For the first stroke everyone is asked to make a circle on the page—an ancient symbol of wholeness and unity. I suggest the focus for this first stroke be on the inner/feeling experience. The principle of heaven is the sense of uncertainty one feels when facing the unknown, in this case the blank page. Trungpa called it a “positive panic,” a gathering of one’s energy, a natural trembling. The earth principle is felt as the movement into action—picking up the brush, becoming engaged, grounded, connected to the page. The human quality is about noticing how we feel about what we have done—curious, inquisitive, open, without judgment.
After everyone has made the first circle, the instruction for the second round is to make three strokes on one sheet — a vertical stroke for heaven, a horizontal stroke for earth, a dot for human. The focus expands now to include spontaneous design, an awareness of the relationship between the strokes, their contrasting qualities, and developing the ability to know where each mark is needed to balance, complete, and resolve the whole.
Barbara Bash • Embodied Mark-Making
In the third round everyone makes one continuous stroke that moves through all three stages—heaven is the act of landing on the page, beginning to move, setting the tone; then the stroke shifts to earth by counterbalancing, responding, grounding. Human is the last mark before lifting off the page; resolving, completing, letting go.
For the fourth round the instruction is to make one stroke that expresses the beginning of heaven and the counterbalancing of earth. Then the human stroke is made with a small brush dipped in bright red ink—warm, direct and accurate. Now the deepest aspects of the heaven, earth and human principles are offered:
Heaven is the basic goodness of the whole situation, a natural sacredness;
Earth is the freedom from laziness, a natural exertion, a deep relaxation within action;
Human is the letting go of subconscious gossip (our internal commentary) and having no regrets.
For participants the Big Brush process creates a safe space to explore power and expression in new ways. The softness of the tool combined with the directness of the stroke joins gentleness and effective action in the moment.
For artists working in smaller formats, this bigger, looser scale can breathe life into the carefulness of precision, enlivening sketchnoting skills. Broadening one’s expressive range—in life and in mark making—widens the world.
Barbara Bash • Embodied Mark-Making
Over the years I have created large brushstrokes for the ending moments of conferences. In this setting I am acting as a channel, gathering the collective energy alive in the room and bringing it down—through my body and brush—onto the page and into form.
Here is my moment-by-moment account of executing one of these strokes at the Authentic Leadership in Action conference in Nova Scotia in 2009.
Walking out into the large room I unroll a long sheet of paper in the center of the space, placing rocks on the corners and buckets of black and vermilion ink and my large brushes on the side.
I stand at the end of the length of paper, facing the room, my heart pounding.
It is silent, all 200 pairs of eyes watching. I feel a stroke emerging inside me. It is just a blurred image stirring, but it draws me forward. I bow to the space, and the fullness of the moment, and walk over to the big horsehair brush soaking in the ink. Taking hold of the bamboo handle I press the hairs down and lift up, listening to the ink dripping in the bucket. I look back at the huge white sheet, my legs planted wide, knees bent. I press the brush down into the shimmering blackness, raise the dripping hairs up, down again, up, then I can’t hold back anymore.
I bring the brush up and over and it lands on the page—like a hawk, talons extended, landing on prey, wings pulled back, ready to lift up and fly away, but the intention and weight is too strong, it can’t pull away from the page now. The brush is connected by a powerful gravity.
The brush moves up to the right, drops down to the left, pushes through, curves around. This is all heaven, descending from above, arriving—the first mark.
The brush pauses. Now there is a turning towards the earth, the natural counterbalancing grounding energy. Mysteriously, at this moment of stillness and transition, the brush releases ink onto the paper (and the floor) in a fan of splatters. No time to wonder why.
Barbara Bash • Embodied Mark-Making
Now the earth voice is moving, speaking, slowing, steadying, drawing the brush down the length of paper, side to side, until it arrives at the bottom right corner of the big page. This is the destination, a simple stop, a quiet ending, humble earth.
I lift up the brush, walk over and place it in the bucket, pick up the red paint bucket and smaller brush. This pigment is thick, like blood, like plasma. The smaller brush is thick too, and moist and heavy.
I scan the big glistening black stroke—where is the spot for the human mark? Where is this human energy needed in order to join and complete the act? I squint my eyes, softening the visual element so I can feel my body pull me—right into the center of the stroke—the space between heaven and earth. I step onto the page and gently, directly, strike the heart mark—wet and juicy at the core. It is another sudden landing, but this time the bird lifts off, leaving its brilliant color behind.
