Drawn Together Through Visual Practice

by Brandy Agerbeck

  Bob Stilger • When We Cannot See the Future, Where Do We Begin?

  Japan has helped me ask: How do we find our way forward when the reality we’ve lived is suddenly gone? When our lives are likely to be inundated by more and more uncertainty? How do we help ourselves and others even figure out where forward is in this time when so much we have known is dying and so much is being born?

  I’ve done a major dive into this question and have been privileged to work with colleagues to design and host community meetings in the disaster area and across all of Japan. We created spaces where people could begin to make sense. Spaces where they could weep and dream and plan and organize. Sacred spaces. Spaces where it was possible to just be with the enormity of it all. Eventually the capacity to think and reason and analyze would be very important. But in the beginning there are more fundamental questions about where to place our attention. For some, everything—especially life as they knew it—was gone. What in hell was I supposed to think about? What does reason have to do with it? What should I analyze?

  Thinking and reasoning and analyzing are important but they rarely provide direction. In fact, they need direction. And direction has to come from our other senses. When everything falls apart, we must invite our hands and our heart and our spirit to come out and play, and ask our analytical minds to wait. Where is forward? How do we proceed?

  For me, in Japan, surrounded by so much disruption, my normal state was disruption. I was uncertain and unsure and confused. So was everyone I was working with! Mine was not the hero’s journey of a knight on a white horse leading people to the promised land. Mine was a journey of learning to trust not-knowing and to stay open to what appears—and to help others find their own next steps. People referred to me as a sacred outsider, because I arrived with listening and with ways that helped them to see themselves and each other.

  I began to notice that certain ways of being sustained me and helped me invite others into creative space:

  Stay connected. We need each other. Usually we can’t find our way forward alone—and we don’t need to. After Japan’s disasters we just kept doing whatever we could to connect people with each other. Using a variety of dialog approaches which in Japan we referred to as “FutureSessions,” we brought people together to be with each other in spaces that promoted respect, curiosity, and generosity. While I was doing my work in the disaster areas, I also had to reach out and connect with others—both with the far-flung tribe I met through my work with the Berkana Institute and New Stories and with my growing community friends and allies in Japan.

  Be still. Settle down. We can’t do anything new without getting really quiet and opening all our senses. The participants in the FutureSessions we organized were all very busy. When your old life falls away, there’s a lot to do. For many, it was a challenge to get still. But we would keep inviting them into silence—sometimes in a circle, sometimes on walks, sometimes exploring in pairs in silence. This silence enlarged the space in which something else could be seen. Personally, I spent more time in prayer and meditation and climbing mountains in silence than I have at any other time of my life. It was just essential. In order to find new ways forward that we can rely on, we must do whatever it takes to find equanimity. We must rid ourselves of the anxieties that either paralyzes us or causes us to spring into hasty action.

  Listen. And then listen some more. This isn’t the time to make meaning. It’s not the time to solve anything. It is time to stay present and to listen to everything that is said as if your life depends on it. Constantly I would invite others to slow down and listen, to open their whole body to listening. And each day I needed to listen deeper and deeper myself. Especially because of my limited Japanese language, I learned how to listen with my whole body—which includes resisting the frequent urges to turn what I was hearing into a nice tidy package of concepts and ideas.

  Empathize. Let this listening permeate to the very core. I worked with others and myself to simply open our hearts as wide as we dared. I invited us to just be present for spontaneous outbreaks of grief and joy and hopelessness and possibility. We do not need to seek any of these; we just need to stay present so they each can come to in turn.

  Stay confused. Through all of this is the invitation to be

  willing to stay in a state of confusion. False clarity is dangerous. It provides a convenient and comfortable place—but it is not real. Listen without judgments and conclusions. Listen without seeking answers. Stay confused and stay together for long enough and real clarity will emerge.

  Bob Stilger • When We Cannot See the Future, Where Do We Begin?

  The question is, of course, what helps us embrace these ways of being? What helps us make sense? This book has broadened my understanding of the term visual practitioner. Reading through the other essays, I now understand it to be just about anything which helps us visualize our lives and our communities in new ways. I love conversation and believe it offers a portal to new possibilities. And conversation can also be very limited, even stifling—trapped in old patterns of thought and confined by bottled up emotions. We need more.

  As a conversation host I am constantly looking for what breaks the trace of the past. Looking for what helps us see ourselves and each other in new ways. I need partners to do this. I need Megumi to bring in dance in ways that unlock the blockages in our flows. I need Michael whose music can transport us to other dimensions. Rachel’s invitation into spoken word is a crystallizing process. Deborah’s drawing reaches people’s souls. Tomoko’s visual harvesting makes the day unfold on the walls of the room. I can invite people into free drawing or into modeling with clay or into silence, but generally I need practitioners who bring in a variety of media to loosen the constraints of old and tired thinking. The skills of visual practitioners can open a path rarely traveled, the one that takes us deeper and deeper into who we truly are.

