Glossary
Intrapersonal
Interpersonal
Primary Language
Secondary Language
Record
(noun)
(verb)
Document
(noun)
(verb)
Site - A specified space
Event - An intersection of a specified space and a point in time
Experience
Artifact
THE NOTETAKER
Introduction
In the quiet dark rooms of my memory bank, sun rays shift through the dust onto a small shelf where paperback children’s books sit cross-legged with their backs pressed against the walls. Without a cover, and with tape holding together its pages, Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon (2) became my first sketchbook. Aside from the associations a bald two-year-old would make with Harold, I connected with his journey of discovery. Following a crayon like a magic compass gave me an artistic license - just like that. Harold never passed go or collected 200 dollars. He simply let his arrow of exploration and moon of curiosity lead the way. Creation became matter-of-fact, and fiction an extending purple landscape of possibilities and adventure. This experience opened up an interactive world of pictures for me. Without reserve, I added my own additions to Johnson's story on top of Harold with my own crayon.
Visual Relationship with Education
Gradually, I watched the relationship between art and education become estranged. When school started pushing reading and writing, art became sidelined. Art practices were polarized to specific rooms and times. Like training wheels to a bicycle, I was weaned off visual language into an educational world of words.
Systemized Notetaking SupportWith visual media blossoming and continuously flashing outside of the classroom, I remember becoming increasingly frustrated and bored with the lack of visual information used in school. Teachers were unhappy about my doodling during class, but I had a hard time focusing without being visually involved. Even making arbitrary patterned marks on my papers helped to keep me active if I felt lost. Although it was often discouraged, I struggled to maintain and integrate my dialogue with visual language throughout my primary and secondary education.
The history of organized notetaking support began with NTID in the late 1960’s. A basic structure developed, which involved hiring the services of a hearing student or professional to record and supplement the deaf student’s experience with written documentation of the verbal and projected information.
Over the past 40 years, this process has grown into an extensive enterprise, supporting mainstreamed deaf and hard of hearing students as well as a variety other alternative learning needs in schools beyond our campus and across the world. It has become a recognized standard of support in K-12, college and even professional settings. Last year, RIT alone provided more than 65,000 hours of notetaking services for students.
Becoming a Notetaker
I was hired as a notetaker during the first year of my undergraduate program in 2007; a position I had been completely unaware of beforehand. With such a diverse academic population across the campus, I was fascinated by the ways I was able to cross colleges and disciplines as a notetaker, and how important personal documentation was in the educational process. As an illustration student, I was accustomed to taking visual notes for myself, and got great feedback from students when I began to add visual and spacial organization into their supported notes.
Dr. Larry Quinsland had heard about what I was doing and asked if I would visit his class to see if my graphic notes would be appealing to his science class, which included some students with secondary disabilities. After sitting in and taking notes, the enthusiasm from the group warranted further conversations with Dr. Quinsland. We proposed a study for the following quarter; I was to work specifically with one of the students and develop a variety of methods to investigate enhancing notetaking support with visual language. That project continued for over 2 years, and resulted in presentations of our research at PEN-International's Instructional Technology and Education of the Deaf Symposium in 2010 and the 2011 National Conference for the Convention of American Instructors for the Deaf (CAID).
Notetaking
Historical Context
The history of organized notetaking support began with NTID in the late 1960’s.
A basic structure developed, which involved hiring the services of a
hearing student or professional to record and supplement the deaf
student’s experience with written documentation of the verbal and
projected information. alone provided more than 65,000
hours ofnotetaking services for students.
VISUAL LITERACY
"As children, we 'show and tell' interchangeably, words and images combining to transmit a connected series of ideas. The different ways in which words and pictures can combine...is virtually unlimited" (1)
Although I had been aware of the magic between pictures and words well before college, it wasn't until my notetaking job at RIT that I realized how much it influenced my memory. I used words, icons and drawings together to document classes for supported students, and found not only did I receive encouraging feedback from students but that my own retention and grades increased. There was something about actively thinking in words and images during the lecture that made it easier to recall later.
"My particular ability does not lie is mathematical calculation, but rather in visualizing effects, possibilities, and consequences." (5)
It is important to distinguish visual thinking and literacy from the ability to make 'art' on a socially recognizable level. Albert Einstein, quoted above, was by no means an artist, but his ability to think visually allowed him to imagine concepts as a means to understanding. These kind of skills aren't necessarily taught in schools, and can even clash with traditional programs (Einstein was a delayed child, with noted difficulties in his early schooling).
