Grandma Moses & The Wisdom of Chickens

In This Bloutcher

• Announcements
• Grandma Moses and The Wisdom of Chickens
• From My Sketchbook

Announcements

• If you're in Boston mark September 13th @ 7 pm, Newton Free Library. I will be doing an author's talk and book signing. I will also have a surprise guest who will be bringing some surprise goodies! Bring a neighbor.
  
• Charlie Finesilver whose story appears in Becoming a Life Change Artist (he sold his plumbing business and then he and his wife joined the Peace Corp in their mid fifties) reports: "Your book pretty much captures my life experiences and changes. But I must tell you that I have been dressing like Monet lately, which has been getting a lot of attention..." Let's hear it for Charlie and his inner Monet!!!
• And if you plan to be in Central New Jersey on the evening of September 21st, I will be speaking to the New Jersey Professional Coaches Association in Edison, New Jersey.
• If you are a writer or interested in writing and books consider contacting my co-author Kathy Jordan. She is an active member of a remarkable on-line organization called SheWrites--over 9,000 strong women who have formed a community related to writing and books. You can reach Kathy for more info at http://www.drkathyjordan.com/contact/
  

Grandma Moses and The Wisdom of Chickens

"If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens."



Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) spent her first 70+ years raising 10 children and working at broidery. In her mid 70s she picked up a paint brush for the first time. She died in 1961 at the age of 101 with a reputation as one of America's pre-eminent folk artists. She was still painting.

But if she had not painted the last quarter of her life she tells us she would have raised chickens. What are we to make of this claim?

For one thing, she was clearly not full of herself.

For another, she is going against the grain of a popular view that seems to be out there today. Many folks seek a purpose or passion in life. While such a quest is certainly worthy it risks the effect of making those who do not find a single purpose or passion feeling somehow inadequate or with a sense that something is missing in their lives. They may feel somehow diminished. Perhaps even on the periphery. But what about those who have lots of interests? What about those who cannot seem to find that one true passion? What about those who believe there is more than one of us in each of us?

Grandma Moses to the rescue. You can always raise chickens. Or shell peas. Grandma Moses understood there is more than one possibility in our lives. More than a single scenario or narrative. I cannot help but think that some of us have multiple passions and purposes. Contradiction? Well, I take comfort in Grandma Moses and her chickens and also in Walt Whitman.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.

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From My Sketchbook

My sketchbook is a hodgepodge of stuff. I sketch. I journal. I admonish myself. I motivate myself. I chronicle fleeting ideas or capture quotes. Sometimes I do all at once. As I did on this page.
Aren't we all a little strange?

Book Neat, Life Messy

In This Bloutcher

• Announcements
• Book Neat, Life Messy; Or Seeing Matisse's Basket of Oranges in person for the first time

Announcements

• My sister Miriam reports: "My iPhone has now stopped auto correcting bloutcher (to butcher) and has started autofilling "bloutcher." Made me think: iPhone therefore iAm!

• An idea to unabashedly promote Becoming a Life Change Artist. Recommend the book for book clubs you are part of

• I will be speaking to the New Jersey Professional Coaches Association on September 21, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn, Raritan Center, Edison, New Jersey. Topic: "The Great Masters of Art Reveal the Secrets to a New Coaching Paradigm." You can find a full listing of future speaking and programs on the events page of my website: www.fredmandell.com
  

Book Neat, Life Messy

Matisse's painting Basket of Oranges, 1912, is luxuriously succulent. Just ask Pablo Picasso. You see, Picasso and Matisse were great artistic rivals, yet Picasso was so smitten by Basket of Oranges that he acquired it in the early 1940's and kept it in his home until his death in 1973. Today, it hangs in the Picasso Museum in Paris.

I first encountered this painting in an art book. The color was so vibrant, the design so balanced and clean that I acquired a photographic image and set it on my desk. I marveled at the creative prowess of Matisse that he could paint something more perfect, more flawless than the original basket of oranges. Whenever I got hungry it seemed to fill me up. I don't mean to over romanticize the thing but the painting did nourish me.

