When I was 16, I got a part-time job at a big Vancouver department store. It was Christmas and I was in the jewellery department. What surprised me was the number of men who came in at the last minute on December 24th looking for something for their wives!
doesn't surprise me because she's still the same dumb kid who doesn't understand that busy men can't avoid last minute shopping.
As a teenager, I often worked at Woodwards - a big department store in Vancouver. Every Christmas, at the last possible moment, anxious men would come into the store, desperately looking for “the right thing” for wives and girlfriends. Because my dad was a jeweller, I was most comfortable in the watch and jewellery department- which was the first place these crazed gents would go.
Being a “shopper”, I always looked around the store to see what perfect gifts I could find- for a mom or a girlfriend. I could always suggest something better than the fast “OK, that gew-gah looks good- I’ll take it!”
I was often given “time out” to take people to other departments where I’d point out a beautiful purse, glove and scarf set or unique linens or cookware. So many times, these men would return after Christmas and thank me for the ideas and it made me feel great! Who knew that in a few more decades, “professional shopper” would become a career!
Makes more sense than the other career plans she's ever had! After all, you wouldn't require the brains to realize that these guys actually can't spend the whole wack load of time shopping.
If Lynn's prior claims to have worked for her father occasionally are true, then she might be fairly well trained in jewellery sales. However, I wonder if those "time out" moments were not really moments where the other employees put Lynn to work and got her out of their hair for a bit. In The Comic Art of Lynn Johnston, Kate had a decidedly negative perspective on her mother's ability to stay focused on the work for the jobs she held before getting her syndicate contract.
Lynn Johnston had a job where she knew that every two weeks she had a deadline for work that she knew she could do in a day or two, even if she turned in poorly-constructed junk. A more disciplined artist would work months in advance and then be able to take months off to do other things, but for someone with a poor work ethic who is easily distracted, there would always be a mad rush to meet deadlines. Nevertheless, I have read stories about other comic strip artists who were even worse.
It is interesting if that is the case. I know one doctor tried to diagnose my son with that, but the symptoms did not mix. He could get into a project and spend hours fretting over every little meticulous detail. The consequence is that when he does artwork, it is loaded with design details. ADHD may be a better fit for Lynn Johnston, whose art only rarely has details in it or the type of labor for correction that my son would have to make the art look accurate and correct. A lot of the artists I know are the types of folks who want to put all the little intimate renderings into their work. Lynn never seemed to be that type.
I do like looking at great works of art and seeing all the details that are in them. We saw a Salvador Dali exhibit last week and the narrator pointed out all the things in the painting that we had missed.
In contrast, I like to look at Lynn Johnston's artwork for all the details that are not in them. It's fun to deconstruct her process of constructing the comic strip where the body parts do not go together but are attached anyway. It's fun to imagine her lack of thought process with the goal of doing the laziest drawing possible.
Lynn's Comments:
The I Was A Teenage Lindy show
When I was 16, I got a part-time job at a big Vancouver department store. It was Christmas and I was in the jewellery department. What surprised me was the number of men who came in at the last minute on December 24th looking for something for their wives!
doesn't surprise me because she's still the same dumb kid who doesn't understand that busy men can't avoid last minute shopping.
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The more complete version of the story.
Thursday December 15, 2011 Lynn’s Notes:
As a teenager, I often worked at Woodwards - a big department store in Vancouver. Every Christmas, at the last possible moment, anxious men would come into the store, desperately looking for “the right thing” for wives and girlfriends. Because my dad was a jeweller, I was most comfortable in the watch and jewellery department- which was the first place these crazed gents would go.
Being a “shopper”, I always looked around the store to see what perfect gifts I could find- for a mom or a girlfriend. I could always suggest something better than the fast “OK, that gew-gah looks good- I’ll take it!”
I was often given “time out” to take people to other departments where I’d point out a beautiful purse, glove and scarf set or unique linens or cookware. So many times, these men would return after Christmas and thank me for the ideas and it made me feel great! Who knew that in a few more decades, “professional shopper” would become a career!
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If Lynn's prior claims to have worked for her father occasionally are true, then she might be fairly well trained in jewellery sales. However, I wonder if those "time out" moments were not really moments where the other employees put Lynn to work and got her out of their hair for a bit. In The Comic Art of Lynn Johnston, Kate had a decidedly negative perspective on her mother's ability to stay focused on the work for the jobs she held before getting her syndicate contract.
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Lynn Johnston had a job where she knew that every two weeks she had a deadline for work that she knew she could do in a day or two, even if she turned in poorly-constructed junk. A more disciplined artist would work months in advance and then be able to take months off to do other things, but for someone with a poor work ethic who is easily distracted, there would always be a mad rush to meet deadlines. Nevertheless, I have read stories about other comic strip artists who were even worse.
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I still think she has undiagnosed ADHD. Aaron too, probably.
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It is interesting if that is the case. I know one doctor tried to diagnose my son with that, but the symptoms did not mix. He could get into a project and spend hours fretting over every little meticulous detail. The consequence is that when he does artwork, it is loaded with design details. ADHD may be a better fit for Lynn Johnston, whose art only rarely has details in it or the type of labor for correction that my son would have to make the art look accurate and correct. A lot of the artists I know are the types of folks who want to put all the little intimate renderings into their work. Lynn never seemed to be that type.
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One feature of ADHD can be hyperfocus, which could include intricate design details.....
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I suspect that Lynn's ADHD did not include that feature, although I wonder how many of the great artists in the past did have that feature..
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Ah, me, too.....
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I do like looking at great works of art and seeing all the details that are in them. We saw a Salvador Dali exhibit last week and the narrator pointed out all the things in the painting that we had missed.
In contrast, I like to look at Lynn Johnston's artwork for all the details that are not in them. It's fun to deconstruct her process of constructing the comic strip where the body parts do not go together but are attached anyway. It's fun to imagine her lack of thought process with the goal of doing the laziest drawing possible.
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"gew-gah"???????
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It's one of those fancy jewellery words that Lynn learned while "working" for her parents in the family store.
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I have friends who are professional jewelry makers and I've never heard any of them say that.
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