The End of the Angry Quilt

A few months ago I wrote about the mystery of the quilt my mother wouldn’t make for me. She stopped and started the quilt for more than 20 years. The part of the story that confounded me was that for the years my mom was in dementia care and in the years since she died, no one has been able to complete the quilt. People want to take it, but once they have it, their energy wanes.

Double wedding ring quilt, from SarcasticBlogger

Something happens to each person who offers to work on the quilt. Months or years after I hand the quilt over, I get it back, stuffed into a black trash bag and handed back quickly, as if it were an illegal transaction. Or one of mourning.

After I wrote about the quilt, many readers made kind and thoughtful suggestions (you can read that blog post here) of what I should do with the quilt. Some offered to make me a new quilt, which was touching and amazing to me.

There were also a few mothers with difficult daughters who wondered if I might have been on the other end of the perspective. Maybe.  And at the end, I promised to tell you what I would do with the quilt.

I’ve thought about it for a long time. Here’s what we know: The colors (Williamsburg blue and milk chocolate brown with touches of ivory and burnt orange) are not a palette I’d choose. (Notice I’m not saying it wouldn’t match my walls or the couch–I don’t think art has to do that). The calico my mother used was not the cotton of today, and the fabric has degraded over the years.

I took the quilt to meditation and was struck by three shockingly clear facts:

1. The proof, rather than the quilt, was what I was after. I wanted my mother to love me, and prove it by making me a quilt. She made quilts for so many others, why not me? That idea set many years ago, and I never questioned it. When I did, the answer was–my mother did not finish the quilt. I need to accept that as I have accepted the other truths that didn’t taste great the more I chewed on them.

2. If the quilt were finished, what, exactly, did I want to do with it?  I did not want it to cover my bed. Don’t like the color, the design is incomplete, and it would be a reminder of the whole story of loss, every day.

3. The fate of the quilt would be to lie folded in a box in the garage, degrading some more until I pass it on to a relative whose history it doesn’t fit, and who does not need to continue the story.

It took a long time for me to mourn what I did not have and to decide on the next step. Part of my business is designing rituals for others. I join people in marriage or commitment; create and perform sacred ceremonies; end of life transitions; house selling, moving and new home blessings; even new job celebrations. What I needed was a ritual for letting go of the quilt. Vicky, one of my readers, has left the comment, “Burn it.” When I read it, I was shocked. And I knew she was right.

The quilt has served its purpose, and it is time to transition the quilt to another use. I am going to bundle it up, write a letter to my mother, releasing her go of the obligations to complete this quilt or  prove she loves me. I will then burn the quilt and letters and save the ashes. The ashes will be mixed with water-soluble varnish and distilled water and become ink. I’ll use the ink to record the history of the quilt in a journal. My mother was the quilter. I am the writer, and the quilt will find a purpose in the way I know how to use it. The lessons of the quilt can be passed on

• No one can be forced to love you.
• “If you loved me you would. . . .” is a sentence that is about control, not love.
• Loving yourself starts when you accept yourself and know you cannot change the past. Everything else comes after that.

When the day comes to burn the quilt, I will invite people to create their own ceremonies of letting go–of failed love, of regret, of a loss that won’t heal. Whether you burn old love letters or set your sorrows afloat, tied to a stick that you drop into a river, it will be a day to celebrate your own strength.

Take photos and write your stories, and we will create a blog chain of support and celebrate the power of letting go. I’m thinking that October is a good month to do this. I’ll remind you from time to time about your plan, so you will be ready. It will feel incredible light and right to let go.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach and writer. Her word for this year is “let go.”

Saturday Surprises

The winners of the free creativity coaching have been notified. Because of my confidentiality rules, the names won’t appear here. Thanks to all of you for participating!

Skywhale, being inflated.

What’s new for Saturday? For a whole new way of thinking about creativity, visit Patricia Piccinini’s site, and read about her amazing hot-air balloon sculpture. Part pre-historic fish, part breast, it was commissioned for a Canberra Centennial. The photos are amazing, beautiful and funny. Of course, I think flying breasts are funny.

Geraldo Feldstein is an absurd super-realist whose work is both familiar and reminiscent of outsider art. His installation work is startling and humorous, and his paintings are spare but rich in color.

Yep, a record. Of wood.

Amanda Ghassael combines science and art. In this project, she laser cuts a record. It’s entirely playable, but instead of vinyl, it’s made of wood. She also has one of paper.

The world of creativity is large and interesting and not always about painting or mixed media. Enjoy the weekend and  wherever your creative explorations take you!