Then I visited the Picasso Museum in Paris last spring with great anticipation at seeing this painting. As I approached it I was struck from a distance by its enduring luminescence. The pinks vibrated, the oranges pulsated, the very painting seemed to want to leap from the wall.

But as I got closer something strange happened. I was no longer looking at a photographic representation of the painting in a book, but the real McCoy, up close and personal and what I saw really set me back. The surface of the painting had been worked and reworked. Parts had been scraped out and other parts had been painted over. The surface was not photographically smooth but scratched and thickened. Certain sections looked almost primitively dabbed at as though they had been put there in a fit of frustration. Yet, despite these many "imperfections"--or perhaps because of them--the painting took on a new kind of breathless beauty for me, one born out of the struggle to not accept the ordinary.

I walked away from Basket of Oranges in a sweat. I felt I had not only encountered a great painting but I had been taught a life lesson. Real life like real painting is a messy process. What may seem effortless from a distance or in a book is in truth the outcome of struggle, emotional ups and downs, fits and starts, tears and fears. It can be plain ugly.

Life can be like that also. We experience moments of grace and beauty. We aspire as Joseph Campbell said for the "experience of being alive" more than we aspire to the meaning of life. Most of the time, though, we are at the easel of our lives dabbing, scraping, painting over, scraping again, experimenting and wondering how to get the most out of ourselves.

Matisse's greatness is in part due to his willingness to endure the messiness of it all in order to create something extraordinary. I can't speak for Picasso but my hunch is that he may have bought the painting to remind himself of that as well.

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The Day Cezanne Turned Leadership Upside Down

In This Bloutcher(TM)

• Announcements
• The Day Cezanne Turned Leadership Upside Down

Announcements:

Believe it or not today is the official release date of Becoming a Life Change Artist; 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life. You can now actually order and receive a copy. Lots of credit goes to our amazing agent Joanne Wyckoff at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth. zshliterary.com. Thanks also to Esmond Harmworth for his initial encouragement. And thanks to our Penguin Avery Group team for all they have done. Lucia Watson, Miriam Rich, Lisa Johnson, Adenike Olanrewaju, Gordon Lindsay, Jessica Chun, Megan Newman, Bill Shinker. A Great Group!

All you folks in the environs of Denver, please join my Co-author Kathy Jordan at the Tattered Cover Bookstore, 7:30 p.m., August 12, Highland Ranch Location.

I am currently on a national radio interview tour over the next several days. This means I sit at my desk and get interviewed by radio stations around the country. These include: KLPW, "Lifestyle Matters"; KAHI, "The Mary Jane Popp Show"; KAAM, "The Breakfast Club"; WGET, "The Breakfast Nook"; WUML-FM, "It's Your Health Radio"; KEEL-AM "David McMillen Show"; Lifestyle Radio Network, "The Frankie Boyer Show"; WDEV-FM "True North Radio." Among others.

Please join me on August 10th at the Brookline Booksmith, Brookline at 7 pm for a talk and book signing.


The Day Cezanne Turned Leadership Upside Down

Several days ago I met a good friend Ellen Glanz for some ice tea. Since there were no seats available in the Starbucks we decided to take a walk. There are three things you should know about Ellen. She is incredibly bright and curious. She was born with a unique insightfulness gene. And she has a wonderfully uplifting smile. She's also an accomplished management consultant and photographer. And we never know where our conversations will take us. So maybe that's four or five things.

Our conversation turned to the subject of leadership and Ellen was curious how my involvement with art might have influenced my view of leadership so I told her about an experience I had which profoundly changed the way I look at leadership.

Several years ago I enrolled in a drawing class. I had not taken an art class since the seventh grade. My instructor was a very perceptive yet gruff critic. In the middle of my second class, he stopped in front of my work, folded his arms across his chest, and began shifting his eyes between my drawing surface and the model. "What are you trying to do?" he asked, his voice tinged with genuine puzzlement.

