Category: EDG 7931 Arts Based Research

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Symphonic Literature | Academics performed

I signed my contract for 20 hours of work in the lab and in CORE. It came with a condition that I am enrolled 9 graduate hours. And so I thought I had only one class left to take–design of systematic studies. The rest could be direct research, and so I went on a hunt for a class that is both interesting and online or offered in AM (I promised Eddie this will be the last semester of him rushing across two counties home so I could be at school by 5).

First, I skimmed painting and drawing offerings–no luck. This would have been perfect! Then I considered a course from Adult Ed. This would have been a sensible choice, yes. But it just sounded like another class. Then I found Symphonic Literature course and sent an email to Jenni right away to see if my committee will approve. She said do it.

The next day I sent an email to the Music professor, Dr. Robison and we had a couple of back and forths about the content of the course and whether I have what it takes to get a good grade. There were a couple of thoughts of a philosophical nature tangled up with the logistics, and when we arrived at the conclusion that this class is a good fit for what I am trying to do, he agreed to issue me a permit.

Overjoyed, I sent an email to Jenni and Janet, and Janet replied the same evening (and copied Dr. Robison even though I sent my little report just to Jenni and her) with and encouragement and a little praise for me. Dr. Robison did not expect that because he felt the urge to reply and to acknowledge how well-supported I am.

The next morning Janet sent us another email. She addressed him “John” even though she never met him, and invited him (and me) to speak at her ABR class this fall. I felt like I was listening on a conversation between my dad and my teacher–when we moved when I was in first grade, my dad went to my new school with me to convince the teacher to let me join her class. Her class was full, and she gave my dad a hard time complaining how she already has so many students, but took me in in the end. I was standing there in the hallway, sweat dripping down my back (it was already late October, radiators were on), wondering what my fate will be. From my lower-to-the-ground perspective (I was short even for my age), the grown-ups were big and important and equals. I felt important too since my dad was advocating for me.

This memory reminded me of this conversation between Janet and Dr. Robison, and me. None of the negatives, but rather, the feeling of being important enough to be the topic of a conversation. The trust in Janet and her support. The moment of standing at a threshold, the feeling of potential–then it was almost a physical sensation, now it is thoughtful acknowledgement.

What really moved me to record this here, is the assumption in Janet’s invitation to her ABR class: Janet, an academic, reached out to Dr. Robison, another academic, ASSUMING he would be interested in joining his scholarship with ours. Unless, of course, Janet read up on him and knew exactly who she was inviting. It could be a little bit of both. Janet is very opportunistic in every best sense of the word–this is what makes her so amazing to watch at work! So it is possible she simply grabbed the bull by its horns. In this case her assumptions make a really interesting case study for analysis. If she did read Dr. Robison’s CV, then her email certainly takes on a different, not any less interesting angle of how interdisciplinary is performed, for example.

For now, I will stash this and add it to the many other notes of this sort on performing the academic.

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Research should be available to wider audiences!

At the end of her “Method Meets Art” book, Leavy raises an important question: who is the research for? Who benefits from it? Why do we do research? She argues that Arts-Based Research closes the gap between the “general public” and the privileged academically-trained audiences.

I cannot agree more! Teachers train on the job, by learning “tips and tricks” passed along from one teacher to another. They learn how to find a way to reach those “hard-to-reach” kids heuristically. They try what works and what does not. I doubt most have the time to search, read, and decode scholarly texts written in the traditional stiff voice of a white male professor.

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I am a kite

I have been thinking for a while about my lack of focus. I get distracted a lot. I cannot seem to stick to a research project then publish it. I write bits and pieces, I read; I get excited, and at times, I wonder if I am manic. As an emerging researcher, I have been riding this wave of revelations about who I am and what research is. Often, my encounters with people, readings, and movies create a “leavening” where ideas for research, observations, epiphanies seem to resemble bubbles that come up to the surface of the dough with no apparent pattern or predictable rate–they just bubble up.

I have been observing this process; I have been amused by it, and even awed–I feel creativity and life coursing through my veins. I want to create, to write, to draw, to tell amazing stories that are happening in plain sight, through daily living, but are somehow missed in the cacophony of the daily life. I want to research the “now,” the moment…

I have been distracted… Dr. Richards pointed it out on many occasions. Normally, I would be concerned… I would feel anxious–at stake is my CV, my readiness to find that job that will pay my student loans and help ease my children into adulthood. But I have been enjoying the process, and somehow I feel the importance of this leavening experience. Yet, I am starting to question myself, whether I am overindulging in these moments.

