Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Your Creativity - Early or Late in Life? Quick or Never Done? Malcolm Gladwell makes sense of it

Are you a Jackson Pollack or a Cezanne... an Elvis Costello or a Leonard Cohen? Is your creativity iterative or a one and done? You gotta hear this excellent Malcolm Gladwell podcast, Hallelujah, if you want to better understand your creative process. And, it's even more poignant with the passing of Leonard Cohen.

I got hooked on the series after watching Malcolm Gladwell on Stephen Colbert. The Hallelujah segment spoke to me and helped me understand my process as more Paul Cezanne and Leonard Cohen. (Ha, I drafted this post two months ago.) It offered a connect-the-dots of ideas about creativity. He began with an Elvis Costello song that he likes and described how it changed when you recorded it many years later a second time. He likened the process to Cezanne who was never finished with a piece of art and contrasted it to Jackson Pollock who found his voice early and had many one-and-done paintings. He then went through a list of people and called them either Pollacks or Cezannes. For another example he used the many iterations of the Hallelujah song which I love and now appreciate even more.

Are you a Pollack or a Cezanne?

The podcasts are all 35 to 45 minutes long just about the time to drive into Chicago.


Nana's Clearing - A Child's View of the Death of Her Grandmother

Nana’s Clearing


Nana is dead.

Ranidae, a squat and jumpy five-year-old with black hair and eyes that Nana called toad skin, slipped out the door and headed toward the park.  Chips nipped from the buffet fell from her backpack at the first landing as she leapt from step to step; she stopped to reposition her load. Rani stuffed grapes in the pocket shaped like a nose and a juice box in each front foot. Into the frog’s head, she carefully layered the napkin she found by the coffee urn, chips from the counter, a tin, and the remains of the bag of M&Ms that didn’t fit in the bowl on the coffee table. Setting off again, she tucked Hermione, her last best friend and frog, beneath her arm, admiring her leg worn and dull from years of helping Ranidae suck her thumb. 

Running and jumping, Rani tried to catch the turtles and snakes that appeared and disappeared on the sidewalk as tree branches swayed in the after-nap sun. Ranidae raised Hermione high above her head, stretching to have the frog hold her hand. She turned right at the corner and right again at the next, never needing to cross a street before reaching Lily Pad Park.

The sidewalk melted into a path with soft shredded bark made from trees that once stood there tall. Ranidae spied the trail marker tree that braves once followed to lead her down the right path. She ducked beneath a branch, used her forearm to ward off another and shielded her eyes, when she turned west, onto a stretch with pickers and stickers that led into the sun. Nana told her that paths twist and turn and a moment in the sun will change to a moment in the shade, and life is one moment, then death. Nothing to be afraid of, she’d add. And, in one more bend, Rani and Hermione would reach the clearing that Nana loved.

The clearing was wide enough to show the sky, long enough for a creek with frogs that croaked as loud as the houseful of grownups she left behind. Ranidae heard from her Auntie Evangeline, who wore round, rimmed glasses and true red lips that Nana had croaked too.

Ranidae stopped next to the creek and sat down - brave-style, Nana called it. She pulled off her backpack and placed it on her lap. She zipped slowly and firmly, as Nana showed her, because the zipper sometimes got stuck going around one ear, and flew to the next, and sometimes got stuck again rounding to the other side of the other ear.  Rani laid out the napkin, placing a juice box on two sides. She made two clumps of candy, two clumps of grapes and two clumps of chips next to each.  She moved Hermione onto her lap, opened the tin and poured Nana on the other side of the napkin for a picnic in her favorite place for things that croak.


###

Painting: Available
Artist: Mary Longe
The Clearing
11x14" Oil, The Clearing, WI
mary.longe@gmail.com

Learn more about the Trail Trees: Great Lakes Trail Tree Society


Thursday, November 17, 2016

I'm Not Above Regifting - Poem

I’m Not Above Regifting

I’m assembling a gift for a poet
Books with other’s words
That remind me of…
That are like a…
To inspire, support and show that hers equal and surpass the other’s published works.

I’m not above regifting
I’m happy to buy used, I mean, aren’t words always reused?
Pulling one from the shelf, the flyleaf held a note in red pen saying the poems by the Buddhist monk were sent in peace and love, with a smiley face.
A card fell out from somewhere in the middle from another long ago love. 
How strange to find it. I don't remember it. 
He looked to me with love, he said. I made a smiley face. I did remember how that felt.
He’d filled the void left by the red penning smiley face drawer.

Only for awhile. I thought.
And yet, those old words reminded me
That books and cards with loving notes are like a coffee in the afternoon before an evening out, or 
Like a crimson dot in Mr. Turner’s sea, or
Like a lesson in using brown, red or sweet onions or a leek.