I explained that I was trying to render on the page what I saw with my eyes.

Well, it was as though I had lit a match to Vesuvius.

"No, no, no," he erupted. "Follow Cezanne. For you, Cezanne should be the beginning and end. You do not see in order to draw. Cezanne teaches us just the opposite. You draw in order to see! Drawing is a search. It is discovery. If you take anything from this class it is this: You do not see in order to draw, you draw in order to see!"

Cezanne Self Portrait

Now that was a mouthful. And totally liberating. Cezanne caused nothing less than a revolution in my understanding of drawing and art in general. You draw in order to discover. You learn through the process of drawing. In that moment I felt as though I had rediscovered art.

Now what does this have to do with leadership? Over the years I have had many discussions with individuals who aspired to grow as leaders. Many times, they ask: "What would you suggest I learn in order to be a better leader. I need to learn in order to lead." My response would often involve a combination of some reading suggestions, a call to become a keen observer of other leaders and the encouragement to seek new "stretch" assignments.

I still believe that is sound advice. But Cezanne has totally turned my thinking on its head. Now I share a different perspective. Cezanne advised that one does not see in order to draw; rather one draws in order to see. So now I humbly suggest that one does not learn in order to lead. Rather one leads in order to learn. I am not speaking here about technical learning--that's basic. I am talking about the deeper learning and insight that builds wisdom and contributes to one becoming a more effective leader. I am talking about modeling a new kind of leadership.

I'm not alone in thinking this way. Peter Drucker wrote eloquently about his belief that the leader of the future will not lead by knowing, especially since the complexity of today's world does not allow one person to know all things, but will lead by asking questions.

What is new for me in this, though, is the sequence and emphasis. For a long time I thought one needed to develop an area of expertise before assuming a leadership role. I realize now that there are at least two kinds of learning. The first is what might be called technical learning, the kind that is necessary to develop one's baseline competence. The other, and in many ways tougher, kind of learning might be referred to as leadership wisdom, and that only comes from a willingness to step into the unknown by doing, processing, reflecting, reintegrating--in other words, by constantly reinventing oneself through learning the lessons of leadership. This kind of learning is generative/regenerative and a source of self renewal for individuals and organizations. And it is a fundamentally creative process!!

This is why I believe Cezanne's understanding of drawing so profoundly mirrors a critical lesson for leaders today. Just as he suggested that one does not see in order to draw, but one draws in order to see--so too is it important that leaders do not learn in order to lead, but they lead in order to learn.

Ellen then brought me back to earth. She mentioned a few books I had not read and flashed her terrific smile. And then she said, "I really like these upside down walks. We never do know where the conversation will lead."

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Pizza, Dead Bodies and the Creativity of Limitations

In this bloutcher:

• Response to "Welcome to My Bloutcher(TM)."
• Pizza, Dead Bodies and the Creativity of Limitations
• Announcements
• From my sketchbook: Self Portrait Done from Car Mirror While Waiting (Again) for Karen

What a great response to "Welcome to My Bloutcher(TM)."

Thanks for all your wonderful feedback on the maiden voyage of my bloutcher. It seems to have hit a cord. And has raised a few very serious questions.

Jeff Weinberger wants to know: "Is the act which defines writing a bloutcher bloutching? Can we conjugate a new verb 'to bloutch?' Can I kvetch when I bloutch?"

Howard Stone has inquired: "Is bloutcher now an official scrabble word?"

These are serious questions which I need to ponder. As always, your thoughts are welcome.

How Bloutcher?

BLogjOUrnalskeTCHbooknewslettER = Bloutcher. Rhymes with Voucher.


Pizza, Dead Bodies and the Creativity of Limitations

A good friend of mine, Frances Caravana, recently sent me the following story.

