The Creativity Experiment

I have been working for a while as a Creative Agent for Creative Partnerships through the UK Centre for Carnival Arts (which will be heaving right now as today is Luton Carnival Day). You may have heard that our funding has stopped so we are making plans for our departure into pastures new. One of these plans has been to set up a network of schools who are committed to exploring creative techniques of teaching and learning whose relationships will form a legacy network that will outlive creative partnerships provision. We have called this the Creative Schools Network and you can follow us on twitter here

The reason I am writing is because we have developed a technique that seemed to have a significant impact on those who came to the last meeting. We have been playing with formats and trying to balance the need for input with plenty of opportunity for actual networking. We decided to nestle our approach in the everyday problems faced by the teachers who come from a range of subjects and settings. Our mantra from the early days was to be as useful as possible in the shortest time. We know that teachers are busy and being at our meetings means not being in the classroom – so we have to make it count.

So this is what we did. We undertook a Creativity Experiment based on the Action Research Cycle and the Osbourn Parnes Creative Problem Solving Technique. We were hosted by a local school and the session ran from 9 – 12.45. We first explored what we mean by creativity by looking at a sample of the hundreds of creativity definitions out there in order to encourage participants to recognise themselves as creative (and to divorce the deep-rooted link between artistic ability and creativity). We then led a short period of reflection to encourage participants to scan their professional landscapes to identify a problem that they wanted to give some attention to (this would be the problem finding part of the CPS model, or the reflection of the Action Research Cycle). For some the word ‘problem’ was a barrier, so asking participants to identify an area that they would like to improve on worked better. We asked them to use the ‘invitational stem’ ‘ In what ways might…’ to phrase their problem, and to identify a problem that was at once important but within their power to change. This represented both divergent (scanning) and convergent thinking (problem selection and redefinition) of the problem solving process.

We then led them into the solution finding stage of the Creative Problem Solving process through a divergent thinking exercise. Armed with their ‘problem’ we set up a speed dating cycle where they took their problem to each of 6 creative practitioners (a puppetter, audio artist, pop up book maker, dancer, sculptress and set designer) who all responded in the moment to their problem. At the end of the session each participant had had 6 conversations and been exposed to a wide range of people and possible solutions. Of course not all solutions would be immediately applicable or attractive to the participants, however many set off new ways of thinking about old problems, allowing them to break with habitual thinking. This exposure to a range of responses enabled more ‘combinatory play’ to occur and increasing, we hoped, the possibility of developing solutions. We asked them to again enter into convergent thinking by selecting one course of action and creating a hypothesis for their problem. We simply asked that they create a sentence using the words ‘if’ and ‘then’ to structure their statement which made it testable. We encouraged participants to give some thought to the practicalities of their experiment including how they would test any impact. At this stage, mindful that testing and data can strike fear into the heart of any warm blooded practitioner we reminded people that whatever told them their was a problem in the first place might well be the same thing that told them if anything changed. If this was their ‘gut’ then that was good enough for us. This represented the planning stage of the action research cycle.

The result was that teachers came together, identified a problem and a wide range of solutions and turned it into a plan of action. They built relationships with each other and with creative practitioners. This can only be good for creative practice within schools.

The workshop seemed to, well, work. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and people left feeling that the session was relevant and useful to them as individuals. All participants were invited back to report on their progress and we will simply repeat the cycle, probably with a different bank of practitioners, to keep widening the possible links and combinations between new approaches and old problems.

Learning to drive in the carpark

I wanted to share a picture of one of my students with you. His mum has given me permission to use the picture but asked that I call him by another name. So I shall call him Karl. When I say one of ‘my’ students I don’t really mean that. He is part of a home education community group called PLACE who, when it suits their needs, commission teachers to come in and teach them. I am not a teacher, as it happens, but I facilitate both Arts Award and the AQA project qualification with them.

The AQA qualification is best described as a content-free but process rigorous qualification; learners can choose a topic of their choice and respond to it in a medium of their choice.