A picture is not worth a thousand words; one language cannot necessarily say the same thing as the other, yet in combination both can say something neither one can express alone.
INTRAPERSONAL
"Doodling may seem like an endless game of solitaire, but ironically it is the best way for me to commute between the cerebral world and connect to the one surrounding me. With a pad of paper I can dive internally, and buoy to the surface. It’s a net to catch the fleeting trivial blips of spontaneous life. A record of experience, a root of inspiration and an open invitation for new perspectives. I carry a pad in my pocket every day." (3)
Perhaps the most fundamental responsibility of art and language is facilitating intrapersonal communication. The things we say, make and do always relate to our own experiences in one form or another. This is often overlooked. Our world is buzzing with multimedia for the masses and social networking, but what about personal language? From our natural loosely-scripted handwriting to the symbols and icons that populate our imaginations, personal language is fitted specifically to us. It is a fabrication of associations and stories weaved through the eye of our personal experience.
An individual's ability to make sense of their personal narrative
lies at the heart of their development.
My journals, handouts, and paper scraps all eventually found a crossroads in my sketchbook. Functioning both as a pocket-sized play-pen and an all-purpose junk drawer, my sketchbook has become a space to interact with internal and external experiences. As a book, I can organize, re-purpose, reflect on and react to these experiences over time. More than visual alchemy or aesthetics, interacting with my records relates to how I perceive and understand these experiences, while creating a space that I can revisit and share.
Art for me is a bridge of communication connecting to a world of experience. Whether I am making a physical reference or not, taking note of my personal context becomes an interaction with the moment that pulls me and my experiences into focus. Creating a dialogue between myself, my environment, and the people surrounding me, I become more aware and engaged in life.
Documenting History
Selective Documents make History
History involves storytelling
History storytelling
primary and secondary language
by nature its selective
this history is from my perspective.
by nature its selective
this history is from my perspective.
earliest urges to chronicle
western history based on experience validated physical
(lack of trust in primary)
(lack of trust in primary)
start here
both pictures and words can tell a story.
in relation to my thesis lets look briefly only at:
secondary language that uses both pictures and words together to tell a personal story from experience.
Although it is fluid, a web of select shared stories, bias, perspective.
Western history is (validated) narrated through the process of documentation.
and it is from this vantage point where I stand.
Serving the purpose of storytelling, both pictures and written languages
More literally, one could argue that our earliest urges to chronicle experience was the very birth of history. Our inherited responsibilities to record experiences have allowed our species to develop a commonwealth of pooled knowledge covering thousands of generations.
"stand on the backs of giants"
role in the foundation of a society's identity,
history is often referred to as being sturdy cohesive reliable and factual
really fluid, a web of select shared stories, bias, perspective.
living document
although today the internet is offering an alternative with websites like Wikiperdia, history has traditionally been objectified: converted into a static medium, a physical artifact.
It can serve an individual or unite a society. Inter Intra
history is often referred to as being sturdy cohesive reliable and factual
really fluid, a web of select shared stories, bias, perspective.
living document
although today the internet is offering an alternative with websites like Wikiperdia, history has traditionally been objectified: converted into a static medium, a physical artifact.
It can serve an individual or unite a society. Inter Intra
If Poetry is playing with language, history sorts it
I find it interesting to compare the significance of language in early childhood development to its role in early cultures.
From these roots grew the traditions of visual art as well as the later symbolic writing systems.
In a similar way, art exists naturally and without any formal training as the first written language for most children.
From these roots grew the traditions of visual art as well as the later symbolic writing systems.
In a similar way, art exists naturally and without any formal training as the first written language for most children.
Documentation of individual experiences juggling both visual and written languages required a great deal of social and cultural sophistication.
The Renaissance inspired a multifaceted educational revolution that demanded innovation in the record-keeping of individuals. Although they likely started as transitional studies for his paintings, Leonardo Di Vinci’s sketchbooks grew to record his interests in nature, science, and invention (3). They were clearly written for himself, with the text often written backwards and quickly jotted down in his own shorthand. Even so, these books would eventually be reorganized by subject after Di Vinci’s death, providing invaluable insight into his process and ideation.
For
centuries following the Renaissance, an age of exploration and
colonization called on generations of artists for travel documentation.
