#Art – Tom MacInnes, Writer

Voices Carry

When you are a quiet person like me, it is important to find a way to have your voice heard amid the din of our hectic world. This is especially true for children.

All of my life I have been a quiet person. Some of us are just that way. But even though I may not be the best at starting conversations in social settings, I do have stories to tell and ideas to share. The trick for me in this life has been discovering the best way to make my voice heard.

I have been thinking a lot about this lately because I have discovered a new book. I know I am biased in this regard but, I think Children’s Picture Books are an art form and contain some of the best storytelling you are likely to find anywhere. I Go Quiet by David Ouimet is a book that I wish I had written. It is about me and those of you out there like me. It is about the quiet ones, the introverts and our place in this loud, noisy, busy world of ours. It is about those of us who paint pictures with silence and raise choirs of concerns within our minds. It is for everyone who has a song to sing but prefers doing so in the shower rather than on stage in front of an audience. This book is a wonderful affirmation that it is ok to look for comfort and inspiration from within and that learning to trust the voice you discover there is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself.

When I was still a teacher, I always had a soft spot for students whose social presence was whisper light. I made it my mission to find out what made these kids tick and then, guide them to the place where their inner voice resided. Some of the best moments I ever experienced as teacher came from children who wrapped themselves in the safety of our classroom environment and found the courage to be their true selves. This manifested itself in many ways. Some children found their voice in Art. Some found their voice in Athletics. Some found their identity via books and stories. It never mattered to me what form this awakening took, as long as it happened for that child; especially, that child who may have felt that they didn’t matter because they never had an avenue to make themselves heard. Self-expression is very important, as is believing that what you have to say has merit. Helping children to learn to trust in the value of their thoughts, feelings and ideas is of immeasurable importance because when children learn to believe in the power of their own voice, they can change the world.

The most famous recent example of a child having a message to share with the world and having the courage of her convictions to deliver it is Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg. A little over a year ago, Greta begun a public protest regarding the dangers posed by Climate Change. She started a movement for young people that came to be known as #FridaysForFuture. What she did was to go out on Strike from school each Friday. While being on Strike, she sat quietly in front the legislative building in Sweden and demanded politicians take action. Initially, she was ignored by passersby. But, eventually, over time, people began to question why this girl in the yellow jacket, with the pony tails was sitting there, holding her signs. Greta found her voice and helped raise the alarm regarding the precarious nature of the state of our world. She promoted the scientific fact that our planet is approaching a very real “tipping point” of climate-inspired catastrophes that soon we will be unable to reverse. Our very existence is at stake and time is running out. So, Greta left school on Fridays and spoke for all of us.

In time, word of Greta’s School Strike for Climate got out, via news reports and on social media. Other like-minded students, such as 13-year old Alexandria Villasenor, shared Greta’s view that, while going to school is important, it is not important if there is no future for young people. Alexandria began her School Strike 4 Climate in front of the UN building in New York. Like Greta Thunberg, Ms. Villasenor looked within herself and followed the courage of her own convictions. She sat alone on the bench you see in this photo for weeks and weeks. Eventually, the positive power of social media helped propel the School Strike for Climate message so that it reached a wider, more mainstream audience. Climate scientists from around the world loaned their knowledge and credibility to this cause. Soon, local politicians in cities and countries around the world began declaring “Climate Emergencies” in their jurisdictions. Policies have started to be enacted in some countries such as the phasing out of gas-powered automobiles by the mid-2020s. Because quiet children have found their voices, a choir of concern regarding Climate Change is beginning to spread around the world.

It isn’t easy being brave when you feel as though your words are mere dandelion puffs scattered by the slightest of breezes. But, if there is anything that I have learned over the course of my thirty years hanging out with children it is this…….they have ideas that have value and they are worthy of respect from the adults in their world. I am not just referring to the Greta Thunbergs and Alexandria Villasenors of the world, either. Children, everywhere, have beliefs that are valid. They wish for safety and friendship and love and clean water and good food to eat and share together. Children espouse many of the core values that we, as adults, sometimes forget about, as we busy ourselves with things that often don’t matter. We exist on a planet where many adults strive for material gain and personal power. None of that will matter when our world burns beneath our feet. We will all be equally powerless when extreme climate disasters strike. Our money will not help us when the end is about to come and, as the old song says, “All we are is dust in the wind.” If only the adults would listen to the voices of our children.