The AQA qualification is interested in authentic assessment. It encourages learners and their guides to find ways that they can test their learning that suits the nature of their project. This year we came together in a local theatre, also called The Place, where the students held stalls, put on fashion shows, showed films and gave presentations. Karl gave a Powerpoint Presentation and had a stall. He had made a model of a particular Victorian garden for his project. He told us that if we could go back in time and show his model to the Victorian gardeners they would recognize it as their own.

I was pleased with the use of the theatre. It gave us a range of spaces that the students could choose from and so a range of presentation methods. The ambience of the theatre added something to the nature of the spoken presentations for sure. But in many ways it was still only an imitation of the real thing, like learning to drive in a car park.

The really impressive stuff happened after the projects were handed in. Karl had shown his model to the head gardener of the garden he modeled. The gardener was so impressed he contacted English Heritage. English Heritage contacted Karl. They wanted to see him and his model. Karl has now got appointments with a number of magazines to give interviews and talk about his work.

It matters not one bit what grade he gets for that piece of work – what matters is that it has been authentically assessed by experts in the field and found to be of an extremely high quality. What if more kids had opportunities like that? What if they could truly understand the value of their work? To do this we need to let them out on the road more.

Hippy credentials

Now my hippy credentials are piss poor. Trust me. The last time I achieved a nirvana like state it was in a Chrysler with a tank full of diesel on the new bypass between Bedford and Milton Keynes.

But a few years back I heard that we, the good people of Britain, give Tesco £1 for every £7 we spend in shops.

I think that’s too much. So I made a promise to reduce my dependency on the big T. It took a while to stop the habit, I’ve got to tell you. I know it is madness to dedicate my shopping-self to one shop all for the promise of the price of a Christmas turkey in ‘points’ at the end of the year, but it was hard to break the spell.

This week I noticed that I didn’t go at all – I had got my meat from the butchers, veg from the farm shop and milk, chocolate and crisps from Nobbies Hobbies, my local shop (no, I didn’t make that up). But the thing I am most proud of is my bottle of fairy,

This bottle has been refilled with my trusty funnel and bulk bottles of ecover successfully for a YEAR, and by me, a non-hippy.

I think bulk buying is the unsung weapon of the ethical shopper. It reduces packaging and petrol and its cheaper, so why don’t we do more of it? YOU WILL ALWAYS NEED LOO ROLL, YOU WILL EAT RICE NEXT WEEK, TINNED FOOD NEVER GOES OFF. I don’t know why we think we need to buy only what we need for the week. Of course if space is tight or you don’t have a freezer its not going to work for you, but please, next time you are trying to decide where to go for the small packet of pasta, or the medium size one, go for the extra large one. You will eat it, I promise.

There is an element of denial about supermarket shopping that leads to waste and wasted journey’s – I used to buy much more veg than we ever ate, and much less wine than we actually drank. This meant we threw out a lot and I was often seen in Tesco’s at 7pm clasping a bottle of vino in my paw. There is a theory behind all of this of course, I think it is called something like symbolic consumerism, but whatever it is, it makes much more sense to keep an eye on what you actually consume and then figure out the best way to buy it.

There are things I will probably always buy at Tesco’s – breakfast cereal, nappies, wipes, loo roll, ice cream, salt – but at least I am now doing it because it is the best all round choice for me. When I do buy I buy as much as I can store. I am buying and freezing meat from the butcher, and veg from the farm shop (although frozen still from Tesco), gifts from the independents in town or online, and laundry and cleaning stuff from the ethical superstore (although this isn’t the cheapest option and one that would change if I lost my work). I’m still mainly buying milk from Tesco’s or the local shop and think that getting on the milk round might be better… but just need to do it now.