All three of Captain James Cook’s voyages across the world included
enlisted artists who visually documented the travels through their
sketchbooks. Artist Conrad Martens joined Cook on his second trip
aboard the famous Beagle with a young Charles Darwin (4).
From his experience with Martens, Darwin later commented on his own
written accounts of the expedition: “From not being able to draw, a
great pile of the manuscript from the voyage has proved almost useless” (5).
Years later, it was Darwin’s granddaughter who sought out Martens’
sketchbooks and deposited them in the Cambridge University Library (4). These books are now accessible online through the library’s website.
Today, a wide range of personal documentation is used by a diverse group of people for a variety of purposes. American Volcanologist Rick Hoblitt (5) and Indian animator Prashant Miranda (6)
may have completely different motivations for recording events in
sketchbooks that look nothing alike, but they share an emphasis on
capturing important moments to chronicle their experiences. Books like Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art (5) and An Illustrated Life (6) compile these and many other perspectives of journal practitioners with surprising similarities despite remarkable differences.
For my thesis, I will be focusing on the relationship between art and language.
The different languages I employ to communicate informs both my
internal and external perceptions, and how I interact with the world (see Appendix 4). I
feel there is a fundamental need for people to record, reflect upon,
reconfigure and share their personal experience through documentation;
equal in importance to creating a dialogue using active spoken or signed
languages (see Appendix 3). It is through the process of taking notes that I find this application of art and language.
My
experiences working for the RIT/NTID access services and their
alternative needs communities expanded my awareness of how language is
used in and out of the classroom. I was hired as a notetaker during the
first year of my undergraduate program; a position I had been
completely unaware of beforehand. With such a diverse academic
population across the campus, I was fascinated by the ways I was able to
cross colleges and disciplines as a notetaker, and how important
personal documentation was in the educational process.
time, artifacts, objective art, other exhibiting thesis artists, stories
EVENT
Lets start here and now.No matter how insignificant it may be, this moment has found you at a specific crossroads between time and space as you read the words on this page. All points from this intersection are weaved together and pulled through the eye of your perspective. Voilà! We have an event. Events can be experienced on a personal level as well as shared with thousands of people. Perspective is a key ingredient, and the same event can be pivotal to one person and unnoticed by another.
Within the confines of this website, you will find a web of interrelated documented events, both minor and major, all underneath the cumulative umbrella of an MFA thesis experience at RIT. Late nights in the studio, committee meetings, work edits, model-making, site planning, gallery prep, and thesis installations all lead up to a final opening. This show was a requirement shared across all the various programs in the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, from Medical Illustration to Woodworking and Furniture Design. Three separate shows were created to accommodate the group, each spanning two weeks.
My thesis follows all thirty MFA students, including myself, through the three group thesis shows in the Bevier Gallery; each a culmination of two years of study and experience in the form of an event.
I made a Facebook page of the opening to let people know about the event, as did other artists (Amy Vena, Yu Fen Kung, Jinhee Park) with whom I shared the stage that evening. Viewing some of these pages together provides a wonderful window into the inner-workings of how perspective shapes an event. All of us experienced the same event very differently, shared the event with different people, and even used different languages to describe our experiences. Yet the time and place was the same on all of the invitations, and we practically stood side by side throughout the length of the show.
In a similar way, the entire process of constructing our theses reflected the same kind of interdependent relationship. Each project was shaped through dialoge and constructive feedback from many perspectives. Many of us shared classes together, studio space, thesis committee members, inspirations, aspirations, and daily interactions.
CITATION
1. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink, 1993. 135+. Print.
2. Johnson, Crockett. Harold and the Purple Crayon. [New York]: Harper & Row, 1955. Print.
3. Rubin, Ben. "Sketchbook Blog." Droodles and Rawrings. Google, 5 Apr. 2009. Web. 06 Dec. 2010. <http://drawraw.blogspot.com/>.
4. Dewey, John. Art as Experience. New York: Penguin Group, 1934. 22. Print.
5. Pinker, Steven. "The Mind's Eye." How the Mind Works. New York, N.Y: Norton, 2009. 285. Print.
EXPERIENTIAL STORIES
"Experience is the result, the sign, and the reward of that interaction of organism and environment which, when it is carried to the full, is a transformation of interaction into participation and communication." (4)
In the following section, my aim is to bring you into the driver's seat. I am going to briefly walk you through how you can use the Note Archive, which is home to all of the documented notes recorded for my thesis. This work provided me with a wonderful opportunity to extend beyond the boundaries of my perspective to discover new horizons of inspiration, ideation, and creative development.
