Workshop 02 - Show Me a Story
Beyond Words
As academics, whether undergraduate or graduate students, we are often required to express ourselves in words, mostly through writing; our written work is constantly scrutinized, serving as a gauge of our intelligence, understanding of the material, and overall capability. Consequently, this form of expression becomes linked with judgment, pressure, stress, pain, and isolation. The workshop aimed to challenge this notion by encouraging participants to engage beyond words, fostering a joyful exploration of ourselves in a low-stakes, non-judgmental environment.
“I found the workshop I attended very useful in pushing me forward to express in a different way, what I've been feeling and thinking and expressing through written format for so long”
Community of Objects
Remembering back to March 2021, we were already a year into the pandemic, and the feelings of disembodiment, disconnection, and isolation were particularly acute. To address the challenges of such an isolating situation, we decided it was essential to create a sense of community. However, how could we achieve this without being able to meet in person? How could we create a more tangible experience of togetherness? With these questions in mind, we decided to send identical art materials to the homes of my fellow window fellows, thereby creating a community of objects.
Beautifully colored dual markers, large sketchbooks, scissors, and tapes unexpectedly arrived at the participants' homes. By the time we all gathered, a sense of belonging had already begun to emerge, as these objects symbolized each other's presence in everyone's home. While the use of objects to produce grounding and shared experiences is fairly common in participatory methodologies, what was different here was that all participants received the same objects, creating a shared experience even before the synchronous online meeting. One of the participants told us that she received her markers and everything on her birthday, and she wondered who sent such a nice gift to her place, where she had been living alone for a long time.
Remarks from participants:
“I loved that we were provided with materials to draw with, even though I'm not skilled in that, it really encouraged me to think of drawing and painting as an alternative form of expression and I just did it for the sake of expression (and I'm sure through that my brain gained some sort of plasticity!”
Coloring, Drawing and Storytelling
Gracefully guided by Tracey Berglund, the workshop began with a simple exercise: each participant was asked to pick two of their favorite colors and combine them. We were then asked to repeat the exercise, but this time using two colors we disliked. This apparently simple exercise was incredibly effective, serving as an invitation to openness and exploration. The exercise set the tone for what would be the entire workshop - an exercise in self-authorization of new forms of soul exploration, mediated by different drawing techniques and illustration styles introduced by Tracey.
The picture below shows a moment when one of the participants shared that she actually liked the pair of colors she did not like, rather than the one composed of her favorite colors. This simple idea of being open to experimenting and trying set the tone for the whole workshop, in which participants started to free themselves to express deep inquietudes and conflicting feelings that the pandemic and isolation were producing.
"I loved this activity because it really encouraged the pairing of unlikely shapes and colors. The idea was to just draw and put things together and see what came of it. I felt that in this activity, I was able to let my subconscious do a lot more of the talking."
From this simple process of pairing color exercises, we slowly liberated ourselves from the excess judgment and idea that "I don't know how to draw" to progressively engage with more complicated image creation and deeper conversations around the pandemic, isolation, uncertainty, future, etc. With time, hands-heads-hearts realigned, and participants started to liberate themselves to draw more complex images to "tell stories", their own stories of struggles during the pandemic.
As the workshop progressed, Tracey Berglund introduced us to various artists and illustration styles, inviting participants to try those techniques themselves and discuss the process. We moved from exercises in creating silhouettes, using two shapes to make one negative and one positive, to producing abstractions, discussing identity imagery, metaphorical drawing, satire, collage, and portraits – essentially the various ways artists use images to tell stories.
The Power of Plants or What We Can Control
The first one, produced by Izamar Gallardo Castillo, highlighted the importance and power of plants during the pandemic. In her drawing, the contradiction between a sense of helplessness and the attempt to exert control, even over small things, was captured by a little girl holding a plant and saying, "I am fine," while outside her square, the world seems to be collapsing. During the pandemic, a common strategy used and suggested by psychologists was to focus on things that we could control in our immediate surroundings. Access to green spaces was not possible for everyone, and the cultivation of plants became a big trend during the pandemic. For some people, caring for plants was already part of their lives, while for others, the pandemic introduced this experience for the first time. The image below shows not only Izamar's beautiful drawing but also how the illustration touched the other participants.
The image produced by Izamar Gallardo Castillo captured several layers of our complex and contradictory feelings during the pandemic. A person holding a tiny plant stating "I am fine" while the outside was burning; the house offering a bounded protected space, while the windows suggested a porous relationship connecting home with the outside space presented almost as a prison.
Once again, in the image, it is possible to see how the drawing resonates with the other participants, who likely identified with that confined yet powerful girl.
The final drawing was sent to us by Madeleine Barnes after the meeting. She produced it during the workshop, and it was her takeaway from our microcosm of meaning production. Hope is discipline. As traumatic as the pandemic was, Madeleine reminded us that hope was a practical matter and, as such, should be cultivated daily with discipline.
Coming back to words
One of my personal goals for the From My Window project was to create experimental, non-judgmental spaces where my undergraduate students and graduate colleagues could come together, learn, and enjoy moments of togetherness mediated by art production, which they could then apply to their daily lives.
I found myself feeling down, disembodied, and, more importantly, trying to make sense of what was happening, but unable to put words together. Perhaps it was because English is not my native language, or maybe it was simply because the situation was too absurd to be put into words. I also do not draw and dare not do so because I feel that I do not know how. I have always wanted to have a moment with a sensible and encouraging artist who would help me face my fears and calm the voices we all have telling us we don't know how to do something. As Tracey once told me, when she has workshops with kids, they never say, 'I do not know how to draw'; only adults have heard enough to forbid themselves from even trying.
When the From My Window project was finalized, we had an evaluation and some of the participants expressed their feelings about the workshops and their long-lasting outcomes: "As this was the only workshop I was able to attend due to my work schedule, this will be the only one I will be able to provide feedback to. I have never considered myself an artist and many times have wished I had hone artistic skills at a younger age, so being in an environment where ANY illustration created was appreciated was very comforting. I find that drawing is a very relaxing activity for me and after the workshop, was able to allow myself to indulge in it more often. I now try to not be judgmental of my work when I am drawing and try to focus on the feelings the colors and lines give me rather than what I think my art "should" look like"
From the windows of our Zooms and connected from different places, we all liberated a small part of ourselves to tell our stories.
Fernanda Blanco Vidal