(re) Process (ing) Fieldnotes
There is something about working with the materials; the textures, smells, and sounds, they somehow help to guide the creation. It’s almost like you are collecting the pieces of yourself that are out there in the world; recognizing yourself in the boring mundane artifacts of reality. You collect and gather and reassemble, you think, yea that’s me, this is who I am now. It’s empowering to manifest something in a form that doesn’t have to be explained to death. The process becomes the focus, the way that it makes you feel is what you experience first, then you can think about it… or not
February 21st, 2024
I wanted to do some thing with the field notes that symbolized this kind of transformative process. That is to say, how the field notes become some thing. Typically field notes are transformed conceptually into representations, this often comes in the form of language or numbers. These then go on to become something else as well, policy, frameworks etc.
What can they become if we interact with them differently? What if we use them as a driving force for creative thought? What will emerge from this new beginning?
I had come to a place in my PhD where I felt very far from myself. I decided that I needed to engage in some of the things that I know in the past have made me feel alive. It was time to revisit the field notes as I was working on data analysis, and I had this spontaneous idea to create new slices of paper from the field notes. My dad was my art teacher in elementary school, and I remember a project he did with my class where we recycled bits of colored construction paper, and made new pieces of paper from them. This memory instantly filled my whole body with an indescribable, nostalgic love filled feeling. I knew that this is what I needed in the moment. I treated this process with a great amount of respect. I read through each page before I cut it. I included sacred symbols from my studies in Reiki under the Usui lineage which represent emotional well being, physical well being, and the timelessness of our energetic bodies. I let the paper soak over night at my meditation alter after setting an intention for the work. I feel very attached to this project.
I didn’t know what I would do with the paper, and I surely didn’t know that the paper would ignite something that had become dormant in me. I didn’t know that it would inspire me to look back at all my creative works from the past three years. I didn’t know it would lead me to create a website. I didn’t know the website would serve as the bridge for connecting my creative pieces to my thesis. All of this is because I followed the lure into creativity. What I thought was that these field notes would become a project to produce a creative artifact, but these field notes grew into an entire reframing of my thesis, they became a catalyst, an intangible happening that is still reverberating in this very moment, they are a living thing now; a companion.
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![Shredded paper in bowl]()
Tear
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![Shredded paper soaking in water]()
Submerge
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![Soaking paper placed at alter]()
Ritual
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![Puree paper into pulp]()
Puree
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![wood frame and screen submerged in paper pulp]()
Suspend
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![paper pulp coated onto screen]()
Coat
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![freshly made paper drying out on counter]()
Dry
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![Paper being pressed under a book on a table]()
Press
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![Pile of homemade recycled paper]()
Imagine
January 23rd, 2024
I began to think about what I wanted to do with the paper, and allowed my excitement to guide me. That is to say, that if it didn’t feel fun to do, then it wasn’t going to be the medium or media used. I love the thickness of the paper, it feels organic and imperfect and I love that about it. It’s a really special paper because it’s been through so much. These fieldnotes, that notebook has been all over Europe, sat on tables and cupboards while life happened all around it. Seasons changed, relationships were formed and faded in its presence. It held the words of my joys and my tensions, it felt all the pressures through my pen. It allowed me to remove myself and appear busy when the environment became too much, it served as my memory, it was my shield and my friend and I loved that notebook, that tiny little, tesco purchased, notebook was so good to me. A true companion in a strange place; I wanted to honor that.
Gather(ing)
January 31st, 2024
This gathering has been spontaneous and has taken place over the last week or so, up to the time of this writing. It was fitting that the naturally dyed threads ordered from a small vendor took some time to arrive, as it slowed me down leaving my mind time to wander a bit and marinade on my initial plan. The awl makes it feel like it is a real project that is coming together, a tiny tool but so powerful, dangerous even. I love its wooden handle; it feels like a form of resistance against the increasingly tech-based art (not that it’s bad, just different). The wood reminds me of the framing tools that my dad used to have scattered around the house from the frame shop he owned before I was born.