  Conversation host and leadership coach Bob Silger collaborates with visual practitioner Tomoko Tamari, staying open to what appears

  As a designer of spaces where people are invited to co-create new possibilities and new actions, I use anything I can find that invites people’s aliveness to step forward in new ways. And whenever I can, I work with visual practitioners like my co-authors here. I realize I rely most on six helpers:

  Silence. It always comes back to silence for me. Taking myself to silence. Inviting others into silence. Frequently. Quiet our busy minds. Set aside the relentless chatter. Just be quiet. And then do something. Then get quiet again.

  Dialog. Among the silences, we talk. Finding better questions and even an answer from time to time. We speak the truth without blame or judgment and we listen for what has heart and meaning. We seek to build a firm foundation for future action.

  Nature. We’re not alone. Whenever possible enter into the real world—the one with breezes and trees and ants. Letting go of the concrete and plastic and electronic devices and connecting with the bounty that surrounds us. Conclusions and certainties drift away.

  Fingers—and toes and shoulders too. Our bodies know! I’m regularly amazed when someone begins to see what their fingers know when they let Play-Doh tell a story, or when they start to draw pictures of their life. It’s delightful to learn to listen to our bodies, discovering what they know about slowing down, being careful, and staying centered.

  Music. Notes on winds and cords and voices transport us. We are taken on a journey. Sometimes it is singing together, other times being transported by sound on an inner journey. It quiets our busy minds and lets us relax our tight hold on half truths.

  Beauty. Surrounds us. Something different and precious happens when we are embraced by simple beauty. The room that is cleared of clutter. A sparse and expressive flower arrangement in the center. A welcoming entry. A window that opens onto a forest.

  I weave these helpers through
everything I do. The more all of them are present the more likely it is that magic happens—that confusion switches to enough clarity and grief opens a window towards joy.

  In many ways they are simply ways of reminding ourselves that we are part of a living, vibrant universe, and that when we work in concert with that universe we begin to see new possibilities. I’ve watched Megumi dance people through their grief in workshops in Fukushima. I’ve been with Michael in Canada and the US when his music has settled the room and invited people into the core of their being.1 I’ve worked with Rachel to introduce the form of spoken word using Dekaaz2 in ways that have made people more and more aware of their experience. I’ve seen people connect deeply with their own inner voice through Deborah’s touch drawings.3 I’ve noticed the awe and appreciation people in Kyushu have for Tomoko’s visual representations which give them a bird’s eye view of what’s been going on. These are the gifts of the visual practitioner.

  Bob Stilger • When We Cannot See the Future, Where Do We Begin?

  We are constantly surrounded by an ocean of possibilities, but we frequently fail to see them because we’re bound up in old ways of thinking. Visual practice is all about making it easier for us to shift our view, broaden our consciousness and make accessible the immense opportunities just beyond our current reach.

  Experience. Experiment. Enjoy.

  BOB STILGER, the Founder and Co-President of New Stories, uses the power of story to help people create thriving, resilient communities, remember how to listen to and connect with each other, and work together to create a preferred future. After leading a local community development corporation for 25 years, Bob served as Co-President of The Berkana Institute, connecting people using their own resources to build resilient communities in many parts of the world, including Zimbabwe, India, Brazil, and Australia. Since 2010, he has worked extensively in Japan, introducing collaborative spaces called “Future Sessions” and participatory leadership processes. Tokyo’s Eiji Press published his book, “When We Can’t See the Future, Where Do We Begin,” in Japanese in 2015; an English Edition will be published in 2016.

  Bob teaches at St. Mary’s College of California and Gonzaga University. He has a

  PhD in Learning and Change in Human Systems from CIIS. www.newstories.org

  bob@newstories.org

  References

  Michael Jones’ fine attunement to music, beauty, and place creates a resonant field in the room where people release constraining boundaries and move into a sense of wholeness. See www.pianoscapes.com

  Dekaaz is adaptation of Haiku which used the iambic pentameter of the English language with three stanzas with two, then three, then five syllable verses.

  See www.rachelbagby.com

  Deborah Koff-Chapin’s work with Touch Drawing takes people into a place of deep inner presence where they tune to what is emerging around them.

