“Can’t Let It Show, Can We?”
Author Terry McDonell made a deal with fellow Hearst editor—and best friend—Liz Tilberis: “She would help me with Esquire’s fashion and I would help her with ‘getting on in America.’”
Author Terry McDonell made a deal with fellow Hearst editor—and best friend—Liz Tilberis (Harper’s Bazaar): “She would help me with Esquire’s fashion and I would help her with ‘getting on in America.’” On the 25th anniversary of her passing, McDonell shares this excerpt from his book, The Accidental Life.
In the spring of 1992, Liz Tilberis came to visit me in the Hamptons, in Wainscott, where I had a place. It was Easter weekend and that Sunday we went to a lawn party at Jann Wenner’s house. It was to be relaxed, but with an elaborate egg hunt for the children, and Jann’s guest list included a range of people from the media, show business, and publishing. Turning into the long driveway, Liz joked that she was nervous, that this was going to be her first important party since moving to America from London and she wouldn’t know anyone.
I told her she didn’t look nervous.
“Of course not,” she said. “Can’t let it show, can we?”
I said most of the guests already knew about her, knew she had come to New York to rejuvenate Harper’s Bazaar.
“Do not abandon me,” she said, widening her green eyes, a look I came to know as a kind of ironic kabuki. She wasn’t nervous at all. She was going to work that party.
I remember watching her, vivid with her shining white hair, from across the lawn. Driving home, she told me she had received six invitations for weekends over the summer.
“Imagine,” she said. “They were all very nice, but they don’t know me at all.”
• • •
Our pact was that she would help me with Esquire’s fashion and I would help her with “getting on in America.” We joked about it as she got on fine on her own, not just staffing her magazine and settling her sons in private school but becoming a Knicks fan. Her “field study” took her to gardens and museums, but also to Q-Zar, a laser-tag arena in New Jersey, for a “jolly riot.” Within less than a year, she and her husband, Andrew, had slept in the Lincoln Bedroom as guests of the Clintons. “My team,” she called Andrew and the boys, but it wasn’t sappy. What worried her, she said, was being too English: “Mustn’t ever use that word jolly.”
The premiere issue of the Tilberis era of Bazaar
For my fashion education, we traveled together to Milan, flying overnight from JFK to Malpensa, eating caviar and drinking vodka. On that flight I learned that she had refused to be confirmed at her all-girls boarding school (“I didn’t believe in God”) and had been expelled from art school for entertaining a man in her room. I also learned that she had almost moved to New York five years earlier to head Ralph Lauren’s design team. She had decided to stay in London when, two days after she’d given notice, Anna Wintour, who was then the editor in chief, told her that she was moving to New York—to become the editor of House & Garden (ten months later, she would be running American Vogue). Liz could have British Vogue if she wanted it.
Of course, topping British Vogue had been another jolly riot. Bruce Weber’s first Vogue cover shoot was for Liz—a laughing model wearing minimal makeup. “Pure Liz,” her colleagues said. And it became an even better story when the proofs came back touched up with lipstick red because the printers were sure there had been a mistake. “They actually made it better,” Liz said. When she persuaded the Princess of Wales to pose for a British Vogue cover, the image was clean and simple—the look Diana made her own from then on. “It just made sense for her as a modern princess,” Liz said. “And I’m a little like Machiavelli.”
Our first day in Milan was to end with a benefit in the courtyard of an old castle that had been tented with an enormous tarp against the forecast showers. It began to rain hard in the afternoon, and by evening the waiters were poking up at huge puddles on the sagging canvas with long poles. Sting was on the program and waved to Liz as we entered. She looked from the candle-set tables to the dripping canvas and announced that we were going immediately to Bice.
We couldn’t find our car and started walking toward the restaurant in the downpour, getting soaked. Within a block, a limo driver—not ours—pulled over. He knew Liz and liked her, and thought she might want a ride.
“Fashion,” she said, climbing in, “is about long black cars when you need them.” The driver told us the tent had collapsed.
