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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