An old Italian lived alone in New Jersey. He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult to work, as the ground was hard. His son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent, I am feeling pretty sad, because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days. Love Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son. Dear Pop, Don't dig up that garden. That's where the bodies are buried. Love Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son. Dear Pop Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances. Love Vinnie

This story reminded me of what the late great Gene Cohen called "practical creativity." Cohen provides another illustration in his book The Mature Mind.

His in-laws, both in their seventies, found themselves emerging from a Washington, DC subway into a raging snowstorm. Since it was rush hour there were no cabs to take them to their dinner host's home. Gene's father-in-law noticed the steamy window of a pizza shop across the street so the couple trudged through the slush, stepped to the counter and ordered a large pizza for delivery.

When it came time to pay he said, "Oh, there's one more thing."

"What's that?" asked the puzzled cashier.

"We want you to deliver us with the pizza."

Now that was brilliant. And the pizza cost less than the cab ride--even with the tip!!

These two stories got me thinking. We often assume that creativity thrives when it does not have any constraints imposed on it. Where our creative instincts are freed from limitations and allowed to soar unfettered in whatever direction they choose. The reality may be quite different, however. Creativity may derive from just the opposite. Try this. Creativity sprouts when it is faced with limitations, sometimes severe limitations. Limitation, not freedom, is its birthplace. It is the very nature of creativity to be born out of the tension between perceived and real constraints and the need for new possiblities. Vinnie, of course, had severe limitations.

In fact, the jail bars are a kind of metaphor for the way we are all imprisoned in some form or another by ours assumptions. The presence of the prison walls created a basic tension and inspired an entirely new approach. Vinnie turned his imprisonment into an asset. He knew the feds would bite because he knew what their assumptions were. So, unable to physically help his father, he ingeniously converted your everyday U.S. Postal Service into a co-conspirator. And bite they did!

And what about Gene Cohen's in-laws? They were surrounded by limitations. The inhospitable weather. The absence of taxi-cabs. It was the very severity of these limitations that led them to such an inventive (and cost effective) solution.

So what can we glean from Vinnie and the in-laws? What are the critical elements that make creativity work when confronted by limitations?

• Define the challenge--a clear understanding of the limitations one faces
• Adopt a Possibilities Orientation--Using the limitations as an inspiration for creativity not an impendiment to it
• Suspend Beliefs--Allowing data to come rather than judging it
• Freshen Your Eyes--Leveraging what is commonplace in the environment in new, different ways
• Play--Make it into a game

Send me examples of "practical creativity" you've encountered. Fred@fredmandell.com

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Announcements:

Join me on August 10th at the Brookline Booksmith for an Author's Talk and Book signing for Becoming a Life Change Artist; 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life. Starts at 7 pm.

And if you are in the Denver area be sure to show up for my co-author, Kathy Jordan's, talk at the Tattered Cover Book Store, Highlands Ranch Location, August 12, 7:30 pm.

Note your calendars for September 13th at the Newton Free Library where Discovering What's Next is sponsoring an author's talk and book signing, beginning at 7 pm. Try to get there a few minutes early because I will have a special guest handing out some yummies. Clue: A Real Life Life Change Artist.

From my sketchbook:

I carry my sketchbook wherever I go. For one thing, I often find myself waiting for my wife Karen. If you know her you understand. On this particular wait I sketched myself staring into the car mirror. I could also have read a book which I often do but in this one moment the goofy expression on my face seemed to capture the existential recognition of hopeless surrender. I also ended up reading a book.

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Finally, please consider Becoming a Life Change Artist; 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life as an interesting read for any BOOK CLUBS you are part of.

Welcome to my Bloutcher(TM)!

Huh?

French philosopher Voltaire bloutchering at his desk in the 1700s.

So I looked up the following in Websters:

* Blog—personal journal with reflections
* Newsletter—small publication containing news of interest to a special group. If you’re reading this you’re special!
* Journal—a record of experiences, ideas, reflections kept regularly for private use.
* Sketchbook—a book of or for sketches. I’m assuming sketches can be verbal as well as visual.