My intent was to find each artist where they were within the process and document their progress. Each meeting began without an agenda. By focusing on these events individually and responding to each artist at their own tempo, I was able to keep the dialogue unobtrusive, informal, and flowing freely. Following each conversation like a path took me on an artistic adventure I would not have experienced otherwise. I hope my Note Archive inspires you through an equally meaningful journey.
A Guided Tour
We will begin with George as a starting point.
I have included two multimedia frames below, both of which are also found within the Note Archive. The first is a video from George's studio and the second contains the corresponding notes from the same session. Click on the first video, and you will see me begin recording with the pen as I touch it to the paper. The video has no sound, but will give you an idea of the context: George working through the night, holed up in the corner of his studio surrounded by an armory of tools.
Video from George's Studio
Notes from George's Studio
lets dive right in:
Below the video (and above these words) you'll find the corresponding multimedia notes. Just above the midpoint of the page you'll find the word "finishing" drawn inside a box. Click on the word once and give the file a few moments to completely load the audio. When lines on the page turn light gray, click directly on the word "finishing" again (if your having trouble, click here).
"...yeah, they'll have a nice luster to em, and the color of the wood's gonna come alive..."
If I strain my ears I can hear the whining of the cordless screwdriver as George took apart his model. To get the context of the conversation, you can follow the dotted line from the 'finishing' box to the right all the way back to the turning point (Click on the corner before it heads all the way up to 'water').
"...some of it is gonna get lacquered, and other bits are gonna get this gel varnish that i've been using lately, or some type of tung oil, like a hand-rub finish."
Although much of his inspiration for his thesis stemmed from the great outdoors, his show would be inside (next to mine), and he had been telling me about the various wood finishes he was experimenting with. Lets jump down to the middle of the page and click on "models", which is what George had been working on at the time.
"...(Yeah, its a big commitment to start embarking on a big project)...If your the kind of person that likes to actually finish what you start, then a little bit of planning goes a long way..."
If you watch the notes progress directly after this, a dotted line skips back to the "finishing" box above. I write the word "planning" in between, and lasso in the neighboring "design" tag from earlier to connect all these concepts together in real-time. During the moments of our conversation, my documentation leaves a visual trail that I am constantly shaping and molding. During this short span of time, I am already re-referencing themes and pulling multiple meanings out of a single tag ("finishing").
Before we move along to a new perspective, please press stop on any of the frames that are still playing.
Our next set of notes is of Mary in her studio. I traveled to the Rush Henrietta Middle School that day to meet her at work; in the back of a crowded storage room. She had been constructing portions of her thesis during her breaks from teaching art. Unlike the separate windows above, the frame below contains both the notes and video together with the audio synchronized. It is also recorded at a much higher quality.
Press play.
Following the bottom bar of the frame all the way to the right while the video is playing, you'll find controls to adjust the video up to High Definition (720p). From here, you can also click on the four small arrows in the bottom corner to enter full-screen if you'd like.
In the middle of explaining critical aspects of her creative process, a procession of bantering middle schoolers tromp by and Mary gets up to close the door. When she returns, she seamlessly finishes her thought:
"One of the critical aspects of making is finishing"
Lets take a step back; I would like to identify an overlap. Both George and Mary are describing related themes about the process involved with completing artwork, but from different perspectives. Mary describes a dichotomy of commitment and acceptance. She emphasizes following personal intuition through the full creative cycle and describes her struggle with letting go of tangential branches. George describes a meticulous and pragmatic approach. He relates that making models and planning can be frustrating, but help a large project reach fruition.
There are many layers of perspectives and interactions that we can observe within the notes. My meetings with each of the artists, as well as my comparisons of their conversations, are currently being observed by you. Through the interface of this website, you can comment on your experience using an integrated Facebook page (linked through the 'Feedback' button in the header), which invites interaction from other users as well as myself.
It is this juxtaposition of parallel perspectivesthat creates the framework for my thesis.
This is where I pass the reigns to you. There are many different ways you can navigate the notes; by artist, chronologically, and by overlapping themes using both word and image tags. So what are you waiting for? Go explore! There are all sorts of wonderful insights and creative inspirations at your fingertips! If you get stuck or have any problems, visit the troubleshooting section or email me directly. You can see only the notes which include video by clicking here, which include captioning options. Enjoy!