Today, I read Leavy’s (Method Meets Art) chapter on visual arts, and somehow I came to a good idea of a visual to communicate my emergence from a commercial artist to researcher–I envision myself flying a kite. I am running as fast as I can, thinking the speed will help it go up. Then it falls to the ground, limp. I pick it up and try running again. This time, a breeze carries it just above my head for several feet. Inevitably, it falls. I pick it up. I run myself to exhaustion. I take breaks. I keep examining it–perhaps, something is wrong with it? I adjust little things–the string that keeps it together, the frame, the shape. I know the color has nothing to do with my kite’s ability to fly, but I keep re-painting it just because. Still, it flies only short for short periods of time, and not too high. I keep picking it up, keep examining it, and keep trying to fly it. I keep trying because this is the kind of person I am–stubborn and maybe naive. I know that all I need is a fresh wind to help raise my kite past the layer of still air, to the heights where currents constantly move. Where they can pick up my kite and sustain it all the way past the clouds. My kite is my confidence. I have it. All I need is the right moment to make it fly.

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ABR assignment

My cultural pedigree condescends pedestrian art-making.
Least the greatness of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky, and of the other great Russians fades into banality.
This must not happen. It would be tragic.

The plebeian poetry written to grace greeting cards, and to vent frustrations with the authorities in humorous rhyme is a genre of its own.
Here too, the poet must be good and clever or else, keep quiet.

I have searched my entire life for the line that marks the end of mediocracy and the beginning of greatness.
As a child, I wished to approach and to cross it, but it always eluded me.
Determined to find it, I taught myself to be analytical, conscientious, and studious. I learned to be critical.

I beat myself up to become small and inconspicuous.
The plan was to sneak up to the border of greatness unnoticed and to get discovered once I am through. By then, it will be too late for them to kick me out.
But no one discovered me yet. Sometimes, I feel like I keep lurking in the vicinity of the border. Sometimes by myself. More often, in crowds.
But of course! Greatness sees me coming and moves out of my sight. Maybe I should make myself even smaller. Or maybe I should explore alternative routes.

Learning English mapped new highways for me. The American culture planted new road signs. After 21 years of living in the U.S., I finally became comfortable with this new terrain, and I recall that my search for greatness all but faded at some point.

Until I went back to school six years ago, that is. Once again, I found myself wandering the familiar woods with a flashlight and a sleeping bag. This time, however, qualitative research forced me out of my camping spot.

In the past year, I hiked some difficult, but beautiful paths. I met huge people and those who walk on stilts because they want to look taller. I also met people who hide in the shadows. I feasted on exquisite ideas and forgot that I worked so hard to keep myself tiny. As the result, I grew.  I suspect people have no idea I tinker with my height, and I never told anyone that I have been looking for greatness because to this day I am mortified to end up as a joke, to be deported back to mediocracy with no chance to appeal.

My latest excursion to ABR brought me to some uncomfortable places. I found the old footprints I made as an artist years ago thinking they will finally lead me to greatness. The memories of that trip caused me pain.

Maybe this is why in the summer I disassembled my Qual II projects, tore off my sketches and threw away the blackboards. I still love to sketch just for me, when I have time. I think I might even get better with practice. But in Qual II, I dared to produce sketches purposefully, I attached them to significance and I caught myself in the trap.

Sketching does not and will never lead me to greatness; I learned that long ago. See, my footprints on that path are barely visible and overtaken by weeds. This path has been abandoned. No trespassing! Yet, I trespassed and dragged Janet into it last spring. I do not think she knows I am a fake artist. Yet. Or maybe she does but is being gentle, or worse yet (anathema!) she cannot tell the difference. Either way, I am deeply embarrassed.

The lesson on the poetic inquiry made me wonder. Reading one of Janet’s articles containing poems last month primed me well.

This week, I dutifully found a study designed as a poetic inquiry and once again, instinctively, got out the measuring stick of Pushkin and Lermontov. Let’s see if this counts as poetry, I thought.

The researcher took the words of her interview transcripts and put them together into poems, one poem per person. However, I realized that I did not see poems, I heard voices of people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder telling their stories. At some point, we thought Becky met the criteria for this disorder, and I remember feeling terrified, hopeless, angry, and exhausted. I read that people BPD make the most unpleasant, uncooperative, and infuriating patients and family members. Their voices are ugly. I agree. I discovered that earplugs are therapeutic.