Walking into Bice, we saw Valentino and his inner circle at the large round table in the back corner—like a tableau I had seen before but couldn’t place. The women, all in red gowns, were exquisite, the men handsome in black suits, but their frowns gave the scene a starkness. Valentino made a slight nod in our direction, and when we walked over he asked if the collapsed tent would reflect badly on the fashion houses. (Armani and Versace, both based in Milan, and Valentino, from Rome, had organized the event.)
“Not on those from Rome,” Liz told him, and she went around the table complimenting everyone on how chic they looked. “Totally Valentino,” she said, and when the great designer smiled slightly the mood changed and we were invited to join them for dinner.
“I wish we could have shot that table just exactly as it was when we walked in,” Liz told me as we left Bice after midnight. “The cold power of it, like those Bronzinos of the Medici.”
Early the next morning, we began a round of appointments at designer showrooms. All went more or less the same way: Liz explaining to me (so the designer could hear) how brilliant the new line was, and then whispering to the designer what a formidable editor I was. We had a simple lunch in the backyard of the Armani palazzo with Giorgio and his top aide at the time, Gabriella Forte, while his Persian cat, Hannibal, hunted through the garden. Giorgio, too, was concerned about the collapsed tent, but he and Liz talked mostly about the distinctive cuts he was showing that season, and the importance of fine tailoring.
“Fashion is about long black cars when you need them.”
Our week in Milan paid off in many new advertising pages for Esquire, but when it was over Liz thanked me for helping her get through it. Her advice was to bring presents the next time I visited, something personal that this or that designer could relate to, perhaps a cat toy for Hannibal.
I thought hard about this and, since Armani was the most important advertiser for Esquire, I asked Gay Talese to sign a copy of his new book, Unto the Sons, to Giorgio. Esquire had excerpted Gay’s history of his family’s immigration to America from Italy. The book’s most intimate passages were about Gay’s father, who was a tailor. I had the book with me when I saw Armani the following spring at the men’s shows in Milan. Without Liz beside me, there would be no lunch, but we had coffee in his office. Giorgio opened the book, saw that it was signed, passed it over his shoulder to an assistant without reading the inscription, and asked me about Liz. When was she coming next to Milan?
“I saw that same copy of Unto the Sons a year later on a bookshelf in Gabriella Forte’s apartment in New York.”
• • •
“Looking for fasion material for my “Editor’s Notes” column in Esquire, I asked Liz what it was she noticed first when she met someone—expecting, I suppose, something smart about shoes or haircuts. Instead she paraphrased a line from a Katharine Hepburn film: “I notice whether the person is a man or a woman.”
Very sexy, when she said it—and direct, like her taste as an editor. She had a clear eye for the sociology of fashion that could capture (or shred) any look she saw on any runway or street. “Downtown Marie Antoinette” was the look her friend Jean Paul Gaultier was showing that year. “Blind Anchorwoman,” which she pointed out to me one day when we were walking across Central Park South, was maybe a bit of a reach but I knew what she meant. Our boss was “Black Paw” because of his fingernails. “Being wicked,” she called it and we did a lot of it. Her only insecurity as an editor was dealing with writers.
In England she had been a celebrity as a fashion editor, even appearing on the sides of double-decker buses with her oldest son in an adoption-awareness campaign; but there was a disconnect with journalists, because she was just a fashion editor. She was worried that New York would be like London, where the literary scene was closed to her. This could be problematic if she couldn’t get interesting writing (part of Vogue’s mix) into Bazaar. I said I could introduce her to writers if she was feeling pressed.
“What about you,” she said. “I wouldn’t be afraid of editing you.”
“You wouldn’t be doing the editing anyway,” I said. “What’s your idea? You have to give your writers an idea first.”
“Oh, yes, I know that,” she said. “Write fashion and rock and roll. You edited Rolling Stone, or so you say.”
“What’s the piece again?”
“Roll over, Beethoven,” she said. “Tell Balenciaga the news.”
When I finally wrote that piece for her, it was called “Not Fade Away: Mingling Destinies of Rock and Roll and Fashion.” I was all over the map—her map—when it came to which designer went with which rocker. I had the obvious: Giorgio Armani with Eric Clapton, and Calvin Klein as a Mudd Club vet. Liz explained that fifteen years previous, Richard Tyler had dressed Rod Stewart in glitter and spandex for his Blondes Have More Fun tour, and last year he had fitted himself with the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s most prestigious award as Womenswear Designer of the Year. “That has to mean something,” she said.