When I call to check in with my parents, my mom loves to tell me that he has been back in his art studio; she shows me any new creations they have hung around the house. I love to see his work on the walls. I recently bought a redrawing of a world map from Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. I sent it to my parent’s house for my dad to frame. It brings me peace to hear “he’s down in the studio,” because there where a few years when he was not, that’s when his light dimmed. He did not feel like drawing or creating and so he was not himself; he was not feeling himself and so he did not feel like drawing or creating. My friend was getting married, and I asked him to do a watercolor painting of a picture I had taken at the front entrance of their first apartment together. It took some convincing, but the painting made him come alive again, and he has been back in the studio ever since. That was six years ago now.
Joseph Mula, 2018
I found interesting visuals and mixed media at a charity shop on Leith Walk in Edinburgh. I might use some of it with the paper. At the shop I was drawn to the table with vintage postcards. Some were unused, while others were written on. I stopped my shuffling to appreciate the penmanship, a lost art. The older woman who ran the shop – with a soft, well-lived face and silver hair tied back in a messy bun at the nape of her neck – must have become suspicious of the time I was spending going through the postcards; they were 8 GBP a piece – one of the more expensive items in the shop. She casually made her way from behind the counter and stood next to me, examining the corner of the intricately woven tablecloth with her fingers. Leaning in, she squinted as she brushed the fibers back and forth, rubbing at a nonexistent spot. I think she just wanted me to know that she ‘saw me’. I continued unbothered and eventually made my way to the counter with my goods. “These are 8 GPB a piece,” she informed me. “Yes, that’s fine,” I responded with a soft I’m not a thief smile.
(re)Imagine(ing) Fieldnotes
February 14, 2024
I’ve been playing around with some ideas as to what to do with this paper. I’m drawn to the medium of the thread as it’s been popping up in my reading and exploring; being used as a metaphor for describing relationality, multiplicities, and interconnectedness. For instance, Whitehead (1929) describes how it is through the “threading together” of enduring objects that our observable world comes into form. I imagine this is what also inspired Merlin Sheldrake’s (2021) description of hyphae thread coming together to form the fruiting body of the mushroom.
Poking holes in the paper using the wooden handled awl, a spiral form emerged, it embodied the cyclical interconnected vibe I was holding in my mind. I used to do a bit of cross-stitch when I was much younger, my mom taught me, but it has been years since I have done it. Cross-stitch or anything of the like immediately sparks a vivid memory of my mom and I at an embroidery shop in Maine gather patterns and materials for cross-stitching. We would visit Maine in the summer, I love the feeling of summer in Maine.
I began with an intuitive stitch, which I now know is referred to as a backstitch. As I was stitching I was struck by the satisfying sound of the thread pulling through the thick textured paper. The thread is naturally dyed giving it a rougher texture than other embroidery thread I’ve used. This texture created some friction causing the thread to catch on itself every now and then, leading to sporadic knots that I needed to gently pull apart with the needle before continuing.
Stitching near the window, I noticed specs of sunlight peaking through the pre-punched pinholes illuminating the spiral just slightly. It made me think of a shadow puppet activity that took place ant the play school and I immediately brought myself into the hall closet to experiment a bit. The combination of the shadow on the wall and light shining through the pin-holes were reminiscent of a starry sky. It is as though there are three separate objects to navigate: the light source, the paper, and the shadow on the wall. There is a kind of lure to focus one’s attention on the dynamic object on the wall. The other objects drift out of awareness giving the impression of being one fluid thing. As I improvised, moving the light and paper back and forth, I became aware of sound of the needle scratching against the paper. It had been there all along, but it took a couple of minutes until it came into my awareness. It felt increasingly satisfying as it moved across the pinholes, a thicker more textured sound compared to the smooth portion of the paper.
I couldn’t help but laugh watching the video afterwards, it was much more spectacular during the in-act of playing than it appeared in the recording. Interestingly, when I went back into the play school data to find a video excerpt of the shadow play, I notice that I am doing the same near/far movements in my video as the children do in the field notes video. Perhaps this is natural experimentation, to explore how the proximity of light impacts the dynamism of the shadow. Or maybe I think like a child. I mean that in a beautiful way, I love my ability to somehow still view aspects of life with childlike wonder.