Used, reused and now regifted.

Mary Longe
November 16, 2016


Painting: The Bookstore at the Clearing
Artist: Mary Longe
11x14" Oil
Ellison Bay, WI
November 1, 2016 
Mary Longe
mary.longe@gmail.com
Available

Friday, October 14, 2016

Professional Biography - Mary Longe

Mary Longe is a creative and a mighty curious learner. She is a plein air (completed 90% onsite) painter and a published writer with many articles and book chapters, five health care management books. She has a novel for middle graders on dealing with parent financial concerns and starting a business in final edits. She facilitates executives and volunteer boards, through live and virtual events to innovate for transformational change. For both large and small companies, Mary Longe facilitates “strategic visioning” sessions to take new solutions into the health care market place. Mary work experience spans three years working with Head Start and families in poverty, students and community relationships at the Medical Schools at Michigan State University, new and commercial ventures at the American Hospital Association, as well as founding a successful business designing specialty health resource centers for hospitals and employers. 

Recognition
Wilmette Library Juried Art Show
Wilmette, IL
October 2016
















Brush with Nature Juried Art Exhibit, 
Emily Oaks Nature Center 
Skokie, IL 
November 2016 - January 2017







If you are interested in seeing more work, go to Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/mlonge/mary-longe/

Friday, August 12, 2016

A Statue of Columbus was Replaced in Argentina... and that affects us, how?


Welcome to Lots of Dots and Spots - lots of links in this one....

There was a morning in Salamanca, Spain in May when our group visited its massive cathedral. It was one of the few places I knew about prior to that trip from having heard stories from my friend Matthew, a former Jesuit, who studied there. Taking in the opulence of the sanctuary, seeing the sections for the Haves and the Have Nots, I wasn't prepared for my own sense of dis-ease. I felt sick, anxious... a case of the heebeegeebees, as my dad named it. I finally left the building while the others toured. 

Eight summers before, while in Pricilla Long's (life-changing) writing workshop at the Taos Summer Writer's Workshop*, I met artist and activist Maurus Chino, a native of Acoma, a pueblo 60 miles west of Albuquerque. (Photo from 2015 with him at the Santa Fe Flea Market.) He'd won a scholarship to that conference to work on his treatise on removing statues of the conquistadors in New Mexico. Before that week with Maurus, I saw past a monument of Onate or Pizarro. It just didn’t occur to me that there was something off about memorializing killers. (Duh!) I’m pretty sure that my unconsciousness was in part due to our history books omitting the part that those men, who towns are named for, were the Attilla, the Hitler, or the Bush of their time.  because they brought the Christian word to the people of the Southwest, Mexico and South America.


Replacing a statue of Columbus with one of native Juana Azurduy,  a Bolivian Independence Leader, (which looks just a little like John Travolta,) is no small victory for those who understand the legacy of opression. Knowing Maurus’ work, it was hard won. It’s whatever it took a century later to get (the promise of) reparation for slavery, or decades later returning art stolen by Nazis. It’s not the actual statue, money or art. It’s not the apology. It’s the acknowledgement. 

For me today, seeing this article about the removal of the statue, it's a reminder to wonder, what am I looking past? It’s about the sign I see from the Edens, Never Again is Now














p.s. This dining room, where our watercolor group ate breakfast a couple mornings this past May, was Ferdinand's summer palace... where discussions of the new world surely happened and obviously, the riches his armies brought back festooned.

*Now called the UNM Summer Writer's Workshop with this year's move to Santa Fe. If you want to write, if you've been working on a short story or a whole novel, GO! My week in Priscilla's class gave me confidence and structure. And every workshop leader since, each a much published author,  has added practical writing tools to my toolbox. I so recommend this writing experience.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Waiting... On an August Peach Morning


This morning, I waited for the 7:30 southbound leaning against the post of the wind-shield on the train station platform. The 7:26 northbound pulled in the four minutes ahead. I stand at the north end of the platform near where the second car from the end, the quiet car, stops for loading. In the morning, the only one who gets off is the conductor shepherding the passengers and giving a very old-school all-a-boarded wave to the engineer up front.) Most mornings, today with no exception, the timing is frequently German precision with the north bound pulling in, loading and pulling out, as the train into the city pulls in, allowing any stragglers held up by north bound to cross the tracks from the parking lot and board for the commute.
 