… what if I have been misinformed? Maybe greatness has no border. Maybe greatness is like the city of El Dorado, a beautiful, seductive myth.

 

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Narrative Article Review

The title:

Through the Looking Glass Space to New Ways of Knowing: A Personal Research Narrative.

Author(s):

Gabrielle Brand

Research question(s)

No formal question or clearly defined wonderment in a methodological sense, however, the author wondered: “if life is lived through the stories we tell, then it must also potentially allow individuals to adapt, shift, and modify their stories, transforming their lived experiences.” (p. 517)
Another question underlined the original inquiry–the author’s dissertation–that sprung the present study: “Whose knowledge is of value?” (p.  520).

Writing style

Active voice,

theoretical perspective(s)

No clearly articulated theoretical frameworks; however, the author privileged  Narrative medicine, “unlearning”

study participants

Self, healthcare professionals collectively, and pregnant teens

methodologies

Personal narrative

discoveries

The author’s own epistemological views and experiences were in the way of hearing the stories of teenage mothers.

“The act of storying research experiences can assist researchers and/or practitioners in recognizing unhealthy power relationships and has the potential to de-institutionalize relationships. As I discovered, unexpected forms of knowledge can result from multi-voiced narratives that encourage an
interdependent deep learning journey. The act of acknowledging, telling, and sharing stories promotes personal and professional growth by creating a different “looking glass” space in which to safely view and reflect on our personal and professional stories.” (p. 523)

questions left unanswered typical in arts-based research

 

conclusions

implications

Final Question: In what ways did arts-based representations provide meaning/information that could not be discovered with traditional qualitative methods?

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Discomfort with art and vulnerability and creating art for research

Words have been my strength, the tool of choice. I spoke very early and I spoke well. The constant stream of questions drove my mother crazy, she used to say that mouth never closes.

In my Qual 1 class, when we had to write a reflexivity statement, I was comfortable with being frank and vulnerable. I even made it a point to contemplate whether I comfortable with vulnerability when Siying, Wenwei, and I worked on our trio-autoethnography proposal.

I do not feel the same when I draw or make art. I do not consider myself good at all. I fear harsh criticism, I do not feel comfortable being a vulnerable artist. I got over this problem as a graphic designer while I was in design school. I taught myself to verbalize and defend my choices based on clearly articulated criteria, but I cannot yet do the same with my drawings and sketches, especially in the context of research.

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Method Meets Art (ABR) quotes

Leavy, P. (2014). Method meets art, second edition: Arts-based research practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.comCreated from usf on 2018-08-27 09:02:12.

 

“Narrative researchers attempt to avoid the objectification of research participants and aim to preserve the complexity of human experience (Josselson, 2006). The turn to narrative can be attributed to a confluence of other factors as well. Stefinee Pinnegar and J. Gary Daynes (2007) note four converging phenomena with respect to the turn to narrative inquiry: (1) the relationship of the researched and researcher, (2) the move from numbers to words as data, (3) a shift from the general to the particular, and (4) the emergence of new epistemologies.” p. 42

Just thinking:

So far, qualitative researchers effectively defended the importance of their subjectivity and solidified their presence in own studies. Similarly, we stretched the boundaries of what counts as data by turning to narratives, music, drawings, even fiction, and other forms of artistic expression. How, then, do we define research? What makes a difference between the work of a “proper” social scientist and a journalist? Why are some pieces beelined into academic databases and others exist in digital spaces of the world wide web?

Is it the degree that makes researcher a researcher? The formal training? Does one have to have a degree in teaching to be a teacher? Does one have to go through chef training to bring superior culinary experiences and then discuss their methods and undergirding cultural experiences? Is “research” a term either deliberately sustained or occurred as a by-product of neoliberal worldview?

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Week 1 (still)

After yesterday’s reading of the “Every word is true,” I resolve to keep a journal. I took note of how helpful Dr. Richards’ students’ notes have been to my understanding of how we students grow in the program.

I think back to the time when I just started my undergraduate in psychology and kept telling my husband “if I could just somehow peek into Becky’s head to see and hear what and how she thinks, this would be amazing.” I cannot obviously do that, but at the very least, I can offer a peek into my own head should anyone ever (or even just me) find it useful.