Voguette that she was, having begun as an unpaid intern in the late ’60s, Liz was amused by my characterizations of the period. “All that hard-rocking creative sexuality and open rebellion, come on…” Where was my nuance? She told me about Pop and Op Art overpowering textile design, and Twiggy flirting around London in little gym slips. She told me not to ignore Dr. John because his gris-gris was about voodoo accessories, and that Carnaby Street had a men’s shop named I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet; it sold used military uniforms, and she had slapped several into her “More Dash Than Cash” pages as soon as she saw them.
She insisted she was not about language (“My mind is too full of pictures, not enough room then for words”) except she was as hungry for specific details as any line editor I ever worked with.”
• • •
When she took over at Harper’s Bazaar in 1992, Elizabeth Jane Kelly Tilberis was a size 12, which she said was “practically illegal in our business.” One gossip column applied the word bovine. She laughed that off and lost weight as her Bazaar came together, dropping to a size 8. She said her “slinky” staff helped her look the part but added, with a green-eyed wink, that “fashion editors should never look better than their models.”
Liz knew every fashion trick, every cliché, but she didn’t pander. Instead of snapping at the heels of the flush and splashy Vogue, she decided to simplify. Her relaunch of Bazaar (September 1992) was quieter than expected. The cover was a very graphic Patrick Demarchelier shot of Linda Evangelista looking smart and confident with a small cover line: “Enter the Era of Elegance.” It was cool, but there was no snobby chill. Even cooler, the logo was unbalanced, an act of innovation that winked with subliminal ink. By comparison, Vogue’s grunged-up models covered with type looked sloppy. Downtown suddenly seemed almost quaint. Liz’s inside pages too were sleek and inviting, with understated glamour in the white space and more of creative director Fabien Baron’s innovative typography. It was practical, democratic fashion, elegant in its execution.
“In a little over a year, Bazaar was back as one of the world’s preeminent fashion magazines, challenging Anna Wintour’s Vogue. The paparazzi loved Liz, and she dazzled them with her bob of white hair, which looked silver in photos. She was having another jolly riot. Bazaar’s circulation climbed as she nurtured her photographers, swapped risqué stories with models, complimented stylists and charmed advertisers. With readers, she stressed building personal style with common sense. One of her “Editor’s Letter” columns celebrated the humble sweater. By then she was a size 6.
“Tilberis was a size 12, which she said was ‘practically illegal in our business.’”
“THAT DECEMBER, some 250 fashion and publishing people were invited to the brownstone in the East Eighties she and Andrew had rented from director Mike Nichols. There was a huge Christmas tree in the living room and white flowers everywhere, and the townhouse was packed with her New York friends—Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Leonard and Evelyn Lauder, Barbara Walters, Jann Wenner, people named Trump. The party was to celebrate her triumphant first year and Bazaar’s many honors, which included two National Magazine Awards. Hearst had taken out a full-page congratulatory ad in the New York Times. The columnist Billy Norwich wrote that it was the kind of soigné party he used to read about in urbane novels.
When Liz walked me to the bar, I said, “The gang’s apparently all here.”
“Someone named Jerome just whispered to me, ‘There are people in this room who should not be here,’ ” Liz said. “I don’t know what that means exactly.”
“Yes, you do,” I said, figuring it had to have been the notorious “social moth” Jerome Zipkin. “You want me to kick his ass?”
“Oh yes, please.”
She made a very short speech that night. “A magazine is only people,” she said. “It walks in the door in the morning, and out the door at night. Please let’s never forget that.”
None of us knew she had been diagnosed with stage III ovarian cancer and had a procedure scheduled for the next morning.
• • •
“When her cancer was reported in the media, she came forward with some of what she had been going through, first on the “Editor’s Letter” page: I never wanted to be a poster girl for cancer. But cancer has become part of who I am, along with my big feet and my English accent. I have greenish eyes, I was born on Sept. 7 (the same day as Queen Elizabeth), and I have ovarian cancer. So do almost 175,000 other women in the United States.