The sun on these August mornings has a soft peach quality to them. Leaning against the post, I soak in the sun, aware that this is the only time I have to soak it in for the day. It feels medicinal to me, like topping off the tank with vitamin D. And, in the twelve minutes I’m there, my cheeks get flushed, a drip of sweat eases into my undies. I stand, my eyes closed, trying to remember this for November, December…
Metra trains are HUGE. As the northbound slows to a stop, I welcome the shade it throws across the tracks. Except today, the engine stops and the sun allowed by the crack, maybe eighteen inches between the engine and the front car, leaves a perfect alignment between the sun and me. I smile, thinking, this will help me remember… the elusive welcomed shade.  
With clockwork, that train pulled out, ours pulled in and my peach morning meditation ended. I remind myself that I am not waiting for winter.
 
You can find 75 other photos of the scene from the Deerfield Train Station platform at Instagram.com/Innovasia.
https://www.instagram.com/innovasia_/?hl=en

Monday, August 1, 2016

Roommates and Refugees - Can I Live with Someone Again?

Image result for roommate
The other day a coworker said she wanted to offer housing to refugees in her basement. Me? Being an empty nester since 2011, I think about living with someone often. I’m wondering though, if I could handle a roommate, let alone a family from another part of the world with whom I can’t complain in my own language. See, there is the crux of it, I am pretty sure, I’d not be as open as I’d like whether stranger, friend or lover living with me.
 
Back in the 90s, to mitigate the possibilities of annoyance from personal ruts, my man-friend and I bought a house together. Unfortunately, like freckles and eye color, you take those ruts with you. Long after I’d bought him out, I learned he never felt it was his house. I guess my Girl Scout Hospitality badge had an expiration date.

In college, I remember my boyfriend from out-of-town sneaking into the dorm room I shared with two others in an all-girls dorm. I thought it was exhilarating and fun to have the secret visitor, my roommates told me it got old, like fish, as I remember the discussion. I get their point now. I wasn’t so enlightened then.
And, that’s the other point, forty years later,  I might be ready to make amends. I might be able to say I am sorry for not being aware of the needs of the people around me. More importantly, I think I am willing to bend to other’s needs. At least, now I can talk about it.

I’ve been amazed at families who include more people in their day-to-day living as long term house guests, a nanny or even an older parent. We kidded our friends about their waif du jours… the people they took in who needed a place to stay when a lease was up, or attended grad school on weekend. My friends who had au pairs from the time their child was born till he went off to college. My niece with exchange students from Thailand and Denmark

It took me until Alex could hold his head up for me to truly, completely accept him as a house mate. It was the day I’d waited for since we got pregnant. It came from some (cockeyed) sense of quintessential parenting… riding my bike with him in the bike-carrier. I got him in the carrier, strapped his own baby Bell helmet tightly,  clumsily got my leg over my boy-bar bike and took off. Nearly killed him. We went flying. His 35 pounds in the back, maybe flailing around, threw me completely off balance. Perfect metaphor for life with a housemate that doesn’t leave for 20 some years. You have to get back on and ride again, even with a few asphalt scrapes. That day. That day, I knew there was no turning back and I was in the relationship for the long haul. Off balance and all. I hope I can shorten the learning curve on other housemates.
We grew up with a few waifs of our own. When Castro took over Cuba, my parents took in my dad’s sales representative from Cuba until his family found a place in the US. My cousin, a Detroit undercover police officer, stayed in an upstairs bedroom while he recovered from a gunshot wound received in a battle with the Mafia. He’s the one, before seatbelts were made law, taught me to ride safely by sitting sideways in the front seat and holding my arms taut on the dashboard and the front seat-back.

The cons to living with someone rate no more than annoyances. Things in my space, my things in theirs. Noise and sounds different than what I create. Responsibilities and accountability. My reasons for living with someone for the most part outweigh the negatives. I like coffee brewing-type fragrances, sounds in the house and, if it was that kind of roommate, waking up with someone, I like cooking with and for someone. I like sharing adventures, as simple as a quick walk in the evening, a bike or car ride through neighborhoods, or news of the day.

Over the last couple years, there have been several conversations of Golden Girl house, sharing a home or condo. Money is one factor, it might allow more travel. But, it’s about sharing a space with someone who, as my one friend says, has something going on.   
All my worries can be summed up by an elevator speech, literally- four floors worth with a co-worker, that occurred after writing this today on my commute into work.   Asking about his summer, Robert told me he’s had his daughter for the summer and she is leaving on Sunday. I asked him, “How is that for you?” As the door closed, he looked back at me, “I get the remote back.”

Friday, July 29, 2016

Unpacking The Evolution of Learning and Mastery of the Creative Act




It’s nearly ten weeks since I returned from Spain. That first night, with my essentials... contacts and glasses in my purse… I left my suitcase unopened, turned on the tv to missed episodes of The Good Wife and after twenty-five hours of being up, went to sleep in my own bed. Four hours of jet lag later, I woke and began to unpack the trip.