—Quinn McDonald is looking through books for a project. Uh-oh.

 

 

What’s Next?

My coaching clients know that question: What’s next for you?
So I thought I’d answer that for the blog–what’s coming up in the blog?

The cover of the new book.Yep, that’s a piece of my artwork on the front–as an extreme close up. © Quinn McDonald 2013.

First, some nice news: Amazon.com has the Inner Hero book cover up. And they are taking pre-orders–seven months before the book launch! I’m excited and shaking my head at the same time. OK, I’m more excited.

1. Announcing the winners of the coaching. Did not get to it tonight, will put it at the top of the to-do list for a Saturday announcement.

2. The poetry workshop. Still working on it. And alas, somewhere in Tucson, someone has found the book and the notes in the book for the class. The hand-written ones. The ones that were not yet in the computer.  I have no idea where I vanished it, but I did. Dropped it, left it, forgot it–it’s just as gone one way as another. So I’ve ordered the lost book and two more (I couldn’t resist) and will re-create the notes.

3. Book giveaways. I’m reading through two books for review and give-aways. One will be an art how-to, and the other a coaching book.

4. A few scattered quiet days. I’m re-designing the website and blog site to go with the book launch. It needs to be done, and when I’m doing that, I have set limits how many hours a day I work. Also on that to-do list is the e-book for creating a new habit (from a blog series on walking, meditating and journaling last year). Three big training projects are in the mix–in my life away from the blog. One is due in two weeks, and it’s a big book. The other two are in outline stage. Both need some intensive work.

5. An article about estivating in Phoenix. Estivating is the summer version of hibernating. I have a version of seasonal affective disorder that starts in summer, when being outside is brutal. But there are a few precious moments, and I’m sharing.

–Quinn McDonald is busy, but she’s smiling.

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.

No Safety Guarantees

After the police arrested the Marathon Bomber in Boston, one of the students interviewed said, “Now we can go back to our life. We don’t have to be scared anymore. There is nothing to fear.” He’s so very wrong. The idea that two bombers caught make the problem go away is a false one. And every time a terrorist attack occurs, we (understandably) want it to be over so we can have our lives back. Go back to what we were doing before we had to think about dying. But that isn’t real, and our lives have changed forever already. There is no going back. There is no closure. People died. People had their legs blown off.

And still, there is a huge difference between living IN fear and living WITH fear. When we live with fear, we understand the world around us is unsteady and not in our control. We promote kindness, compassion and understanding because that is what we can do at the individual level. We understand that death is not within our control, and that someday we, our family and friends will die–maybe of old age, maybe of disease, maybe because a terrorist bomb found us.

Fear, from beaconblog.com

When we live in fear, we become suspicious, angry and controlling. We trade essential freedoms for the hope of safety, and wind up with missing freedoms and no guarantee of safety.  We refuse to think about death as anything except a cruel cheat, and something that happens to others. And we lose our creativity.

Fear is the big scourge of creativity. Fear robs us of flexibility, agility, choices, and the glory of uncertainty. When we live in fear, uncertainty is the enemy (along with almost everything else.) Instead of spending time in creative thinking, we spend time in isolation, developing rationalizations for “them” and “us” thinking. Anything different, unusual, or non-conforming is suspicious, maybe even dangerous.

The very root of creativity is in different, risky, and strange. There are many countries whose citizens have had to adapt to war–Somalia, the Sudan, Mali, Palestine, Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan–all have innocent citizens whose lives are directed by war they don’t want, and don’t agree with. But yet, there they are, in the middle of a war, still trying to feed the family and provide a normal life for their children.

Creativity is both exciting and calming, involved in giving up and expanding anew. But let fear in the studio, and it vanishes. Fear makes you small. It takes courage to be creative. But it’s worth it.

—Quinn McDonald’s mother was lost to fear. She doesn’t want to follow in those footsteps.

Stenciling Art Journal Pages

This gallery contains 6 photos.

Stencils have never really thrilled me; I’ve never believed I knew how to use them. While experimenting this weekend, I discovered what I’d missed–a simple, effective stencil technique that makes great art journal pages or, trimmed down and layered on … Continue reading →

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.

Luck and Secrets

When people I haven’t seen in a while notice I have lost weight, the inevitable question I get asked is, “What’s your secret.” When I say, truthfully, “There is no secret; I gave up everything I craved and walk three to five miles a day,” I get skeptical looks. “But what is your secret?” they repeat, unable to believe that there is not a smoothie, a pill, garment, or a new exercise behind  significant weight loss.