Privately she joked that she had arrived hungover for her procedure, the day after her Christmas party. For the next seven years she would balance treatments and operations with her work at Bazaar. She wore catheters under evening dresses. She escorted Princess Diana on one of her visits to New York, even though she was in chemotherapy. Diana had been one of the first people on the telephone when Liz emerged from her first major operation.
“Diana who?” said Andrew.
“Diana Windsor.”
“Sometimes Liz didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but the depression that must have come with the cancer otherwise never showed. “My cancer diet” she said of her slender figure. There were sores in her mouth and her appetite was gone. Then her mouth dried out and her fingernails splintered. Growing weaker, she would tell a story about Andrew having to get her tights on for her in the morning, and somehow make it funny.
“I never wanted to be a poster girl for cancer. But cancer has become part of who I am, along with my big feet and my English accent.”
One morning in her office, when I said something about how good her hair looked despite chemotherapy, she laughed. “It’s a wig,” she whispered. Her sons called it “Larry,” for the way Laurence Olivier looked in Henry V.
By then she was a size 4.
Her memoir was called No Time to Die. In it she wrote about the place she and Andrew had found on the bay in East Hampton:
I’d go down to the narrow strip of beach at the back of our house each morning and sit on my favorite rock with a cup of tea, often so weak that he’d have to carry me back. In what was a real family tragedy, Sophie, one of our Labradors, had recently died.
I knew that dog. That house was where Liz and Andrew had sheltered me during the summer when my marriage was ending. Too soon after, I got a call from Andrew.
“She’s gone,” he told me. “There’s nothing left to say.”
• • •
The bare stage was edged by pots of her favorite white orchids, and overhead was a large black-and-white Patrick Demarchelier photo of Liz, smiling out at the more than a thousand people filling Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Every important designer was there, along with top editors and Hearst executives. Si Newhouse and Anna Wintour came together. Hillary Clinton sent a statement. Bruce Weber, Trudie Styler and Calvin Klein were on the program, along with Liz’s doctor, and her brother, Grant, also a doctor. I spoke, too. I said Elizabeth Jane Kelly Tilberis was a caviar hound and a rocker. Last on the program was Dr. John. He played “My Buddy.”
Excerpted from The Accidental Life: An Editor's Notes on Writing and Writers a Rolling Stone by Terry McDonell (Knopf). First edition published August 2, 2016. Get a copy here.
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Rule No. 55: Be Perfectly Imperfect
In this excerpt from his new book, Fast Company designer Mike Schnaidt explains how to establish your creative voice in just three days.
In this excerpt from his new book, Fast Company designer Mike Schnaidt explains how to establish your creative voice in just three days.
Chef and author Molly Baz
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
As a designer writing my first book, I leaned heavily on my experience of collaborating with magazine editors. (Okay, now I know your pain of needing more words.)
During my years at Men’s Health, we’d often conceptualize the design of our packages before assigning text—a skill that came in handy in the early stages of developing Creative Endurance. I started by prototyping the book to create a fun and digestible design. Then, I moved on to the writing.
Popular Science, where we focused entire issues on single topics, inspired my thematic approach to endurance. I expanded the theme across athletics, creative industries, and a variety of generations ranging from a nine-year-old, to a seventy-six-year-old, and those in the midst of their careers, including Molly Baz, the open and honest star of Rule No.55.
Honesty was a priority as I shaped Creative Endurance. Inspired by Esquire’s What I’ve Learned franchise, I removed my questions from many of the interviews, creating a direct connection between the subject and reader. You’ll see that approach in my interview with Russell Francis below.
With 39 interviews’ worth of material, I had a lot of great stuff on the cutting room floor. One other thing that I learned from Esquire: If text doesn’t fit into the confines of your grid structure, squeeze it outside of the margins. See how I applied these concepts in the excerpt below, and to be really inspired, pick up a copy of Creative Endurance.
Chicken Cutties. Cae Sal. Sunday Supps. Say what? We’ll get to that, but first, let’s grab a bite to eat with chef Molly Baz.
It’s been three days since she quit her writing job at the food magazine Bon Appétit, where Baz developed her approachable personality across print and video. How will she establish her creative voice?