So naturally I came up with the idea of a bl[og][j]ou[rnal][ske]tch[book][newslett]er. Bloutcher(TM). (Rhymes with voucher.) An all in one deal.


My idea is to combine personal reflections, news of interest (announcements, among other things,) ideas and experiences, and sketches both visual and verbal.

Why do I want to do this?

* I’m bored? Nope
* I’m self important? God, I hope nope
* I have something to say? That’s not for me to say
* Can’t help myself? Maybe
* To provoke? Probably
* I’ve never bloutchered before? You betcha
* To live my Creative Mantra? Definitely

(My Creative Mantra: Create, Integrate, Make a Difference)


It’s all about creating possibilities. For myself and others. Pushing the edge. Turning things upside down. Etc.

So what can you expect?

* News and announcements
* Commentary and reflections
* Provocative ideas
* Regular irregularity—that means not every day. Probably not even every week. But you’ll know I’m here.


Possible Bloutcher(TM) Content—At least, some of it.

* Creativity
* Transitions & Life Change
* Art and Life
* The Art of Life
* The Life of Art
* Leadership
* Innovation
* Aging Positively


In this bloutcher(TM)

* Announcements
* First Entry: Love, Hate and Truth

Announcements:

Becoming a Life Change Artist; 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life will be released by the Penguin Group/Avery on August 3rd. To order an advanced copy go to www.fredmandell.com

I will be doing an author's talk at the Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA on August 10th at 7 p.m.

I am working on a creativity tool with Donna Krone called "Unlocking Your Creative Mantra." Should be ready by late August/early September.

My first entry:

Love, Hate and Truth

I have a love-hate relationship with Picasso. I love the way he constantly experimented with and reinvented his art. I hate his overbearing egotism. I love the incredibly human and sensitive figures from his classical period. I hate his personal streaks of meanness. I love his spirit of artistic playfulness and his willingness to take risks. I hate his sexual deceits and conceits. I love his quote-ability. He is probably the most quotable artist in history.

Picasso claimed that “Art is a lie that helps us to realize the truth.” Now it’s always dangerous to interpret what someone means but I think Picasso is speaking to the dynamic that a painting of something is not the same as the original something. For instance, a painting of a bouquet of flowers is not the original bouquet. In that sense the painting is a lie and the original bouquet is the truth. But he is also getting at the fact that the painting comes to be its own truth. It stands on its own two feet independent of the original subject. In some sense you can argue that Van Gogh’s famous painting of sunflowers is more sublime than the original sunflowers themselves. A painting helps us realize a new truth.


Last week I learned that Picasso was talking about life as well as art.

This was brought home to me while speaking to a woman who had been on a remarkable journey of growth and healing. She had been abused since childhood, fell into addictive behavior and ultimately straightened herself out and became a highly productive citizen. But she had recently (now in her mid forties) found herself stuck. In the midst of our conversation she suddenly said, “You know, who I am is not who I am.”

We both fell quiet at these words, silently acknowledging their apparent contradiction. How can you not be who you are? And then I realized she was not so much contradicting herself as she was speaking Picasso-ese. I haltingly offered: “Could you be saying who you are today does not represent who you are underneath—there’s another less visible you trying to come out. You want to create a new visible truth about yourself.” “Yes,” she said, “but sometimes I think it’s just too difficult to figure out how to do that.”

Since that conversation I have wondered how many of us arrive at a point where we realize we are living a representation of ourselves that is no longer who we really are. We have become what Picasso calls “a lie”—we are no longer aligned with what truly matters to us. The good news is that we can “realize” a new truth. That’s one of the things I love about Picasso. His art is an affirmation of new possibilities in life as it is in art. It may not be easy. But it’s true.

Check out the Events tab on my website (www.fredmandell.com) to see some of the events I will be speaking at. Let me know if you would like to attend any of them.

Oh, yes. Since this is my first bloutcher(TM) I would appreciate it if you would pass it on to others you think might find it interesting.