Create your own luck

If I’m feeling brave, I’ll say, “Self discipline. Self control. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done so consistently.” That doesn’t work, either. “You have to treat yourself sometime, or you will quit,” they assure me. “It’s not good to have all that discipline.” I try to change the subject. I’m uncomfortable talking about discipline and success. It’s not the answer for everybody. But it has worked consistently for me–not just in changing my relationship with food, but for most things in life that I have relentlessly pursued.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” –The Buddha

It reminds me of how often I was told, after I landed a book contract, that I was “lucky.” Well, perhaps, but it also involved a lot of hard work and, ummm, discipline. I did research, I wrote the book proposal over again at least six times, I changed the idea of the book slightly when it wasn’t focused enough, spent hours doing research to find a publisher who specialized in the kind of book I wanted to write.

The need for “luck” and “secrets” comes because discipline and hard work are not fast and easy.  And no one (except the Little Red Hen) wants to say, “I worked really hard for this and I made it work.” It sounds conceited and self-satisfied. But I don’t know anyone who has lost a lot of weight and kept it off who had an easy secret. Same goes for people who have accomplished something big in their lives. They seemed to have given up a lot and worked hard for a long time.

Thomas Edison had it right when he said, “The reason too many people miss opportunity is because is goes around dressed in overalls and looking like work.” Followed by another good quote from Thomas Jefferson, “The harder I work the more luck I seem to have.”

–Quinn McDonald is going to bed. It’s almost 1:30 a.m. and she has to get up to go teach in four hours. She is looking forward to being lazy when she gets back from class tomorrow. No, wait, she wants to do a book review and giveaway on the next blog.

 

Creativty, Originality, and Good Manners

If you do any creative work, you know that you will have a brilliant idea, fall in love with the idea, polish it, then release it to public view. As soon as you do that, you will see the same idea all over. You get angry. Who stole your idea? The answer is–nobody. There are several reasons this happens.

Parallel Universe from May 8, 2012 edition of the NY Times eXaminer. No photo credit is given.

1. Heightened awareness. Once you begin to concentrate on an idea, and certain words, phrases, images begin to repeat in your head. Your heightened awareness makes you see those words “more often,” when you are really simply more aware of seeing them. This happens when you learn a new word–you suddenly see it three times in a day when you don’t recall seeing it before. This is the same reason that gratitude journals work, but that’s another blog post.

2. Mysterious parallel universes. OK, I made that up. If you were to ask a Russian who invented the telephone it’s unlikely they would credit Alexander Graham Bell. They would mention a Russian who invented the device roughly at the same time. Simultaneous invention, writing, advertising ideas do happen. Regularly. And has happened for years. Now, with the increasing speed of knowledge shared through the internet, more people come up with similar ideas more often.

From SquawkFox.com

3. Your grass seed, my lawn. When we talk about our ideas to a friend, the friend often takes the next step with the idea. You talk about creating a journal page using a dictionary page, and suddenly your friend is teaching a class on altering dictionaries. And that’s when things get sticky.

This is the hard part. I know exactly how hard it is, because I just had to go through it. One of my favorite techniques (and the basis for the upcoming book) turned up on another site. Yes, I was angry. Yes, I felt cheated. But I also know that ideas can’t be copyrighted, and that my idea doesn’t belong to me exclusively. What to do? Well, break that list into legal, ethical and generous steps.

Legally, I notified my publisher, so if any of the images I shared or the journal prompts I created and shared appear on another website, the publisher can handle the copyright violation.

Ethically, if my idea is similar to another artists, I have to follow the rules The Ethics Guy uses to judge actions as ethical. (Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D. is the Ethic Guy). This isn’t that complicated:

• Do no harm
• Make things better
• Be respectful
• Be fair
• Be compassionate

But the items may be hugely difficult to manage. If someone treats you unfairly, you don’t want to treat them (or anyone else) fairly. But you have to. The entire reason the world doesn’t collapse into savaging each other is that most of us want to be fair and even generous.

How do we act fairly and generously? We give credit. It doesn’t detract from our work, it adds to it. Giving other people credit for helping you get to your own idea is a wonderful way to increase your creativity and your peace of mind.

Saying thank you on your blog, in your classes, in your articles, even giving up some of those precious 140 characters in a Tweet to thank someone, is a gift to yourself.

Thanking and crediting others relieves you of guilt, makes you feel generous, expands your creativity. And I’d like to thank my editor, Tonia Jenny, for helping me come to that conclusion.

–-Quinn McDonald keeps a gratitude journal and another one for ideas on change. Sometimes she writes one idea in another, and then alchemy happens.