will use different binding methods, some of which I haven’t invented yet, you will need to leave a half-inch margin all around the edge of each page. You can run color or collage up to the edge, just keep words and important image parts one-half inch aways from the edge.
• The re-purposed book. One idea I have is to re-purpose books. I’ve snagged some books from a future in the landfill. I’ll cut out the pages, leaving a margin. I’ll send you a few pages along with some art paper. You can choose to use some, all, or none of the existing book pages. When you send it back, I’ll re-attach it to the pages I cut out. A re-purposed book!
• Re-inventing the book. Another idea is that I will choose pages that relate to each other and find inventive ways to bind, stitch, rivet, or otherwise attach them to each other. This gives you the joy of creation and it gives me the chance to explore the meaning of “book” and play with the form. Everyone is happy.

I’m excited and eager to see how this adventure unfolds! I plan to continue this program as my main creative work for the foreseeable future, so if you are reading this and wonder if I’m still running the program, ask.

Sign up. You do not have to be able to draw to participate. The only requirement is a hunger to communicate with people from around the world in a culturally interesting project. You can read more about raw art journaling on my website.

You can sign up for the red journals, fat or flat pages, or both by sending me an email: rawartjournals [at] gmail [dot] com. Or use the link at the bottom of the left column or top of the right column on this page.

—Quinn McDonald is an artist, writer and certified creativity coach. She is managing this project our of her own funds and hopes to take the completed books on tour to museums and libraries. You can contribute to the project by using the button at the bottom of the page, here.

Letting Go to Be OK

Anne was in for a visit; she’s a DC resident, and was happy for our dry heat. . .except for the heat part. The pool seemed the answer to the triple digits. We were floating in the cool water when Anne said, “I’m trying to be a good person, but I’m angry.”

“What about?” I asked. Anne doesn’t get angry often. She told me a story about a slight that seemed to pile up on a precarious pile of patience and had toppled all her resolve.

“That seems a good reason be angry,” I said.

“Well, really good people don’t get angry, or if they do, they handle it better,” she said. I was a bit surprised at this news. I know a lot of people who aren’t handling anger all that well.”

“So what do you want to do?” I asked, curious.

“I want to get over anger faster.” Anne said. “I tell myself to get over it. I remember that The Secret says when I think negative thoughts, I’ll attract bad things into my life. That makes me worry, and then I get angry about being angry.”

I’ve never been a big believer in The Secret since I read the book and it seemed to miss the logic path and head into the ditch of materialistic consumerism. I wasn’t going to discuss it with Anne now.

“Suppose you spend that time being OK with being angry. Not justifying why you are angry, just being OK with the fact that you are angry. Anger is a legitimate emotion, sometimes necessary to solve injustice. It’s what you do with your anger that is important, isn’t it?” I asked Anne.

“I’m still angry and then I get angry that I can’t move on,” Anne said. I understood that. If you turn on a timer and demand of yourself not to think of 100 white horses, they will prance through your mind until the timer rings.

“How about if you tell yourself you are OK with being angry, that there was a reason for it at the time, and start to wonder what’s next? That checks the anger off the list, and lets you wonder about an action instead of focusing on your emotion? Beating yourself up for being angry doesn’t seem to help get rid of it.”

Anne was doubtful. “What if I start thinking about getting even with the person who made me angry?”

“That’s another step. That’s a choice. But first, be OK with anger. Or frustration. Or not knowing. Once we allow ourselves to have negative emotions, they have a tendency to lose importance. Brooding over our lack of charity doesn’t leave much room in our heads except brooding.”

Anne was cheering,”So I can spend some time being angry, and then decide what to do?”

“Sure, ” I said. “First, give yourself permission to be angry. Don’t punish yourself or beat yourself up for having an emotion. When the emotion is acknowledged, it falls into proportion. Then you can decide what to do. You can measure what needs to be done and what the consequences will be. You can weigh your action with the consequence and make a choice. But it starts with being OK with emotions, even strong ones.”

“So if I feel angry, and am OK with that, how long does it take to get over it?” Anne said.

“I don’t know. It depends on what you are angry about, and how angry you are. But the more you beat yourself up over the emotion itself, the more contorted your reaction is going to be.”

Anne floated on her back in the pool, slowly paddling toward her drink in the shade.
“Being OK and letting go doesn’t sound easy, though,” she said.

“Letting go anything that jacks up our adrenaline is hard,” I admitted. But it’s the whole idea about being in the moment, and non-attachment. It’s recognizing what isn’t working and being OK with it’s not-workingness, and not attaching more importance to it.”

“In that case,” Anne said, “I want to attach importance to supper.” And we did.

--Quinn McDonald is a writer and a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches life skills and writing.