Getting adults in positions of power to listen to the voices of children is why the School Strike for Climate movement is holding Global Strikes tomorrow (September 20) and next Friday (September 27) in cities all around the world. My daughter, Leah, and I will be attending the march being held in Toronto on the 27th. Greta Thunberg will be leading the march in Montreal that same day. She is marching with Alexandria Villasenor in NYC tomorrow. Tens of thousands of children and adults are expected to march for a better future for our planet and for us. Please feel free to find out more about these marches and about our Climate emergency by clicking on the link www.fridaysforfuture.org

We ignore the quiet ones at our peril. Those of us who are comfortable living, for the most part, within the confines of our own minds, still have a role to play on society’s stage. We don’t all have to lead the march, as the Greta Thunberg’s of the world do but, by lending our presence to the unfolding drama, we give strength to our message and allow our voices to carry. It is easy for some of us to exist, unnoticed. But, there are times when it is too important to remain quiet. The world needs us to all to speak up. Being quiet is no longer an option……even for folks like me.

***Author’s note: I am super-excited to publish this particular post today because it was created in partnership with a former student of mine, Erin Cutler. Waaaaay back in the day, Erin was a sweet, young girl in our Grade 2 class in Bowmanville, Ontario. Erin was always a hard worker and a good friend to others. But, what I always remember about her is the relationship we struck up because of an in-class activity called Journal writing. In her journal book, I would ask Erin to write a letter to me about anything she wanted to talk about and then, I would write back. On the surface, this was an exercise in writing and reading for the child. But, the deeper benefit is that it allowed a private conversation to take place, parallel to what everyone else saw in public. Whenever I wrote back to a student, I always tried to incorporate an illustration to accompany my words. Erin really liked that aspect of our journal conversations and, over time, began responding back with her own Art to go along with her questions and stories. Well, I am happy to report that Erin has grown up to be a lovely young lady who makes her living through Art. Erin specifically created two pieces of original Art for this post; the first is what I call Portrait of Greta and the second is A Choir of Concern. I am humbled beyond measure to have Erin’s great work adorning my words on this post. She is terrific in all regards. Thank you, Erin, for your hard work for this post. Hopefully, we can do this again sometime.

If you wish to see more of her work, please click on the following two links: www.illustrationsbyerin.com and www.instagram.com/illustrationsbyerin .

Little Cakes

Creativity takes many forms. This past weekend, it took the form of little cakes called Madeleines. Come along on a journey of creativity and meet some wonderful artists who make the world better because of what they do.

I love being around creative people. I love their energy. I love their originality and ingenuity. Most of all, I love their Art. Creativity manifests itself in numerous ways; everything from painting, pottery, gardening, woodworking, writing, performing on stage and so much more. Regardless of the form that it takes, when creative people do their thing, the end result is Art. I love Art and the artists who create something out of nothing. This post is about creativity and those who possess it. It is about how Art makes our lives brighter and better. Finally, this post is about how, when done properly, the act of creativity attracts others, like a flame attracts a moth.

My daughter, Sophie, is an artist. She possesses a creative mindset that is interwoven in all that she does and all that she is. I wrote about her previously, in a post entitled, Maker Sophie. What I particularly like about Sophie’s brand of creativity is that it is relatively pure. By that, I mean she creates things for the joy of creating them and, not for the purpose of drawing attention to herself. Sophie, the Artist, does not wave her own flag when she makes what she does. Instead, Sophie, simply, creates and then, she lets her Art speak for itself. Quite often, Keri and I don’t even know she has made something until we stumble across her work by accident. Here are a few examples.

In Sophie’s bedroom, she has a pair of cube shelves. There are eight cube spaces in each shelf. In each empty space, Sophie has a canvas cube holder. She uses these canvas cubes to hold bits of this and that so that her bedroom has some semblance of order to it. However, the problem that she (and, by extension, Keri and I) was having was knowing which canvas cube held what, when it came time to clean up her room. So, in order to help solve her own problem, Sophie decided to label her cubes. And Sophie, being Sophie, didn’t just write on the handles or on a piece of masking tape (which, I admit, would probably have been what I would have done). No, one afternoon, Sophie quietly got out her hot glue gun, some glitter glue sticks that we had gotten at the craft store and then, she proceeded to make “tags” in writing, out of glitter glue. Then, once the glue was dry, she peeled it off the parchment paper it was on, grabbed some yarn and tied it to the handles of her canvas cubes. The glitter glue tag in the photo says, “Odds and Ends”, all in one connected piece. She also made tags that said, “Toys”, “Papers”, “Beanie Boos” and so on. Each tag glitters in a different colour and helps us all know what each cube is being used for. Art, as an organizing tool.

