Becoming a process artist
Art of Harvesting, Art of Hosting, Being, CoHo, Collaboration, Facilitation, Learning, Practice
I wasn’t at the Nexus for Change conference although I was there in spirit. I had a few lovely long design talks with Peggy Holman, Gabriel Shirley and Tracy Robinson who were hosting various parts of it. I also followed it online a little and even from a distance it was possible to pick up a thread and extend it a little into my own learning. What stood out for me was this emerging identity as a process artist.
John Abbe brought this to my attention with an update to his weblog in which he announced a Nexus project involving creating a wiki around process arts. It’s a great thought and a lovely enterprise, and it has given me some inspiration for talking about my work and what I try to bring to groups, organizations and communities.
I am certainly an artist in the traditional sense of the world, especially in the modality of music where I have practiced consciously since 1979. I am a martial artist, and I do rock balancing more as a meditation than as an art, but still. I have also spent times in my life working artistically with words, writing novels, poetry and other pieces from a place of deep artistic practice. I still practice that somewhat, although I wouldn’t count weblogging necessarily in that field. Blogging for me falls into another category, which I can now name as ProcessArts.
My practice as a process artist includes the following:
- open source learning here at the Parking Lot
- surfing with eyes, ears and fingers for ideas, inspiration and beauty
- parenting and living in a creative set of family relationships (which have their expression in the world in various ways!)
- the art of hosting, designing and convening conversations that matter.
- the art of harvesting learning from questions and learning journeys that I am on.
- Inspiring, creating and supporting change in a way that feeds evolution, life and peace at the many levels of social organization on this planet, from friendships to public service, in response to deep and heartfelt invitations to co-create and collaborate.
I’m going to give this some more thought, but I’d like to ask you two questions, dear reader(s):
- Where do you practice ProcessArts in your life?
- What experience of my ProcessArt practice have you seen that I’m missing in this broad list?
Curious…thanks to John, a little learning journey has begun.
[tags]processarts, john abbe, nexusforchange[/tags]
good morning Chris!
Would you say some more please about what process arts are, what the term refers to? I did take a look at John’s wiki & the processarts delicious page, and found a lot of intriguing links — but actually am a little confused about what doesn’t fit. If parenting, cooking, singing, gardening, being in right relation with coworkers and customers, etc etc, all those life-arts things fit the category…what are the things that don’t? Is it a quality of attention or devotion that distinguishes? Or a quality of contribution to the whole? Or a wilingness to share the learnings & skills?
intrigued, and curious!
thanks, love,
Christy
Seems to me that within all of those life arts there is process and we can pay attention to that process as an artist. So in my relationships with clients, in meetings I facilitate and in my time I spend with my kids, I actually do bring an artistic sensibility to those places a lot of the time. I am highly aware of getting into a groove, and I learn and practice a lot.
Caitlin and I put our kids on our corporate website as two of the four partners of Harvest Moon Consultants Ltd., because what we have going on in our family shows up in our work. The artistry of relationship, of planning, of communicating, presencing and conversing is trained and practiced there.
So to me there is a close connection between life arts and process arts, and life artistry and process artistry. I think actually it is possible to be one or the other (or neither) but things really light up when you become both.
I would like to support Christy’s question, although I do think that I have understood Process Arts in much the way you clarify in your reply. In order to answer your first question: I have begun practicing it all the time, to the best of my ability. Making a conscious decision of becoming my very best in everything I do and experience may have served as the initial starting point and I take it from there. The bottomline is to think, say, do anything as astutely aware as possible. The process falls into place, as in doing everything in an ultimately aware manner puts decisions to be made in front of you – all the time, from the minute you open your eyes to the one you’re closing them (and in doing so, having made a conscious decision to “let go” for now). Once you have selected one of the many options and thus having made a decision, a process follows. It may either involve new decisions to be made in order to accomplish an output or working down your list of todos in order to make that particular, anticipated output happen. It may also involve involving others in order to help you get where the decision is meant to get you or an issue.
In answering your second question: I’m still reading and exploring, so I may have to ask your patience for not even having come across the many forms of process art you’re already practicing.
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I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Becoming a process artist, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
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Guten Tag
Over fifty years ago I apprenticed as a positive FOTO-RETOUCHER .{which means retouching the fotoprint .in contrast to the negative retoucher who retouches the negative film]When I got a job in England I found out that they use the name PROCESS ARTIST instead of FOTORETOUCHER for my trade.The origin of my trade goes back to ca 1910 so these words have been around a while.I have never heard these words used in any other connection than as described above.In the meantime the computer has gobled up this trade.It may be of interest that the main tool was the AIRBRUSH and very fine Kolinsky brushes made from the winterfur tailhair of the rare Kolinsky marmot which is found only in remote aereas of Siberia.
This is just a different angle to these two words .In case you knew all this already .I APOLOGIZE
so long and uf widerluege {Swissgerman for bye bye}
Very interesting…thanks for the history Wally!
Hi
Fantastic information,This is the first time i heard about this. keep it up this good works.
Regards,
William