Funneling Down

I feel like I'm plunging deeper into the funnel, from a broad topic to an increasingly narrower focus (I think this metaphor came from Sari Biklen's book on writing a qual research dissertation). What a blessing in disguise not doing my original topic is! I realize I'm a pretty intuitive person. I sensed from writing that 10-11 pages of my first proposal (a lot of hard work it was) that something was not going right. Abandoning it was hard. Not having support after thinking I had it was even harder. I mourned those "wasted" time of reading copious amounts of literature on creativity. But on reflection, nothing is ever lost. Whatever I have read stays with me, a precious knowledge treasure that informs my future steps. Forsaking my earlier writing freed me in new ways. I am immersed in the process of creativity. I am no longer bound to doing an instructional design study in a classroom setting or to think in parochial ways. There are other real life issues to study. And I'm fortunate to get to study one.

(Image source: http://bit.ly/i3YXvt)

Creative Problem-Solving in Reality

(Image Source: Tashi Mannox website: http://bit.ly/f8jkfN) 
Note: I learned about these clouds through Dr. Julia Marshall's presentation. Beautiful and iconic -- representing nature, energy, heaven. And I stumbled upon Tashi Mannox by accident. Gorgeous design!

I feel like an instructional designer with a complex problem that requires a novel solution! How ironic! I am studying myself constantly, because 1. I have read up a LOT on creativity, and 2. never tire of learning about it. When someone told me he was interested in studying innovation but not creativity, I am perplexed. How can a person be interested in one (outcome) and not the other (process and means) when they are intricately linked? Why bother? What for?

With my earlier dissertation topic, I knew I wanted to study creativity and sought to match it with the instructional design field because I wanted to extend knowledge in both fields. Now, I have this complex and very important real-life problem I want to solve and I'm figuring out how to craft the most creative and valuable solution. I find this approach to be more engaging and authentic, a tad easier than problem-finding. Maybe the real creative challenge is in finding a problem, which I think Mark Runco wrote about somewhere. I'm really really grateful to be a part of a team that is seeking to solve this complex problem. Kudos to the Access team: Mj, Mi and R and my wonderful friends Mm and EY!

Expert Advice on Community-Based Arts

I'm having a lot of fun right now learning and conceptualizing my yes, new study! I've attended a talk on art-based research (See Nov 30 posting). Today, I had the honor to talk to Dr. Jan Cohen-Cruz, Director, Imagining America, author and expert on community-based performance (CBP). That is, on an unforgettable day of rain and snow, making the walk to Tolley Building a wet and slushy one. Nevertheless, still memorable.:)

Marj had recommended I read her book(s). I've started with Local Acts. It documents the historical origins, establishes the field and introduces the principles, methodology and performance structures of CBP. As an amateur in theater productions in Singapore, it's never crossed my mind before how theater/arts can be such a collective grassroots, hyphenated and cultural event, (possibly guided by a professional) at the same time.

Her book engrosses me in many parts. Reading about her positionality(?) vis-a-vis CBP fascinated me. I could make a similar comparison with myself. An avid arts lover and coordinator in a high school, producing amateur productions for national youth competitions, a first encounter with a Deaf student, then my HOH niece going profoundly Deaf, learning ASL in Singapore and Syracuse, and then being on this Access project. I see several parts of my life connecting me to this dissertation interest.  

Dr. Cohen-Cruz was amazing. She shared many website links, names of people to contact and stuff to read up. How incredibly helpful!

Resources to explore:
Project Muse database (I'd always been using Web of Science!)
www.communityarts.net (archived resources, but on Facebook as CAN, which I'd already "liked")
CAN writer John Sullivan
Linda Frye Burnham
Society for the Arts in Healthcare
Center on Age and Community, Anne Basting, U Wisc-Milwaukee
forgetmemory.org
ESTA, Elders Share The Arts, Susan Perlstein, founder
National Center for Creative Aging

So here I go, again, deep diving into new literature! *SSS-PLASH*

Deaf Coffee 11-26-2010

How long has it been that I haven't seen BB, my Deaf ASL instructor? I took 2 ASL classes with her and then practiced sometimes with her at my corporate office. But we kept in touch via email and with Facebook, socializing became a cinch, a matter of clicking buttons and pressing keys.

Thanksgiving break was a good time to meet up; everyone was relaxed. There were more people at Panera's that night. BB was already there when I arrived, looking beautiful, unravaged by time. Straight blond hair, pinned up simply.

I signed "Hi, nice to see you again!" Then I stopped. I wanted to say "I'll go get some food. I'm hungry", but what's the sign for hungry? BB gestured. Aah!

K introduced himself after me. I tried to converse with him, to ask what work he does. It became a pretty laborious process because I couldn't read his signs fast enough and I couldn't recall enough signs to interpret his message. It ended up with him, and BB helping out, telling me how often he worked and what he does for a job. At least I think so! :)

Others drifted in after 7pm. S, C and wife, D; A, and husband, G. There was another lady with a hearing husband. A hearing guy named T came and left early. He even interpreted for R who came with his friend, D (both hearing).

I tried to chat/sign as much as I could, but my signing was rusty and I couldn't follow everyone very much. C told me about his work in the army, how he used to be in Hawaii and there was an earthquake then. He was scared. I am just grateful how patient everyone was with my atrocious signing. They fingerspelled slowly so I could catch up with them.

C baked small loaves of mango bread and handed out a couple to everyone. Wonderful!

I'd love to go there every week but I have another weekly group meeting that conflicts with it. Must find another opportunity to practice my signing! I love it.

What struck me most was how difficult it would be for this group of signers to communicate with other non-signing people if they don't know anything about the culture of signing or deafness at all!