I place the small red brush and bucket on the side, stand at the end of the sheet, cool floor under my bare feet. I bow to the stroke and the space, turn, and walk away. For a moment I am caught off balance, stepping awkwardly. As the gong strikes three times my steadiness returns and the sound dissolves, slowly, into the big room.
Barbara Bash • Embodied Mark-Making
In the deepest sense, the art of calligraphy is the beautiful writing of this moment. The directness and immediacy of a brushstroke joins the space and vision of mind with the embodiment of form, body, and tools. Creating a brushstroke is the act of bringing heaven down to earth through the human experience.
Showing up fully in the moment connects us to our life. A brushstroke invites us onto this path of aliveness. The deeper the involvement in what we do, the more tenderness and compassion we have for the world. In the Big Brush practice we let ourselves be seen, and we see others truly.
This visual expression of aliveness wakes up and enlivens the viewer. This is the importance of art in the world. It is a passing of energy from person to person. The Big Brush brings everyone along on this path of art and awakening. It is possible for us all to express our life in a brushstroke and in that moment be whole.
BARBARA BASH fell in love with the alphabet as a child and has been following its creative possibilities ever since, leading her into calligraphy, illustrated journaling and alive mark making. While studying Buddhism and teaching at Naropa University she began working with larger brushes and performing with musicians, dancers and storytellers. She teaches widely and was part of the Creative Process team at the Authentic Leadership in Action conferences for many years. Barbara has written and illustrated many children’s books about the natural world. Her book True Nature: An Illustrated Journal of Four Seasons in Solitude explored the inner and outer landscape. She is currently working on a book about the alphabet and why handwriting still matters. Barbarabash.com • barbarabash.blogspot.com • barbarabashyoutube
Discovering Wisdom Within and Between
How storyboards, portraits, and visual explanations can help us learn to solve the puzzles of our time
Jennifer Shepherd
All around the world, everyday leaders like us are working on ideas and projects we care about to address the most pressing and complex problems of our time. Respond to global warming. Improve population health. Create welcoming communities. Preserve the local watershed. While we may address different topics, we share one thing in common: a learning opportunity.
It is this: to
learn to surface the wisdom hiding within us and between us and connect it with what we already know. By making the invisible visible, we can express, touch, and otherwise explore ideas and relationships until we discover the missing links in our understanding and wisely choose what to do next. This step could be to form or deepen relationships with others, to coordinate or harmonize our actions, or—like a jigsaw puzzle—to join pieces of information into a cohesive picture of the whole.
Expert navigators use instruments, maps, or other points of reference to plan and follow a path and arrive at their chosen destination. They rely on cues and information from others to see what they can’t see from their perspective and add it to what they know about their current nautical position. By combining what they know with what others know, they can find their way.
We do that too. As we work to solve the puzzles of our time, we constantly navigate relationships with ourselves, others, our environment, and ideas—learning as we go. Sometimes our destination is clear to us, and we rely on each other to get there. At other times, we’re steadfast in our determination to take a different approach. We have no idea where our actions will take us or what consequences await. In either case, when the winds are still, we’re enveloped in fog, and our communication systems are down, what are we to do? Learn to see the wisdom hiding within and between us.
Often, we can’t access this wisdom on our own. It may be explicit, tacit, or not yet formed and we don’t know what we don’t know. We may not even know it exists until we start to explore with others what we know about ourselves, each other, and our work. Given that we come to the work with different backgrounds and perspectives, we can offer space to each other to sit in “I don’t know” and discover and learn together.
One approach is to create a storyboard, portrait, or visual explanation with others. These new images act like containers with three core functions:
to hold and organize what we know
to identify what we don’t know
to draw out (literally and figuratively) ideas and concepts that help us make sense of the complex problem, the shared work to be done, and our place in it
Everyday leaders often share stories with me about their struggles working on simple, complex, and complicated problems. As part of my visual engagement practice, I’ve used a variety of co-creative processes to help clients, colleagues, and community members access hidden wisdom. Starting from a blank page, I ask questions to evoke stories, use these stories to unearth buried treasures, and invite intuition to guide us. As the visually descriptive objects take shape, something transforms within these leaders: they are no longer confused and they understand their topics differently. Their struggles dissipate and they deepen connections with themselves, others, and the world around them. Their inner awakening is also made visible and tangible; the leaders feel relaxed, energized, or empowered to make their next move.
Jennifer Shepherd • Discovering Wisdom Within and Between
I’ve discovered several patterns by following this approach. The stories I hear often reveal that everyday leaders are thirsty for clarity in at least one of four areas:
Calling: Who am I? What is my work to do?