  See www.touchdrawing.com

  Reflection and

  Visual Practice

  Jennifer Shepherd and Sam Bradd

  Reflection is an integral aspect of visual practice. When we make time to reflect, we come to know more about ourselves, see new possibilities for action, and make wiser choices. Along the way, we extend our awareness and care and create openings to expand our competence. This is true, regardless of whether “we” are the ones holding the pen, offering input or bearing witness to the creative process, or interpreting a completed work. We all stand to benefit—personally and professionally—from practicing reflection to make meaning of our work and our experience in it.

  We, the authors, have both heard our clients reflect out loud when engaging with our drawings. They exclaim: “I hadn’t ever thought of my work this way until I saw my ideas presented visibly. It’s completely changed how I think of my work!”

  Reflection helped a group with whom Sam was working to make sense of the conference:

  “It’s a busy conference, and I found it valuable to take a break and review the graphic recordings. The images helped me reflect on what was happening and make new connections between sessions.”

  And, speaking professionally as practitioners, we’ve discovered that the subjects on which we reflect, and the questions we ask, influence what we learn. By expanding our awareness of subjects and the range of questions to ask, we’ve uncovered blind spots in our thinking and identified more areas to explore in our practice.

  For example, reflection helped Jennifer rethink the concept of families:

  “I was preparing for a strategy session with a Canadian non-profit organization. The Executive Director and I were talking about family—a core concept for this organization. As we talked about how family structures have shifted and diversified over decades and how the definition of family has also changed, I realized that my “go-to” drawing of a nuclear family was woefully inadequate. To do justice in my role as graphic facilitator, I would need to explore other ways to capture the essence of the idea of family. Rather than drawing its form—mother, father, kids, and maybe some extended relations—I would need to illustrate ties of mutual consent and the functions of family life.”

  In our profession, we make dozens of decisions per hour. Reflection on each decision in the moment isn’t always possible: sometimes actions are too fast, or possibly routine. How do we know what we show? Architect and educator Donald Schön developed “reflection-in-action,” a reflection methodology, because he noticed that professionals are expected to simply know how to do things, demonstrating “actions and judgments spontaneously, unaware of having learned to do these things… and unable to describe the knowing that the action reveals.”1

  Reflection-in-action helped Sam research his own practice for his graduate work.

  Jennifer Shepherd and Sam Bradd • Reflection and Visual Practice

  “I designed a research study about my graphic facilitation. Although it might sound strange to research oneself, I found Schön’s methodology a rigorous way to learn about myself. By pausing in reflection, I was able to write about my work, and in this way become more curious about it. The deeper I went, the more questions I had for myself—and the more I enjoyed the process of problem-solving my way out of them.”

  Your invitation

  In this final contribution to the book, as a closing and opening gesture, we invite you—our colleagues, clients, and facilitation partners—to notice areas for reflection in your own practice, whatever that might be.

  We have created 65 questions to support your reflection. As we’ve been diving into our own practice in this area, we’ve found it helpful to focus our thinking on our relationships with co-facilitators, clients, participants, and the broader field of visual practitioners. We’ve also benefited from reflecting on our connection with the visual artifacts that we create and how all of these link dynamically when we’re working. For simplicity, we’ve organized the questions into sections. Each section includes questions about one of these connections. The figure below illustrates the recursive nature of reflection.

  Model and illustration by Jennifer Shepherd

  Here are some suggestions for how to use this chapter as a kind of personal workbook:

  Reflect on your own, or gather with peers, clients, and others

  Read the questions aloud, pause, and notice what answers arise

  Phone a colleague and have a conversation

  Write a journal entry and see what emerges

  Bring your thoughts forward to the field of visual practice online or at a conference

  We offer these methods as wisdom from our shared experience. We’ve tried them all, and they work! A few years ago, we were hungry to explore emerging practice themes with colleagues and peers. Having taken the initiative to convene and host a “Deep Conversation Series” with fellow members of the International Forum of Visual Pract
itioners, we used these approaches to deepen our learning, and started to compile and refine questions that warranted further reflection.

  We offer these and many more questions as a gift to the visual practice field. These are only a start. Now, it’s your turn. We invite you to share your own questions on the Drawn Together Through Visual Practice website so that those of us wishing to deepen our learning may benefit from your insights, and so we may grow the sensemaking practice of reflection together.

  Jennifer Shepherd and Sam Bradd • Reflection and Visual Practice

  My relationship with the field of visual practice, our role, and our work to do:

  What is my wish for the field of visual practice?

  What do others in the field seem to care about right now, and what about that matters to me?

  What am I doing to learn with others, if anything? (For example: meet for coffee dates, participate in graphic jams, attend conferences…)

  What might I share with others to help the field learn and grow?

  What trends do I notice in the visual practice field right now? What is unfolding?

  What do I need to pay attention to as the field changes?