For myself, I taught a deaf student in 1998 and since then have become familiar with the d/Deaf culture over time, through formal learning and with a deaf niece. How would any hearing physician who diagnoses patients mainly through what they say, treat a d/Deaf patient appropriately if they don't know what ails them because of language difficulties???

We Remain Ourselves

(Image source: http://bit.ly/idu9Xa)

I was definitely intrigued by the title. Art-Based Research and the Intersection between Making Art and Teaching Art.

"Her primary scholarship is in curriculum development, arts integration, the uses of contemporary art in art education and the intersection between creativity and cognition." Of course I had to make the trip to Shemin's Auditorium at 6:30PM!

Dr. Julia Marshall's presentation was fascinating. She spoke on her art practice and how much she learned from teaching art to younger people, like undergraduates and graduates. That if she had just remained an artist sans the teaching aspect, her life wouldn't have been so enriched. She also presented her own art-making ideas and her students' art pieces. I took away from her presentation several ideas on how to express creativity. And to keep collecting and documenting ideas that fascinate me. Someday, they will come in useful. Like the one above, one of the Beijing Olympic Mascots, Yingying, the Tibetan antelope.

She teaches her students to keep research or reflective sketchbooks which document their development and interpretation of different source ideas juxtaposed to create some novel concept or metaphor of their understanding about an issue.

Dr. Marshall (mentored by Graeme Sullivan, just like Dr. James Haywood Rolling Jr.) believes that art research is facilitated by curiosity, purposeful art-making, investigation and creative interpretation, just like social science or scientific research. Students construct their own knowledge or understanding by observing, collecting, drawing, mapping and reflecting.

She counts Mark Dion and Simon Evans as artists worth following for their insights on art. Some primary sources for art, mapping and metaphor-making? Brace yourself: scientific illustration, maps and diagrams (e.g. acupuncture/reflexology charts), conceptual maps, packaging, popular visual culture. These were some types of maps she used to frame stories.

One clever metaphor was the use of seeds or plants to illustrate the concept of seeds of social change. Dig-plant-seed. *light bulb on*. A seed was painted up and had a propeller stuck on one of its ends to illustrate the idea of accelerating change. Fab.u.lous idea! My mind kept racing as I thought of how her ideas could be applied to the Access project and my dissertation.

She also showed us a student's Map of Printmaking. This particular student placed a veil of tissue over a graph paper and then drew an intricate web with annotations of the history of printmaking. Wow! More student work included metaphors on the Dance of Making Art and Making Meaning (drawings of dancers with words). Dr. Marshall concluded with her own art pieces. As a cartoonist (illustrator), her drawings included maps of the Art of Research. She used snowglobes with images of fallen "empires" on a theme of Snow Globes from Iraq and Afghanistan. Another collage piece was called the Game of Juxtapositions; unexpected elements brought together to unlock creative potential.

She presented a conceptual collage of imagery she created with her sculptor husband, Pangea (Greek for the ancient supercontinent), commissioned by some Korean organization. An enormous collage with images of American and Asian icons.

I'd have loved to ask a few questions but I was famished and everyone seemed eager to get out as it was 8 on a cold night and the winds were howling. I decided then that I'd write about her presentation first and then email her if I wanted to ask her anything later.

Her presentation made me think of how we could work with art students to create a performance with an exhibition. We need to think of several things first: who is our audience, what is our theme, what metaphor can we use to illustrate our message. Think, think.

At the end, Dr. Marshall said, "There is this germ (seed, bud...) in us that doesn't go away. We remain ourselves through life's trajectory." Well said. Through the years, I have stayed close to my interest in the arts and social science, and of helping others express their creative potential.

It's in the blood

Hough agreed, saying that after he began dancing with her: 'I knew that it was in her body, that it was in her blood'

(Image Source: http://bit.ly/cj5NQ5)

Some things are just genetic. I know that I'm more inclined towards the arts. It's a part of me. But it doesn't stop me from learning and growing beyond. However, as I've always been told, be an expert in an area and don't spread myself too thin. It takes too much commitment to be good in more than an area or two.

Lessons in Atlanta

Hurriedly I came, and hurriedly I left. To check out NAGC. It was interesting, attended by a large number of teachers, I think. It has been a long time since I've been in a gifted ed environment.

I attended a session (amongst others) by Dr. Mark Runco, creativity research scholar, which was more a Q&A session. I must say I was surprised by his youthfulness. I seem to have this misconception that he is a distinguished elderly gentleman because of his extensive body of research. How wrong I was. ;-P

I learned a few things at his session that might help me to refine my RAP paper further, something I would like to get done and published, someday! Dr. Runco mentioned some studies done in the 1960s about open and closed classrooms and their effects on learning. I meant to walk up and ask him about these studies but figured I could do some review of my own first. Voila, I found one study by Fantini (1962)! There will be more, I'm sure.

On my own, by myself, in Atlanta was not much fun. I walked around, ate and did things alone. This is a photo of me at the CNN Center. I went for the tour thinking it might be informative. Yes and no. Overall, $13 is quite a ripoff, but I learned a few things about the news center that were interesting. Robotic cameras. News gatherers in a cramped newsroom whose new items may not actually see the light of day if they weren't "interesting" (or sensational) enough. The anchor desk which weighed an enormous ton - with cables. Oh, and the green screen. :) Not too bad, I did learn quite a bit.

I don't quite understand why NAGC held its conference at this mammoth World Congress Center a distance away from downtown. I really would much prefer conferences where the conference site and the hotel are the same site. This way, there is a resting-place in between sessions. Maybe just slothful me, ;-P!