There is a part of me realizing, reluctantly, that some of the things I do go back to Tesco’s for, because they are cheapest there, are the things that I don’t really need at all (biscuits, fizzy drinks, squash, frozen pizza and crisps)

Anyway. It may seem banal to be posting about this, especially as my efforts are not earth shattering, but I do believe that shopping is a political act whether we are conscious of it or not. Where you spend your money makes a real difference, so just think about it. I think we can fall into the trap of thinking that it is all or nothing, or that it is somehow radical to avoid the superstore superpowers, but really it just makes more sense. Spending £50 a month at your local butchers is going to make a very different kind of impact on your community than spending £30 on cheap meat at Tescos. Reusing one fairy liquid bottle and bulk buying the liquid will make a difference to the amount in landfill, as will buying 24 loo rolls rather than 4.

It’s simple really.

(and we now order wine by the crate)

whyfeedbackisbetterthangrades

Its been a while dear reader. I was distracted momentarily by organizing a little arts fest in some empty shops and have been submerged in work both paid and for my action research project. For anyone who has been following my tweets you may know that this has not been the best experience i have ever had. I plan to blog more about my experience as an adult learner another day when I have had time to reflect. I think it is to do with grades. In fact i know it is. Grades, I am coming to realise are the single most damaging thing for real learning. They make you behave far too well. My grades have fallen steadily since I started my MSc 2 years ago and I am now wondering if I will even pass. I got a first for my first degree, and now I am scraping C’s. I have been doubting my learning and doubting the thing that I find most mesmerizing about my professional life, that is the practical use of what I call ‘metaphor techniques’. I’ll tell you more about them one day too. But for now I wanted to share something with you. It is some feedback from a participant in one of my metaphor sessions. it makes it all worth it.

“Having you, as a fresh mirror or prism through which to project and refract the spectrum of our thoughts and practices, enabled us to consider, more dispassionately, the future changes as possibilities and challenges, rather than obstacles and disempowerments. Your methodology suited us, it presented our group with an intriguing an engaging set of challenges, which fitted with our approach as educators – we could see where you were going with us and felt happy to be guided. Without any of us individually having any evidence of your particular skills, you demonstrated your ‘metaphor’ methodology practically, so that anyone with a scrap of visual intelligence could participate and you could gently help us to disentangle our thoughts about the past and the future, which is what you did. I am hopeful you will be able to return for a third session, to help us to build on the open and optimistic results we ended with at the last session, in order to create some concrete intentions to enable us to structure plans for the future.”

That, my dear reader, is worth more than my entire MSc rolled up. If that is what you get when you flunk college, then give me the dunce hat and i shall wear it with pride.

craftpunk

Craft is a quiet word. It does not scream revolution.

But craft is the deliberate scuffing of shoes, a badge on a school bag, the shortening of trousers and the loosening of waistbands. It is sellotape, sugru and thread. It is an adaptation of the world to fit our needs. It makes the anonymous personal and the bland beautiful. It is the human hand on the mass produced. It brings utility and beauty to the old and unloved. It starts conversations. It is an expression. It saves money and makes money and makes money irrelevant for a short while at least. It is what we were made to do. It is problem solving, tinkering, art. It gives us power over our objects. It makes us engage in the process not the product.

Craft is not the preserve of middle class mums and old people (although they do it well). It is a small persistent counter current to consumerism. It makes us creators. It gives us power. It makes us human.

Craft may be the punkest thing you’ll ever do.

once upon a time

From time to time I come across friends and allies putting on events that I feel would benefit from a web presence. Being of the old school they tend to ignore me. So this time I am trying to prove them wrong by posting their fabulous events from my blog and introducing the world of cyberspace to the tradition of story telling.

Storytelling in Bedford
Bringing performance storytellers to an adult audience

———————————
Simon Heywood

From Sheffield, twenty years a professional, the hairyscholarstorytellerfasttalkingguitarstrummer.

Like all the best storytellers, he’s one of a kind.

