English
I am earning 1 English Credit for:
Writing and Reading
I have written 3 real pieces this semester: the Lear ‘script’, Boundless Manifesto, and the Stonewall Sticky Notes. Along with this I have done a lot of writing for LIFE AS PERFORMANCE, but none of that is anywhere near finished.
The big writing moment I had this semester was in conversation with Sayward, in which the way that I write best became clear to me. It is very much like how I make performance, in that I need to work without boundaries first, taking many notes in a document, paying no attention to how they fit with the ones preceding and following them. I just need to vomit all the ideas onto the page.
I am more reflective because I just give myself permission to write, and not care so deeply about what comes out. In the past on my blog I would make to-do lists and update to the tiniest detail on my projects, but now I simply meditate on the ideas floating through my head at the moment, synthesizing them with the greater themes of my life.
From there I can categorize and reorganize the fragments of the bigger idea into something that vaguely resembles an essay. This becomes my terrible first draft, from which I can revise and get feedback on until I am satisfied.
This semester I wrote the LIFE AS PERFORMANCE manual, I wrote the script for LEAR, I wrote LIFE AS PERFORMANCE retrospective.
The power is in editing. The more you can take away from a piece of writing, and still leave its soul, the better it will be.
I read Joan Didion for the first time this semester. I was so struck by how she takes mundane things and turns them into beautiful essay.
I think I understand it more now. It is simply the observation of life, I recently noticed that things are happening to me. I was harassed for being gay, my presence walking on the sidewalk at night made a woman uncomfortable, my sister and I had a bonding moment. If I was Joan Didion those are the things I would be writing about right now. I have no excuse to not be, other than lack of discipline.
Over the past month I have been telling myself that I am going to start a daily writing practice. Last year I was very successful in instituting a weekly writing band for myself, and I recognise the great benefits of having a writing practice. That is my next goal for myself: to start writing every day.
Listening and Speaking
Interviewing a new person nearly every week on BOUNDLESS has put me in a place where I get to practice listening very often. In addition good collaboration is listening.
I make a practice of trying to let others speak before me, this is theoretically part of being my best self and understanding the privilege that comes along with being a white man. It is important for me to make space for people who might not say anything if I was talking. This also caters to my theme of deeper learning in that I don’t want to talk just to be saying something, I want to formulate what I am going to say before I say it, and by listening, really listening, I [gain] the ability to better understand those around me and to positively impact them.
Listening is key to working with others, in making A Body, A Body with Karli, or meeting with Amy, Sayward, or Erin. Listening is what allows me to discover new things from the world around me. I can listen to my own thoughts, and respond to them. .I wish that I had a clone of myself so that I could record myself listening and responding to myself.
Directing takes a lot of listening to do well - when I was making Lear I was having many conversations with the actors about their characters, and how they fit into the production, and to respond to them correctly I had to really understand what they were asking, which takes very active listening. At the same time is demonstrates speaking, because I needed to respond to them with an idea that was clear and answered their question in a way that they would resonate with.
BOUNDLESS is also somewhere I have practiced my speaking, everytime we have a discussion section I verbalize my thoughts in a succinct way, even if the discussion is something that I am still processing.
Sayward and I meet over the phone, so during those meeting we are handicapped by the fact that we cannot communicate with any sort of body language, this gives our words more weight.
I have given a long presentation in a similar style to how I give exhibitions, Ford and my seminar on giving exhibitions, in which I spent a considerable amount of time talking about my exhibition season process.
I feel as though, now that I have developed my writing to be more reflective my speech has done something similar, I am more likely to discover things within myself than I was before. So that points to the greater change within myself, one of being a more reflective and deeper learner.
These are skills that I value more and more as I because a person who wants to engage in discourse. And they are skills that I am using more and more in my life.
I am earning 1 English Credit for:
Writing and Reading
I have written 3 real pieces this semester: the Lear ‘script’, Boundless Manifesto, and the Stonewall Sticky Notes. Along with this I have done a lot of writing for LIFE AS PERFORMANCE, but none of that is anywhere near finished.
The big writing moment I had this semester was in conversation with Sayward, in which the way that I write best became clear to me. It is very much like how I make performance, in that I need to work without boundaries first, taking many notes in a document, paying no attention to how they fit with the ones preceding and following them. I just need to vomit all the ideas onto the page.
I am more reflective because I just give myself permission to write, and not care so deeply about what comes out. In the past on my blog I would make to-do lists and update to the tiniest detail on my projects, but now I simply meditate on the ideas floating through my head at the moment, synthesizing them with the greater themes of my life.
From there I can categorize and reorganize the fragments of the bigger idea into something that vaguely resembles an essay. This becomes my terrible first draft, from which I can revise and get feedback on until I am satisfied.
This semester I wrote the LIFE AS PERFORMANCE manual, I wrote the script for LEAR, I wrote LIFE AS PERFORMANCE retrospective.
The power is in editing. The more you can take away from a piece of writing, and still leave its soul, the better it will be.
I read Joan Didion for the first time this semester. I was so struck by how she takes mundane things and turns them into beautiful essay.
I think I understand it more now. It is simply the observation of life, I recently noticed that things are happening to me. I was harassed for being gay, my presence walking on the sidewalk at night made a woman uncomfortable, my sister and I had a bonding moment. If I was Joan Didion those are the things I would be writing about right now. I have no excuse to not be, other than lack of discipline.
Over the past month I have been telling myself that I am going to start a daily writing practice. Last year I was very successful in instituting a weekly writing band for myself, and I recognise the great benefits of having a writing practice. That is my next goal for myself: to start writing every day.
Listening and Speaking
Interviewing a new person nearly every week on BOUNDLESS has put me in a place where I get to practice listening very often. In addition good collaboration is listening.
I make a practice of trying to let others speak before me, this is theoretically part of being my best self and understanding the privilege that comes along with being a white man. It is important for me to make space for people who might not say anything if I was talking. This also caters to my theme of deeper learning in that I don’t want to talk just to be saying something, I want to formulate what I am going to say before I say it, and by listening, really listening, I [gain] the ability to better understand those around me and to positively impact them.
Listening is key to working with others, in making A Body, A Body with Karli, or meeting with Amy, Sayward, or Erin. Listening is what allows me to discover new things from the world around me. I can listen to my own thoughts, and respond to them. .I wish that I had a clone of myself so that I could record myself listening and responding to myself.
Directing takes a lot of listening to do well - when I was making Lear I was having many conversations with the actors about their characters, and how they fit into the production, and to respond to them correctly I had to really understand what they were asking, which takes very active listening. At the same time is demonstrates speaking, because I needed to respond to them with an idea that was clear and answered their question in a way that they would resonate with.
BOUNDLESS is also somewhere I have practiced my speaking, everytime we have a discussion section I verbalize my thoughts in a succinct way, even if the discussion is something that I am still processing.
Sayward and I meet over the phone, so during those meeting we are handicapped by the fact that we cannot communicate with any sort of body language, this gives our words more weight.
I have given a long presentation in a similar style to how I give exhibitions, Ford and my seminar on giving exhibitions, in which I spent a considerable amount of time talking about my exhibition season process.
I feel as though, now that I have developed my writing to be more reflective my speech has done something similar, I am more likely to discover things within myself than I was before. So that points to the greater change within myself, one of being a more reflective and deeper learner.
These are skills that I value more and more as I because a person who wants to engage in discourse. And they are skills that I am using more and more in my life.