A minute to "charge"

These days I really don’t have time to blog. I have two dead-lines in a few days, and it feels like I don’t have time for anything else. Yet, I have to breathe (in rhythmic repetitions that my body approves) and have to keep my eyes open. I should try to deny the sounds of the birds outside the window – but I can't. Even if my eyes are mostly busy with the screen, I still give them a minute (or two) to charge… through my aesthetic attention.

Here is what I observed during a minute of such attention: all of these flowers would fit in the category “pink orchid”, and still all of them are so different in size, shape, nuances, patterns, details…

“And so, we examine our dreams. What do we value mostly in ourselves? What do we want to become? We try to have a glimpse of the riches that life has to offer us: to hear more, see more, perceive more, feel more – an aesthetic experience which touches the subtleties and beauty beyond the simple boxes of numbers and other useful categories” (Bresler, L. 1991).

Fortunately, our senses do not just get numb by becoming a researcher. On contrary, we need them more than ever!

Reference: Stake, R., Bresler, L. and Mabry, L. (1991): Custom and Cherishing: The Arts in Elementary Schools, Urbana

A distant celebration

Happy birthday, Norway!

Last night I watched Eurovision Song Contest from my hotel in Stockholm and cheered on Alexander Rybak and his crew! What a fantastic event to start the national holiday by winning!!! I didn’t think that I would so much miss being in Norway. Thanks to the internet connection, I have possibility to take part in the celebration!

These days I am attending a course with Liora Bresler and other (Swedish) students. We have been discussing writing about lived experience in qualitative research, and different points of view. I am trying to imagine how it is to be my son today … trying to “recall his memories” through some old images I want to share with you. I wonder if it is possible (through some kind of empathic approach) to “re-experience” the lived experience of others - ?

They say that 17-th of May is children’s holiday! The day starts watching processions, or walking (in this case sitting in a carriage) in a school procession.

Children are supposed to look neat and tidy, and during the day get green grass-stains on their knees, sticky ice cream spots all over their body and wet hair, and have fun! And the weather is supposed to be very nice, sunny and warm, so that the children wouldn’t freeze after they have splashed water over each other. Joy and fun have to colour everything children do on this day! Enjoy the day!

Associations and inspirations

I got a new umbrella – nothing special, its even a cheap example, but each time I get the umbrella in the corner of my eye (it has to be just a gleam) I experience a sudden desire for a glass of cold, sweat, creamy coffee. How strange is that?!
After a couple of coffee brakes, while driving my car with the umbrella sticking under my bag on the front passenger seat, I understood that my eyes had registered something I consciously didn’t realize: the pattern of the umbrella textile had some kind of resemblance with a particular coffee package. The signals between the pattern and my feeling of coffee-thirst were instant that they either went strait through my brain, or somehow managed to avoid the places where my thinking was situated. The visual information went directly to my stomach. Other times it can be a different kind of "unconscious information" that initiates associations, or inspirations.

In her presentation on EECERA- conference in Stavanger (September 2008), Hillevi Lanz Taguchi showed an example of a child’s play with clay, and mentioned how the material “communicated with the child”. I believe that materials can “speak back” - they give resistance and offer a variety of qualities. I know they do – I’ve experienced that many times.

Here is an example of a textile that gave me associations to old letters, envelopes, stamps… The textile has inspired the details for two garments I made. The process of making required precision, and challenged my “aesthetic attention” in making choices of additional materials: I even used some string because of its origin, colour and associations to binding a parcel. before posting.