Baz sits with a friend to strategize her next move: the launch of a newsletter. “People don’t care if the recipes are from Molly at Bon Appétit,” her friend says. “They just want you.” An empowering moment.
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EMBRACE THE PAST
Reflect on your unique work experiences and skills. Baz’s writing and on-camera experience set her apart.
ENVISION THE FUTURE
Stay attuned to the needs of your target market. Baz bucked the trend of formality in cookbooks with a relatable approach.
You might worry about being the real You, as fear of rejection and conformity arise. Will people like you? Will you fit into your industry? Baz’s example proves the value of standing out by being imperfect.
To answer my original query: Baz’s abbreviations for chicken cutlets, Caesar salad, and Sunday supper strain the stress out of the cooking experience. These casual recipe titles sound like ones your best friend might suggest throwing together as the two of you hang out in the kitchen. “Chicken Cutty” makes the process of brining, breading, and frying a piece of poultry feel achievable, especially for a cook who fumbles his way through the kitchen (that would be me).
Baz’s creative voice carved her space in the food world. Her initial Patreon newsletter grows into a cooking club, titled The Club. Two cookbooks, Cook This Book and More in More, follow, along with a line of cookware for Crate & Barrel.
“I want people to recognize when a dish feels like me,” she says. “I don’t want it to feel like it could be anything you find on Recipes.com.” Your creative voice will help you stand out like this food personality, whose show, Hit the Kitch, sports a number of subscribers in the six-figure range on YouTube.
During our interview, I asked about her creative process. “Do you sit down and write a bunch of different recipe names before deciding on one?” I ask.
“No, that’s just how I speak,” she replies, with utmost confidence. Fair.
Q&A
THE NINE-YEAR-OLD
Dispatches from early childhood, via Camille Gerke.
Occupation: Kid
Location: Jersey City, New Jersey
Camille Gerke and I sit on the floor of her living room, and she’s drawing with colored markers. As she explains the strifes of a Thanksgiving art project gone awry at school, she remains fixated on the task at hand: a drawing of aliens and monsters. Her mind is racing. “When I’m angry, I draw because it helps me calm down,” she says, her voice matter-of-fact. Within minutes, she’s transformed a blank sheet of paper into a canvas full of dreams. I spoke with Gerke to learn how adults can resurrect their childhood imagination.
What can adults learn from kids?
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Before you start working, take a moment to visualize your creation. Doodle! Don’t jump right onto the computer.
Mistakes are part of the creative process. Instead of fixating on what’s wrong, focus on what’s right.
Kids don’t think practically, and that works to their advantage. Think big when you’re brainstorming. You can always dial it back.
Adults worry about work. And work is boring. You need to look at it from a child’s perspective. Children’s brains are hardwired for imagination and curiosity. As soon as adults take on everyday responsibilities, they forget what their childhood was like.
How would you describe your childhood right now?
Good. I have a cat, and I get to walk him. Not many people get to walk their cat.
Do you get any ideas from your cat?
Yes. I recently made a book called The World of Blue (her cat’s name). Blue wakes up. Cleans his bedroom. Then he sits on Camille’s face and meows until she’s up.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
A zookeeper so I could work with Bengal tigers. I’d also love to make my own TV show. It would be about a high school girl that also fights bad guys by shooting lasers out of her hands. She works for the government, but is trying to keep it a secret. I’d also really love to be an illustrator for a book.
What would stop you from being an illustrator?
If someone ripped up all my drawings. That’s it.
How long does it take you to finish a drawing?
Three minutes. I visualize it in my head first, so I have a better idea of what I want to draw. Right now I’m in a phase where I don’t like to color my drawings, so I can do them quicker. I like to hum while I draw. It helps me focus. (Takes out a drawing.) This is about a girl named Alexa. One night a UFO crashes in their backyard. This is Number Twelve. She’s from another planet called Bop.
How do you start a drawing?
Usually, I have thoughts about the character in my brain. I start with the head shape, add the hair, the eyes, and the nose. If I draw a speech bubble next to them, then I add another character. Otherwise they’d be talking to themself, and that’s just weird.