Connection: Who are we? What do we wish to create in this relationship?
Community: What is my role within the whole? Where do I belong and what is my contribution?
Coherence: What are we together? How does our work across difference serve the greater good that grows and nourishes life?
I offer the following three stories to illustrate these points and suggest why making storyboards, portraits, and visual explanations with others can help. For the purpose of this chapter, I’ve created my own definitions to describe these visually descriptive objects:
A storyboard contains a narrative of a journey over time, or contrasts the present with the future.
A portrait depicts someone or something in a particular way. It represents this person or thing at one moment in time through the lens of one or multiple perspectives.
A visual explanation helps an audience to understand a complicated or complex concept. It reveals relationships among ideas that are easier to grasp visually than through the written or spoken word alone.
How storyboards clarified calling and strengthened connections
When we first met, my client “Jane” told me she felt anxious and nervous and didn’t know what she was doing. Her plentiful ideas and energy were all over the place and she felt pulled in different directions at once. The opportunities she faced to expand her business, relocate, and strengthen relationships with family were overwhelming. Jane and her partner had been struggling for months to make decisions that would affect them both and they were frustrated with talking in circles. Their stress was also growing with the added pressure of looming deadlines.
Jane and I created two storyboards: one of Jane’s calling and another of Jane’s personal and professional vision. Jane wanted to help girls and young women to make a shift in their lives through the medium of dance. I asked Jane questions, listened for the essential ideas and details that Jane cared about, and began to illustrate these ideas on a large sheet of paper using proximity, color, and lines to show how they were related. As the storyboards took shape, Jane’s concept of “Who am I?” and “What is my work to do?” began to make sense to her.
In our third meeting, Jane reflected on her inventory of competing demands for time and energy. Looking at the storyboards we created, Jane was able to confidently and quickly sort out for herself what she wanted to do and instinctively let go of the things that didn’t fit with her idea of a beautiful life. Within a week of our final conversation, Jane informed me that she and her partner had made important decisions and started to plan for their future. Why did the storyboards work?
Jennifer Shepherd • Discovering Wisdom Within and Between
First, the process of creating the storyboards helped Jane to access her inner wisdom by making the invisible visible. Jane connected with her own intuition and could see how the parts of her life she had been treating separately—her calling, her work, her family life, and her own interests—came together into a whole. Instead of reacting to outside stimuli pulling her in different directions, Jane could easily choose what to do, guided by her clear connection with personal purpose—her inner beacon.
Second, the conversation helped Jane to interact with the storyboard as it developed. This helped her to generate insights and transform how she felt inside. Now feeling grounded, happy and peaceful, and literally seeing what mattered to her, Jane could clearly choose what to do.
Third, Jane had something tangible to show to her partner. This shared point of reference helped them to identify what mattered to them both and discover what they wanted to create in life together.
How portraits clarified community connections
In a second instance, I was approached by a funding agency to create two portraits over the course of a two-day meeting. The first would depict the perspectives shared by invited staff, volunteers, donors, and grantees on how to fund for community impact. The second would capture the board members’ reflections on the topic as they contemplated a strategic change of direction for the organization. They took stock of their purpose, promise, and history, reviewed priority goals, identified considerations for focused giving, and identified implications of shifting to contributor-centric engagement.
After the gathering, staff members who were not part of the process were asked to look at the portraits. Turning to a senior leader, I heard “John” say: “I get it. I can see what I need to do now. I don’t need to wait weeks for your written report of the meeting or the executive summary.” The portraits made immediate sense to him and he felt inspired to take action right away. Why did the portraits work?
First, the portraits made the multiple perspe
ctives visible to John and tied the shared wisdom together. Comparing the depiction of others’ ideas with his own enabled John to instantly make sense of the new direction.
Second, the portraits helped John to connect with what he cared about: Where are we going together? How do I fit into this work? Where do I belong, and what’s my contribution?
Third, referring to the tangible object enabled John to give voice to his own work and talk about it with his colleagues. Presumably, these conversations—supported by a visually descriptive point of reference—helped the agency’s staff as a whole to see how their work in different departments was related to funding for community impact and to coordinate their actions going forward.
How a visual explanation clarified the coherence of a proposed project
A third client approached me with a different problem. Her organization had collaborated with successful businesses, non-profit agencies, and government partners to develop a viable model to address a complicated issue: how can we source and purchase more healthy food in the face of rising demand and rising food and fuel costs so that our neighbors in need have access to healthy food? The puzzle “Francine” was working on was complex and the response was complicated.
Drawn Together Through Visual Practice Page 17