Afterwards, while looking at the stitches and considering what I might do next, I became somewhat bored. As of now, I might leave the piece unfinished… but keep the needle attached. In some way this could represent the ‘in process’ nature of this project while also embracing the tangential nature of neurodivergent thought. For now I will leave it open and maybe I will come back and develop it more.
Thinking further about the stitches led me to google “embroidery stitches for beginners”. I watched a few videos for about 20 minutes, enjoying learning about multiple types stitching patterns, created with just the slightest variation of technique. There was one that thought was particularly lovely; an edging stitch. I may try to learn it, it has inspired to think more about the edges. … In Process
February 17-19th, 2024
There is something about the messiness, knots, tears, and randomness of this piece that I enjoy. I’ve given myself full permission to make mistakes, for things to be ugly. I’ve been experimenting with a few new stitches, the paper makes things tricky as it isn’t solid enough, doesn’t provide enough of an anchor for the thread to dance around on or through. I attempted some of the edge stitching and the thread seems too rough, additionally, the paper has torn and the thread became knotted and detached from the edge. It’s actually very interesting to me; the shape and how it just kind of unapologetically stands on its own at the edge of the paper. Threads, threading together of things, knots, tangles, stuck(ness)…. In Process
March 17th, 2024
Texture
You can represent texture and layers in digital forms (pictures/videos) but they will always serve as a kind of negating agent. They suggest texture but leave you missing the tactile input.
They tease you by reminding you there is a rough (ness), sweet (ness), imperfect(ness) to life that you can remember or imagine but not experience. There is nothing that can replace the vivacity of life, the feeling(ness) of becoming with the world around you.
We seem to confuse what is actually real with what are representations and abstractions of what is actually real.
There is such a blurring between the things we pretend and the things that are. Weird times.
(re)Imagine(ing) Fieldnotes
April 24th, 2024
adding dimension, thick(ness), rough(ness
I don’t know the date I painted these…. I don’t have the same time stamps I once used to, it seems to bleed together these days… Maybe it was sometime in May(?)… No goal just vibrancy, nostalgia for lisa frank, layers and meshing and blendings and nubbins
July 3rd, 2024:
I haven’t been feeling particularly creative and so haven’t updated this website in a while. You can’t force creativity and it’s hard to initiate artistic expression when you feel disconnected from creative forces. Creativity is emergent, it pops up when the circumstances are just right. When you come into contact with something that sparks something. When novelty elicits novelty of a similar affective tone. It may be a doing or thinking, and it often has a catalytic effect. One thing spurs another and another and another until all of a sudden you find yourself smack dab in the middle of creating. I noticed that the moment I started writing my thesis again, writing about the methodology including this website, I had little to no interest in contributing more to this website. It was so wonderful at first and was exciting a dulled part of me, it felt like I would never be seperate from my creativity again. But the moment that I let others into it, their lack of engagement, their disinterest in what I thought was so interesting, their inability to see how this was really important work FOR the thesis, that this was as important as the data collected in the field – not just an afterthought or side project but a part of the work – it was deflating. It made me feel floppy instead of fluid. I felt unstable instead of flexible. Basically, they killed the vibe.
Why is there a tension between me-as-writer and me-as-artist? I think it’s because I don’t feel like I’m expressing my true voice in this thesis. I always have the background noise of structure, and linearity, and category, and supposed to(s), and you aren’t meant to(s), and I’m not understanding what you are saying(s), and we want to push this along(s). It feels like how stagnant smells. It feels like walking into a store after being outside in the lovely breeze. It feels like how it feels to walk through water. It feels like foggy glasses.
I find myself caught in the in-between of what I want my thesis to be and what might just be easier and faster. What might be easier to talk about and explain so I can get advice from other people. Sometimes the weight of trying to get people to understand something that is only in your imagination is heavy. Maybe not heavy but awkward, in the way that a 20 lbs box feels lighter than a 10 lbs object of irregular shape; you just can’t seem to get your hands in the right place. But I guess people can only imagine what they have access to in their own imaginings, you can’t rely on them to see what you see until you give them something to look at. And so, it’s kind of lonely – the process of creating – you have to be careful not to let their questions make you think that what you are doing doesn’t make sense. Because them not understanding doesn’t mean that the work can’t and won’t be understood. It just means you have to do it before they can get it... In Process…