As Sophie matures, she is displaying a tendency toward liking Mathematics. In particular, she has a good spatial sense and often sees the world in a geometric manner. Here is a good example. This photo shows the front of our dishwasher in the kitchen. Like many families, our kitchen has long been used as a gallery of sorts to display drawings, photos and souvenirs of importance to us. When we recently re-did our kitchen (which I wrote about here), we had to strip our fridge and dishwasher surfaces down and put all of our magnets and photos away. Now that the kitchen reno is over, I asked Sophie and her sister, Leah, to go through what we had taken down to see if they still wanted everything. If not, then, we could purge the unwanted magnets and start fresh on our displays. Without saying a word, Sophie went about her task and created what you see in the photo. The dishwasher has always been her display space while Leah uses the fridge. But, what struck me about what Sophie did with the dishwasher was that her display is perfectly symmetrical. If you ignore the row of her school photos on the bottom, the entire rest of the dishwasher display is symmetrical. And she didn’t say a word after she was done. She was content to have created something interesting and, in this case, Mathematical. Art, as Math.

But, one of the ways that Sophie most enjoys being creative is when it comes to cooking and baking. For a while now, Sophie has shown a desire to create colourful, tasty treats such as her unicorn milkshakes and her three-layer, rainbow cake. She is able to do most of the work herself (*with an exception granted for using the stove to melt butter). She measures, mixes, cuts, adds ingredients and much, much more. Because she is so interested in creativity in the kitchen, her repertoire of creations is growing; everything from homemade pizza, to cookies, to her own breakfasts on the weekend, to fruit smoothies and to what you see above. Sophie does a good job getting the ingredients ready first then, mixing and creating her food. She is, also, good at cleaning up afterwards because, when she first started expressing a desire to cook, we insisted that she had to do so in a responsible manner which meant, among other things, leaving the kitchen as clean as it was when she first entered the room. Sophie is gaining independence over when she eats, how much she eats and, specifically, what she eats. Art, as food, means a lot to Sophie. Like all things with Sophie, when it comes to baking and cooking, it is almost the case that she enjoys the process of creating her treats almost more than she does consuming them. But, let’s be honest, she likes that, too.

The thing about being quietly creative is that, at times, you can attract the attention of admirers and like-minded creative types, without having to make a production out of yourself. Today’s post is about how Sophie came to recently make a French dessert called Madeleines. Madeleines are little cookie/cakes and, believe me, they are delicious. The story of the Madeleines is a story that is almost thirty years in the making. It is a story that began in a classroom in Courtice, Ontario and, more specifically, with a report card written about another little girl who was quite something special, too.

In my third or fourth year of teaching, I had a really nice group of Grade 2 students. Among that group was a little girl named Stacey Duggan. Stacey was a smart little girl and was a valued leader in the classroom. She was a good friend to her peers and a hard-working student for me. So, when it came time to write her first term report card, I gave my honest assessment of Stacey which was, simply put, that she was a wonderful human being and that I was happy to have her in my class that year. When her parents, Will and Gloria, came in for Stacey’s report card interview, they wondered if I had mixed up their kid with someone else’s child. I told them I had not and we proceeded to have a chuckle over the whole thing. As the school year closed, the Duggans invited me over for a barbecue. Accepting that invitation changed my life for the better because we have been fast friends ever since, for over thirty years now. In fact, I was asked to be the emcee at Stacey’s wedding. Will and Gloria, in turn, have been an integral part of my life, with Will acting as one of my two Best Men at my own wedding, among many other things that have gone on over the years.