So when during our first session we were taking a minute to come up with a question, I reached out to Christy and said “you know, I still do not know how Arts can be used as research. I have some ideas about I want to do for my project, but  I am far from working it out.” Christy agreed. She was stuck trying to figure out how to apply arts-based research techniques in her field of geology.” I signed up for this class because of Dr. Richards and because I knew this class is going to be life-changing as I have been working to carve my path apart from a positivist approach to knowing. But I am slightly skeptical because I want to be. Because I want to scrutinize this new way to do research. Because I need to prepare myself for the critics.

Nineteen years ago, almost to the date, I made a giant leap by signing up for my graphic design courses. I remember how proud and scared I was. I mostly worried about my English and being able to pay for my education (as I had to support myself with no help from anyone, not even family). However, a great deal of this excitement came from the fact that I finally was able to answer that question “Who am I?” In the early twenties, this question was larger than life to me, an immigrant, still living through the culture shock. I was lost in every way. I could not tell a word about my identity. So I felt that by starting my courses I finally “sealed my fate:” I decided I was an artist. So I also worried whether I have enough talent to be successful on this path, whether I belong. I was afraid that when I show my work, all the other (decidedly more talented) students around me will laugh and say “and what are you, giftless,  doing here with us, the talented bunch?”

Now that  I think about it, I always wanted to be discovered. This was the only way for me to know whether I am any good. If someone recognizes something in me or my work, then it must be true, and I am not making things up–they see it, too. This probably would have been at least a little valid had I stayed in Russia and around my family. Unlike here, in the US, my childhood ecology did not support spontaneous praise. I say ecology because I do not know whether it was cultural, or specific to my family and town. I thought you had to be someone truly great: Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Turgenev. The bar was high, and there definitely was one. You were not great until you reached and passed that line… I wanted to become great (not as great as Repin or Tolstoy, of course–somehow I KNEW I just don’t have whatever they had), but I thought I still might have a shot at some regional greatness of sorts… I just needed validation. So I patiently sat there and waited to be recognized. I did really well in college. I graduated with a realization I will not likely do anything groundbreaking with my work, but at least I knew I am good at graphic design. A perfectionist, I worked very hard and convinced myself that I do have some talent, but to get anywhere, I better work hard. I believe this thinking fueled my anxiety for the next decade until I eventually quit to freelance from home.

This longing for “greatness” came to life again when I enrolled at Saint Leo into the psychology program. I studied all the “greats” in the field who pioneered, discovered, and propelled psychology as a discipline. I always told my husband I could care less I someone told me some pop star or an actor was a few feet away from me. I never experienced that obsession with celebrities. But I would have freaked out and squealed like a high-school freshman if I discovered that I am standing next to Zimbardo or Bronfenbrenner. Weird? What is this strange thing that I have about greatness? I still wait to be discovered sometimes, but now that I met and worked with some amazing and accomplished professors–Lilli, Janet, Dana–and received their praise freely and abundantly, I suddenly realize that a great part of why they are so great is because they are so supportive and nurturing and generous in addition to their contributions to their fields. Most, if not all their students are “great.” But with so much “greatness” around me, I once again feel lost.  And so I sit here thinking about Arts-Based Research and wonder if I will ever do anything special with myself if I will ever be “great.” …only this time I suspect that this kind of thinking may not be healthy. I need to revisit this contruct of greatness of mine…

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Week 1

We just had our first class two days ago. This is my third class with Dr. Richards, and I am not surprised to feel that rush of energy, an appetite to think, create, challenge myself.

I finally read her “Every Word is True” and feel like I cheated myself by not reading this manuscript when she first mentioned it back in May. I was too swamped then and felt I could not possibly squeeze a multi-page article. I should have. It would have helped me in my academic writing class. I also see how and where I connect with my fellow students. I feel a kinship because I was allowed to take a peek inside their heads as they progressed through their Qualitative 1 class. I do not relate to most of the students who co-wrote the study because I did not feel tense about my Qual 1 (I also did not take it with Dr. Richards). Instead, I could not wait to take it.

Now I see that intellectual “leavening” I invariably experience at the beginning of each Dr. Richard’s course does not just happen to me.  I wonder if this is so because Qualitative research stimulates thought by demanding we leave the boundaries of routine, or because Dr. Richards inspires it. I think it may be both. The subject matter generates the opening, Dr. Richards helps keep it open.