This time he’s in the green, unpleasant land of…

Darkest England

Friday 4th March, 8pm

5 Lansdowne Rd

Book your ticket now £7
Phone Mark 01234 217575 or Jane 01462 711815

An evening of lesser-known stories from the dark side of the tradition. Advisory: may contain extreme peril and violence, black dogs, dead moons, flying children, rose trees, Charles Dickens’ least favourite bedtime story and a man from the Cambridgeshire drug squad.

flooking brilliant

This post is about secrets, puzzles, treasure, and maps.

Everyone loves a treasure hunt don’t they? For those of us growing up in Bedfordshire the story of the hunt for the Golden Hare seeped into our imaginations – a treasure hunt told through a childrens book, Masquerade by Kit Williams, with the golden prize found in Ampthill, a sleepy Bedfordshire market town. It was before my time (being published the year I was born) but the mythology surrounding it intrigued me, and still stories about the hunt surface from time to time in the national press.

There may not be golden hares buried in our towns but our iphones can reveal the hidden worlds around us.

Geocaching caught my attention a few years back. These high tech treasure hunts involve romping through places to find hidden caches which contain a mini log book and sometimes some treats to swap. You need a GPS device to find them, and when you turn on that GPS device you will be amazed to find that geocaches are all around you, some easier to find than others. Lucky for us an iphone can do the job well. There is such potential for tourist boards, country parks, schools and communities to make use of them.

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Two other digital mapping applications are worthy of a look. Flook and audioboo (complementary in my view). Flook describes itself as a location browser. It encourages users to post the kind of local secret knowledge that you won’t find in the tourist information office. Audioboos allow you to attach sounds to spaces and places, or stories of course. Both allow you to attach digital data (audio clips or photographs and text) to a geographical area. Others walking through with the same application can find your information. I’ve screen-grabbed a couple of my flooks for you and inserted them above. You can also see my card stream here

So what does this mean? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Oh dear reader, this means that we, the people can map our spaces and places in any way we like – we can share secrets, spread our local info, allow visitors to our towns to go “off piste”. It is a democratization of mapping, no less. We can create business for our local businesses, the ones who really do make the best coffee in town, we can show the sides of our towns that we are really proud of, or that intrigue us, or make us laugh. We can talk about spaces places or things with others who share our space. Things that maybe only a few people know. It is the way that people will navigate their way through new locales in the future. Local knowledge made global.

This excites me beyond measure, BUT there is a catch. I am writing this on my shiny apple mac and access flook & audioboo on my iphone. I wish I could claim that these things were as a result of my cutting edge technological coolness but alas they are not. I simply happen to have them. Others simply don’t. If we decide to harness these incredible tools we need to think about those who have the knowledge but may not have the gadget.

I am organising a ‘Hidden Bedford’ day soon. An informal gathering of people with and without iphones. I hope to gather around an actual map (made of actual paper) and ask people to think about their favourite places in the centre of our town. Patterns will emerge on that map – routes will suggest themselves, and I hope, we can match up those with the technology and those with the stories to tell. And then we go for a stroll, mapping it as we go. We will need each other. We will learn stuff. We will own our town just a little bit more.

If you would like to come, let me know.

IheartArtichoke

I would just like to profess my love for artichoke

They create public art of the best kind

They do impossible things (often before breakfast)

Which is why I’ve just booked my ticket to Dine with Alice

And so should you

barefootintescos

When I was young my Dad gave me a picture of a cartoon man picking up a paving slab in a city and finding grass beneath it.

The French 1968 rioters cried “Sous les pavés, la plage!” as they found the beach under the paving slabs they were hurling at police.

Something happens when you look at a townscape and reframe it. It is not easy, and sometimes your mind only sees it for a moment. But if you focus on the trees or the rise and fall of the ground, the landscape underneath pops out and dominates, like the two faces popping out from the vase. You see the town as built on soil rather than the grass verges as decoration of the town.

The built world is so very real, so concrete. We fit into the town and follow its signs. We bend to its will, somehow.

