One of the great things about semi-structured online discussions is that they encourage you to engage in a fairly systematic way with an idea or phenomenon. In the March 2018 #creativeveHE conversation we focused on the concept and phenomenon of making artefacts.
While I have thought a lot about creativity, I had never really sat down and systematically thought about making before so it felt like new territory to explore. Over the first week we engaged with ideas like making is connecting things, that it can be viewed as a project and/or as growth in which we change and ‘undergo’ as we make, that we can view it as a process through which new forms are created in materials and that the materials themselves shape the way we think, that making involves us in a type of knowing that can only come through making, that making is an ecological phenomenon involving relationships and interactions not just with the materials we are working with, but with ourselves, our past and our environment, that imagination plays a role in both a reproductive and a generative sense. We are now at the end of this conversation and I feel I have learnt much through the different perspectives that have been shared by over 20 participants.
While I have thought a lot about creativity, I had never really sat down and systematically thought about making before so it felt like new territory to explore. Over the first week we engaged with ideas like making is connecting things, that it can be viewed as a project and/or as growth in which we change and ‘undergo’ as we make, that we can view it as a process through which new forms are created in materials and that the materials themselves shape the way we think, that making involves us in a type of knowing that can only come through making, that making is an ecological phenomenon involving relationships and interactions not just with the materials we are working with, but with ourselves, our past and our environment, that imagination plays a role in both a reproductive and a generative sense. We are now at the end of this conversation and I feel I have learnt much through the different perspectives that have been shared by over 20 participants.
One of the great mediators of my thinking about personal creativity (and now making) is Carl Rogers concept of the creative process - ‘the emergence in action of a novel relational product growing out of the uniqueness of the individual on the one hand, and the materials, events, or circumstances of their life’. It captures in a neat and concise way my experiences of making and how creativity features in it. In the light of our open conversation I can play with these ideas and relate them to’ making’. For example, making is ‘a process of imagining and connecting and combining particular things to create a relational product grown out of my uniqueness as an individual on the one hand, and the circumstances and materials of their life’.
In reading the narratives of making I am struck by the relationship between the complexity of something that is being made and the complexity of the process through which making occurs. For example, +Simon Rae shared a lovely story of sitting in a church and sketching what he saw and felt. He describes a particular set of circumstances and materials and an act that is contained within a short period of time in an environment that is more or less stable. No one interferes with his sketching and his product emerges quickly.
On the other hand, contrast this situation with +Jennifer Willis' description of trying to work collaboratively with her students to make a promotional leaflet for their school – a narrative that is still unfolding more than three weeks after she started as cirumstances changed to disrupt her plans. Complexity cannot be controlled it must be worked with, responded and adapted to. When more than one person is involved in making we bring into the process multiple uniquenesses, multiple circumstances, materials and events in multiple lives and these become involved and entangled in a merry dance that move backwards and forwards towards a shared goal.
In reading the narratives of making I am struck by the relationship between the complexity of something that is being made and the complexity of the process through which making occurs. For example, +Simon Rae shared a lovely story of sitting in a church and sketching what he saw and felt. He describes a particular set of circumstances and materials and an act that is contained within a short period of time in an environment that is more or less stable. No one interferes with his sketching and his product emerges quickly.
On the other hand, contrast this situation with +Jennifer Willis' description of trying to work collaboratively with her students to make a promotional leaflet for their school – a narrative that is still unfolding more than three weeks after she started as cirumstances changed to disrupt her plans. Complexity cannot be controlled it must be worked with, responded and adapted to. When more than one person is involved in making we bring into the process multiple uniquenesses, multiple circumstances, materials and events in multiple lives and these become involved and entangled in a merry dance that move backwards and forwards towards a shared goal.
Early in the conversation I posted a story about my brother in law who makes and decorates with a design or symbolic picture, a bowl of porridge everyday and posts a photo of it on Instagram and facebook, giving pleasure to many people in the process. This prompted one of the participants to draw attention to the idea that we use our everyday creativity to make gifts that we give willingly to others.
The gifts we give through our open, on-line conversations, are the type of gifts that don’t leave us with less of what we had before we gave the gift, rather they give us pleasure as others appreciate and comment on what we have shared. Furthermore, what we make and share may inspire further acts of creativity and making. In giving we form a bridge between our own mind and world to the minds and world of others. In this way a gift can have a cascading effect and unknown consequences as its effects ripple through the world.
This is what underlies the spirit and culture of open learning and open education to which this conversation is dedicated. The conversation and the images and stories of the things we made and shared is a gift to anyone who takes the trouble to view our Google+ forum or the YouTube movie below, or in good time – the issue of Creative Academic Magazine we will make.
Norman Jackson
YOUTUBE VIDEO OF OUR CREATIONS
This is what underlies the spirit and culture of open learning and open education to which this conversation is dedicated. The conversation and the images and stories of the things we made and shared is a gift to anyone who takes the trouble to view our Google+ forum or the YouTube movie below, or in good time – the issue of Creative Academic Magazine we will make.
Norman Jackson
YOUTUBE VIDEO OF OUR CREATIONS
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