Creativity and me

I am an arts-based researcher. I believe that knowledge can be extracted from the act of making, and like the sciences, can be a methodological approach to discovery. Poiesis, from Ancient Greek, is defined as an activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before. Poiesis is derived from the Greek word meaning “to make”. My work, at its essence, is about translating experience through observation and the act of making. I explore issues of language, mapping, place, identity and storytelling. What is there to be discovered without words? What is there

to be known beyond language? What beauty is to be found in the artistry of words used creatively? The creative process is a strange mixture of philosophy and alchemy; magical, yet rooted in the hand work of craft. The labor of artists is based in the body and intertwined with the spiritual.

People often ask me how my artwork relates to my ethnographic work or the work I have done in education. Creativity, an essential human trait, is expressed cross-culturally in myriad forms. What is creativity? Why are some people more able to utilize it than others? How do we make use of it? What role does it play in society at different times? I work with people around the world exploring the

various aspects of human creativity that are expressed across culture.

Fundamentally, I am curious about how we can relate that which is indescribable in ordinary language. How can I lead someone through an unknown experience where there is no map and the language is unintelligible? How does the creative process provide the tools for this kind of human translation? How closely integral are creativity and spirituality?

I seek to map the unknown parts of ourselves, not to make them known and take away the mysterious, but to reveal the beautiful, the valuable, the rare, and the extraordinary within.