What would happen if we went barefoot in Tescos? What if we experienced buildings in the same way we experience sand and soil?

creating and consuming

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I have been attending some of the Konvertible workshops in Bedford. Konvertible is a project led by artist Lisa Cheung and funded by the Arts Council and Bedford Creative Arts. The aim is to have local people create goods from materials sourced locally (for the main part), to be sold via a purpose-built mobile kiosk to local people. People take part for free, the materials are supplied and all profits go back into the project enabling more workshops to be held. I’ve been to two workshops, and babysitter willing, will attend my third tonight.

I have been quite moved by my experience, and unexpectedly so. I knew I wanted to take part, I absolutely love to take part in art projects, so it is no surprise that I have been enjoying myself. But I have been moved in other ways.

I am famously anti-social. I don’t mean to be. But in any social gathering I am usually closest to the door and often make an early exit. I also, often don’t make it through the door in the first place. My good intentions often get me to the place, but fail at the final push. I don’t know why this is. I am rubbish at small talk, having been born without the internal censor that tells me when to speak and when to keep my trap shut I often find that when I do talk I say too much, too fast, and it is often easier to avoid social gatherings entirely. Social spaces with strangers are not always easy for me.

Konvertible has felt different. I attend the easy-making workshops. The photos above have been provided by the good folks at Bedford Creative Arts. There is a good mix of people, mainly women, but a sprinkling of men, and an age range that probably goes from mid- twenties to early seventies. The difference is in the making. There is a wide choice of things to get involved in and Lisa presents a range of options to participants giving a gentle steer to things she would like us to tackle or finish. The woodworkers work downstairs, sewers huddle around a machine or the main table, and the ceramic decorators huddle together. I am a ceramic decorator. I use transfers and decorate second hand or plain mugs and bowls. It is easy and quick and gets great results. I have noticed how quickly things get serious. Now, lets not fool ourselves, the skill level required for putting transfers onto mugs is around that of a 5 year old, the process being exactly the same as needed for the temporary tattoos that used to come in bubblegum wrappers… but after the initial chit chat people begin to focus on their projects with the concentration of a fine artisan. It becomes important and the room gets quiet.

It is a non-threatening place. Another Lisa, Lisa Tilley of uoldbag fabulousness makes tea (always one too many) and there is a friendly kind of feeling to the whole affair. Anyone who comes becomes part of it. I was caught off-guard when a young man came upstairs looking for ‘Kate’ because he wanted to do ceramics. That must be one of the organisers, I said, I’m not sure of everyone’s name yet, but I can show you how to do it if you want… It took a while to dawn on me that Lisa had sent him up to me, because I did know enough to share the skill. He was looking for Kayte.

Lisa has asked us to supply our own drawings so that she can make new transfers with our own images. The instructions were to keep it simple and use pencil. The more basic the picture, the more imperfect, the better the outcome. You see, Konvertible, is about imperfections, it is about creating a little space around goods for us to add our mark to them, to transform factory made goods into something else, something more fun, more characterful, more human. It is a tiny counter current against the mass produced. We are becoming creators as well as consumers. We do not have to accept products as they are, we can add our mark, adapt, and even show a willful disrespect for the intended outcome for the product (if you have ever seen a bag knitted from shirts then you will understand).

We are going to sell our goods. Our simple work adds value that can be charged for.

It made me think about those empty shops spreading through my town. It opened up my thinking. We don’t need to court multi-nationals, or chain stores to breath life into our ailing towns. We need to get access, create goods or services, and open them up. I have thought about winter concerts – an empty shop, deck chairs, blankets, flasks of tea and a busker or two. I’d pay a few bob for that.

So it made me feel part of something, it made me feel that I my efforts are valuable, and that I could, somehow, maybe, make some kind of a difference to my hometown. Pretty good huh?

The Konvertible Kiosk hits Bedford Market on the 5th November. I’m going to bake some gingerbread. See you there.