One of the things that attracted me to Will and Gloria from the very beginning was that they are both creative. For instance, Will is a master carpenter, whose work can be seen on Twitter by searching for Gryffon Wood Designs or @gryffonwood. As for Gloria, for as long as I have known her, she has loved to cook. I have had many a good meal at the Duggan Family table because of Gloria’s prowess in the kitchen and Will’s skill on the barbecue. Not long after I started blogging for the first time, I began to encourage Gloria to start a blog of her own that could be used to showcase her great cooking. Reluctantly at first, Gloria decided to give blogging a try and, as a result, she started a blog called Homemade & Yummy that would talk about food that was all “homemade” and would taste “yummy”. Gloria applied herself with great determination and, in a relatively short period of time, her blog has taken off in the cooking world and she is making a name for herself on the Canadian cooking and blogging scene. Not surprisingly, when you become known in an industry, you end up making connections with others. One of the connections that Gloria ended up making was with an author called Mardi Michels. Mardi had just published a cookbook of French recipes for kids to create. About the time that Gloria was crossing paths with Mardi, we were publishing photos of Sophie making milkshakes or cookies or whatever on Facebook. This gave Gloria an idea.

For Christmas this past year, Gloria gave Sophie the cookbook that Mardi Michels had published, along with a special pan for making Madeleines (which were featured in the cookbook that Sophie is holding). At the time that Sophie received her gift from the Duggans, we made them a promise that, once our kitchen renovation was completed, the very first thing we would make would be the Madeleines and that, when we made them, we would invite Will and Gloria over and, in addition, we would take photos to send to Mardi Michels (who had autographed the cookbook for Sophie, by the way). So, that is what we did. Here is the proof, in photos.

Madeleines are little cakes that have a seashell design on one of their sides. In this photo, Sophie is preparing the Madeleine pan. In order to do so, I melted butter for her and then, she applied the butter with a butter brush; making sure to get inside all of the seashell grooves. Then, Sophie sprinkled a bit of flour into each mold. The pan was then, put into the freezer for thirty minutes to chill. ***Just to answer those of you with eagle eyes, this is Sophie at the start of our second batch. We have a batch already done in a container just north of her hand.

While the Madeleine pan was chilling, Sophie made the batter. Eggs, sugar and vanilla extract comprised the “wet” ingredients, which were blended with an electric beater. Flour, baking powder and a pinch of sea salt made up the “dry” ingredients, which were folded into the wet, using a spatula. Sophie mixed everything for several minutes until it was silky smooth.

Once the Madeleine pan had finished cooling, Sophie was able to spoon in the batter. Then, we put the batter-filled pan into the refrigerator for an additional twenty minutes. At that point, everything went into the oven (set to 400 degrees) for 10-12 minutes and the end result was a dozen Madeleine cakes that simply slid out of the pan and on to a wire baking rack to cool. At that point, we put them in a container and told the Duggans that we were ready for them to come over. The Duggans arrived the next day.

Being a chef, it seemed like the obvious next move to invite Gloria to, not only check out our new kitchen but, to actually work in our new kitchen. So, Gloria and Sophie completed the recipe by working together to make a lemon glaze and then, sprinkle some icing sugar over top of the glazed Madeleines.

Over thirty years ago, I recognized the potential that existed in Gloria’s daughter, Stacey. This past weekend, Gloria returned the favour by recognizing the creative potential that exists within my daughter, Sophie. This photo was sent to Mardi Michels who, in turn, replied that she was delighted to see how well the Madeleines had turned out and how thrilled she is whenever she hears from folks about how children are using her book and her recipes to create good food. ***As an aside, I have come to know that published authors are no different than a blogger author, like me, when it comes to receiving feedback. I love reading your comments and so do “real” authors. We never hesitated contacting Mardi Michels and involving her, even from a distance, in what we were doing with her book. I know that she appreciated our thoughtfulness. So, if you read something you like somewhere, take a moment and leave a review on Amazon or on Chapters-Indigo or on the author’s website. I can guarantee you that they will appreciate your kinds words.

Creative expression takes many forms. This past weekend, it took the form of tasty little cakes called Madeleines. Thanks to Gloria and Will Duggan for helping Sophie grow as an artist and as a young woman and for sharing a creative partnership with me that has spanned three decades now. Caring about each other’s children is about as important and privileged a responsibility as there is. Of course, I encourage you to please feel free to check out Mardi Michels‘ website and Gloria‘s, too and leave a comment if you like what you see and read there. I know both ladies…..both artists…..will love to hear what you have to say.

And finally, to Sophie, thanks for being the amazing young lady you are. I am continually awe-struck by the things that your mind conjures up. Being a creative thinker is such an important skill in life; not only for solving problems and findings solutions but, simply, for making the world more beautiful and more interesting, too. You have the gift of seeing the world with an artist’s eye. It is my pleasure to understand that and to recognize the wonder of what you create as you go about living your life. I am proud to be your father. You are my favourite artist.