What are you drawing in school right now?
Thanksgiving is soon, so we’re making turkeys. It started out really easy because I saw a male turkey, called a Tom, in Pennsylvania, and I put it in my memory box. But then, while I was painting the turkey, I made a huge mistake and totally messed it up. I was using too much water, and the paint smudged. I was so angry! I was fixated on this feather clump. My teacher comforted me and said, “The more you worry, the harder it’s going to be for you to finish. You’ll focus on the things that are wrong with it, instead of the things that are right with it.”
That’s great advice. Did it help you?
Yes! I started by improving what was wrong with the turkey. I focused on getting rid of each imperfection before moving on to the next. It’s just an artist’s instinct.
Are there any other classes you like?
Writing is fun, and I could do it for hours. But, I spend a lot of time drawing, so I don’t write. Also, writing makes my hand really sore.
What else are you drawing in school?
I recently entered a contest to make a drawing for the school yearbook. I didn’t make any sketches. I drew it in fifteen minutes, and I thought about the diversity of my friends when I drew all of the characters.
What worries you?
Grades. They toy with a child’s emotions. You could change a child’s perspective of school by giving them too much homework. I’m also worried about getting older. I don’t want to lose my creativity.
Do you have any final words of advice for adults on how to be more creative?
If you don’t like your job, then quit it, and do something fun.
Rule No. 56: Make an Impact
Use Your Creative Superpowers for Good
“What’s next when you’re only two decades into your career?”
You’ve leapt over the distractions, rolled under the barrage of revisions, and skipped from job to job. The wall that stands before you is a tough one to climb: your midlife crisis. How will you overcome this obstacle?
As a young designer, I had big aspirations of breaking into the publishing industry. I drafted my checklist and chipped away, literally working at every single place I dreamed of. Entertainment Weekly, check. Esquire, check. Popular Science, check. Men’s Health, double-check. Fast Company, check.
But now, just like Sara Lieberman, my measure of success has evolved. What’s next when you’re only two decades into your career? And to make matters worse, the publishing industry is, well, not exactly thriving as it once was. If this were a movie, cut to the scene where I’m running as the ground is collapsing behind me and magazines are falling into the pit. There aren’t many left. So…where to next? Midlife crisis: Activated.
The power-up to overcome my midlife crisis was discovered a few blocks away from me in Jersey City.
The deadline was looming for this manuscript. Running on fumes, I took my work to a local coffee shop. Cliché, I know, but I wanted to have the full writerly experience, as this was my first book. Among the sound of coffee beans buzzing and frothing milk gurgling, a gravelly voice emerged. It was an older gentleman, sharing writing advice with a young barista on break.
“Can I read you a poem I once wrote?” he asks, seizing a teachable moment. The poem was about his time during the Vietnam era, aboard a steam-propelled ship. A powerful piece. Both the barista and I felt the weight of the words.
“Damn, that was good,” I say, as an icebreaker. His name was Russell Francis.
Interviewing a stranger for this book was a bucket-list item of mine, so I mustered the courage to ask Francis to be a part of this project. His wisdom would be perfect. The next day, we have a great conversation, and it becomes clear to me: That interview will be the end of the book.
The day before the manuscript was due, I’m rushing to edit this last-minute interview, and amidst the pangs of uncertainty over the whole project, Francis calls me. Crap. Is he going to back out? I worry. “Son, you’ve got some balls for asking a stranger to be in your book,” he says. “But what you’re doing is really special. Creatives need inspiration to keep working.”
I made an impact on him, and in return, he made an impact on me. This feeling unlocked an extra gear to drive faster and harder on this book, because I could clearly see the purpose of my craft as a writer. I broke through the wall of my midlife crisis, and I discovered the impact I want to continue to make.
Everyone you’ve met in this book aspires to make an impact.
There was Molly Baz, who was making cooking more accessible. Jay Osgerby, who was designing objects with a purpose. Dean Karnazes, who was inspiring others to run. Anthony Giglio, who was challenging people’s perceptions of wine. And Caroline Gleich, who was breaking down gender barriers in the outdoors.