The bag exploded all over my living room with sock and underpant shrapnel everywhere. Laundry was folded and put away before the end of the day. I refilled my pallets with paint, my board with watercolor paper and repacked my easel, tripod, brushes, clips and other tools into my backpack ready for the next outing.


Between loads of wash and calls with family, an impromptu lunch for four of us on my patio that included a couple bottles of wine, a salad bar salad and a rotisserie chicken, I’d told the headlines of my trip four times. Each opened pockets with souvenirs of ideas still to uncover… traveling alone... with a group, the meaning of art and painting, unscheduled time and talent, my talent.   


I loved the trip. I learned so much from the leader, Timothy J. Clark. I'm aware now of how much I need to learn about the art world and how it works. His presence, knowledge, accomplishments are driving me to learn more. 

Since then, I’ve taken a figure drawing class, which Tim highly recommended for me to learn to draw accurately. Lucky me, I stumbled on the right teacher. Did you ever see a painter hold up a brush and seem to measure? That's about accuracy. The first thing Stuart Fullerton gave us in his class was a stick to measure and check to make sure the figure on the paper aligned with the figure we saw. 


For any trained artist reading this, it must sound, Duh. It is. But I now know I want to learn the fundamentals, not just paint because it feels good to paint. That's what I really learned in Spain. I don't want  a park district understanding of painting and art. Tim opened my eyes to the difference, though there is nothing like getting lost in painting. For me, when I'm lost it it, it's an expansion of that moment when I hit the water when diving or the minutes after an O. And, then, the thinking starts again and I wish the colors weren't as muddy or the lines a little straighter or whatever. 


I'm committed to getting in my 10,000 hours, so I'm using up ink, paper, paints and panels daily. In the past week, I did a pen and ink at Wrigley Field and painted at the Emily Oaks Nature Center in Skokie. I've sketched at the Historical Society Gardenin Glencoe, along the Lake in Highwood, on the train, as well as a scene of a pine tree and ball field lights that I see from the platform every time I take the train. I've taken that same picture more than 60 times, in my own OCD Monet way to watch the shadows and position of the sun throughout the year. 


After lunch that first Sunday, after my company left,  I threw my backpack in the car and did a quick painting by The Lake. I was up again the next morning when I heard about dense thick fog and went back to the same spot. In the ten weeks since, I made a switch from watercolor to oils. I've taken two, two-day plein air workshops, one from Stuart another from Errol Jacobson and a one day program from Don Yang during an Urban Sketchers of Chicago Workshop.  I join the weekly Plein Air Painters of Chicago through the Palette and Chisel most Saturdays and try to sketch daily. 

At some point, I will find my voice in my art.  I have a pile of watercolor paintings seven inches thick that I've done over the last couple years. There is not one in that pile that I would show anyone... or, that i like. Something's happened though with using oils. In my own estimation, I've ascribed to the Cub's Coach mantra, "Try not to suck today." I'm making progress. I figure I am about a quarter of the way to the 10,000 hours. My oils don't suck and my vacation is still with me. 

###
This is another in what is becoming a series on creative practice. The earlier ones were written over the last fifteen months and speak specifically to what I've encountered and learned, but, I suspect that nearly all my posts are about my own creative process. 





Cauliflower Wraps - A Paleo Adjustment for Brain Health

Since June of 2013, I have rarely swerved from regularly eating a paleo diet. In the first month, the hand and foot pain I'd endured stopped. I realized it as I unpacked for my writing workshop in Taos and saw that I didn't pack Advil. I haven't needed it since. During that time since, I lost more than 60 pounds and I have energy... every day. And, every day I am grateful that my chiropractor, who'd just completed a six month nutrition education program recommended that I try an anti-inflammatory diet. She told me, if you need a name for it, call it Paleo with no dairy, grain, sugar or legumes. A week or so later, still aching every day and every night, I committed to a week of cold turkey (so to speak) Paleo. Three years later... why would I go back?

I won't but I have made an adjustment recently. Do you have word-fiinding issues? Do you forget names of people and things that you've always known? Do you ever forget something that happened the day before? Ok, I know it's only me that this happens to, so when I learned about North Shore University Health System's Center for the Brain headed (so to speak) by Demetrius Maragonore, MD, located at Glenbrook Hospital, I made an appointment.

Fortunately, I learned after a rigorous assessment that even though this memory stuff only happens to me, it's normal and not dementia or Alzheimers or Parkinsons. Part of the process included a discussion of my exercise and nutrition. I learned I woefully under exercise, they recommend 7 days, 30 minutes of sweat. And, they increased my intake of B and D vitamins.