Reader, now it’s your turn. What kind of impact do you want to make? Is it in your culture? Your environment? It can be local, global, or hey, even in outer space. But once you discover your impact, you’ll unlock your Creative Endurance.
MY GROWTH PLAN
“Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Do Something.”
Russell Francis discovered his creativity later in life, and at 76 years old, won’t let go of it.
Occupation: Poet, Painter
Location: Jersey City, New Jersey
Three years, nine months, and twenty-seven days later, when I returned from war, I was not the same person.
The Vietnam War started as I graduated high school in Jersey City. I chose to go into the United States Navy. I wanted to make my father proud.
I was the main propulsion engineer on an aircraft carrier. I worked in the boiler room, and the engine was in there. Steam propulsion. Very hot.
We were in Asia, and in the distance, we saw the USS Liberty coming toward us. Smoke was pouring out of it, so obviously something was wrong. We had to prepare for an attack. I figured a world war was happening.
I went down into the hole. They locked the door behind me, and I had to do my job. Monitor the gauges on the wall. I’m down there, looking at a nuclear device that is damn near going to blow up and destroy everything around me. I had three seconds to shut the entire engine room down, or we’d be done. I was in alert mode.
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Sometimes a compliment from a stranger can push you forward.
Discipline is required for long-term creativity.
It’s never too late to explore your creative potential.
This was the event that triggered my PTSD. I was emotionally shattered, but my art was buried deep within.
Eventually, after the war ended, I was 100 percent disabled. I could no longer work. I didn’t want to accept that I was disabled. Don’t tell me I can’t do something.
All of a sudden, I started to write.
I showed some writing to a friend of mine, Pete. “That’s good shit,” he says.
“If you say so,” I tell him. I am not educated. High school education. I wanted to go to college, but went into the navy instead. Pete’s a bright guy, and I trust him.
I was working on a painting. On wood. I brought it outside in front of my house, listening to whatever this creative voice inside of me is. The school day for the children was over, and a few kids walk by. They say, “Hey, Mister, that’s really nice.”
I showed that piece to Pete too. He says “You’re gonna have to do something with this.”
I went to the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art to show the artistic director my work. She asks me, “How do you paint?” I didn’t know how to answer. I thought you just wore a beret or something. I said to her, “I put the canvas on the floor. I get on my hands and knees, and I fight with it. It makes me crazy.” She says, “You’re an artist. That’s what artists do.”
After looking at my paintings, she says, “You are now a matriculated student in the school.”
That was the first time I felt like a man that was given something very important.
In 1994, I went to the decommissioning ceremony for the ship I was on during the Vietnam era. I’m standing between two guys, and I take a poem out of my pocket. I read it. The guy next to me says, “I had to read that poem in college. I always wanted to meet the writer. Do you know who he is?” I tell him, “Yeah. It’s me.”
This was my poem, “More Steam.” It came from the heart. I wrote it in one shot, about that ship I was on, and sent it to the National Library of Poetry. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this guy read my poem.
If I could pursue another creative activity, I would act. I can live the emotions of other characters through what I was denied. I would play Steve McQueen’s character in The Sand Pebbles.
Without my military training, I would not have the discipline to continue to paint, write, and see my creativity unfold.
I’m seventy-six years old. At this point, I need to stay alert. Breath to breath. Moment to moment. I need to be fully available to everything that’s happening in my day. Creativity is a gift.
Mike Schnaidt is a designer, educator, and writer based in Jersey City, New Jersey. His first book, Creative Endurance, offers practical tips to help creatives overcome their biggest challenges. As Fast Company’s creative director, he leads a team of art directors and photo editors who create visual content for the brand. Schnaidt has designed a variety of publications covering pop culture, fashion, food, and science, and has won awards from the Society of Publication Designers, Advertising Age, and Art Directors Club. He holds a Master of Science in Communication Design from Pratt Institute and teaches graphic design at Kean University.
Excerpted with permission from Creative Endurance: 56 Rules for Overcoming Obstacles and Achieving Your Goals (Rockport Publishers, an imprint of The Quarto Group, 2024) by Mike Schnaidt. All illustrations by Kagan McCleod. Creative Endurance is available wherever fine books are sold. Learn more at quarto.com.