As for my diet, Dr. Maraganore said he only needed me to adjust a couple things. Ominously he said, "Are you willing to make a change?" I nodded yes and might have said, "sure," I don't remember. "Ok, can you drink red wine instead of white?" I love this man!!!

All other adjustments pale (so to speak) to that one, but he told me I should drink more water, three times a week, eat a combo of garlic, tomato, onion and basil for the lycopene, and add legumes. That's been the most difficult, knowing that they also have an inflammatory aspect to them.  I'm compliant, but I eat them sparingly. edamame here and there and hummus.

This recipe was created in view of Necessity is the Mother of Invention. I needed to eat the cauliflower noodles I'd made for another dish that didn't get made.

The noodles take ten minutes to prepare and an hour to bake. Once they are made and cooled, the wraps take as long as you need to slice avocado and assemble the other ingredients... a couple minutes.

Cauliflower Wraps

Cauliflower Noodles
1 Head of cauliflower shredded or chopped fine
3t Herbs - Italian seasoning
1 t salt
2 eggs

Steam the cauliflower to soft but not mushy, squeeze out any liquid. Add seasonings and eggs. If it's too hot you'll have scrambled eggs so let the cauliflower cool a bit.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or silicone mat. I used a slotted spoon and scooped the cauliflower mix onto the mat. Working to reduce the amount of liquid, I kept the container of cauliflower mix on an angle to let the moisture run down and I squashed the mash on the spoon to get the last drops out. Spread the mix evenly on the pan and cut dividing lines every two and a half to three inches to make lasagna-like noodles. Bake 350 degrees, 55-60 minutes. They should be browned and still soft.

I wrapped mine in the parchment paper and stored them in the fridge for a day before using them.

The Wrappings
Lemon Hummus
Avocado
Spinach
Sprouts

Spread the hummus, add three slices of avocado at one end, sprinkle sprouts on top and spinach have way down the noodle. Roll the noodle starting at the end with the avocado. I cut them in have so I had  two rolls from each noodle.

Anyone eating Paleo learns quickly that when you don't eat crackers, chips and breads, you have fewer vehicles to get other foods like guacamole, salsa and almond butter into your mouth. I get tired of eating a pile of vegetables with some meat on top. The Cauliflower Noodles make a tasty vehicle for sandwich fixings, whether hummus is schmeered or not.




Thursday, March 3, 2016

The Evaporating Moistures of Snow Globes and Me

Last week at an antique mall, I saw a collection of snow globes, all with half of their moisture evaporated. Trees, spires and animal heads rose above the waterline. I woke up this morning thinking  about them and that's kind of how I feel some days at this age. And, I am not sure of the meaning of having my head above water.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Dating after 60 - A Social, Intellectual, Spiritual and Physical Experience

I made my bed, then made my coffee all the while thinking about this man I’ve been out with four times. Lunches, walks, dinner, antiquing, kissing, caressing, making out, no sex, so to speak. As I pulled up the comforter, I thought of the lively and thoughtful conversations, as I fluffed the pillows, I thought of the no sex, so to speak, and, as I made coffee, a sense of loneliness rushed through me. In a moment, the fun, the pheromones and the rudeness of reality collided.

My reality contains the years of finding plumb emotionally after ill-fated relationships, righting myself financially from near-bankruptcy, finding comfort in my independence and contentment in my interests. I live intentionally. I pay attention to and regularly assess the elements of wellbeing… my spiritual-creative, physical, social, intellectual, emotional, financial wellness. I say this to make a case that I work from my head about my heart… except, when it comes to dating, which does not fit neatly into any element of wellness. 

The loneliness is the chasm between my intentional investment in being whole without needing someone else, and wanting someone else to share my investment. 

Talking relationshipping with Ashley, my sage, thirty-two year old hairdresser, she advises me to be myself.  After sixty-four years, however, there is so much of myself to be! And, to connect myself with someone who, (must be) equally as full of a life and interested in sharing their investment in themselves, exponentially compounds the amount to be unsheltered. I find myself exhausted in the very idea, yet more wanting as more is revealed, and less capable as I realize the extent of the challenge I've created. 

My extrovert social self is gleeful in meeting new people. My spiritual is fed by learning more and deepening intimacy. With curiosity, the intellectual continues to probe and find connections and meaning... more intimacy. The physical offers stamina, connection and in some cases, a sexual response; and that god-damn-it, throws the whole, well intentioned, intellectual thing off kilter. 

The chasm narrows and deepens as tectonic plates shift. I started the oatmeal.