zero pressure

“there’s only one rule when handling objects in the stores … don’t pick a rabbit up by its ears.”

this was the opening line from our curatorial guide in the stores on the fourth floor of the silk mill.  soon it was very apparent what this meant and we were off ! exploring the stores with our fetching nitride gloves being the safety net for the objects.

we learnt about how when fully open the silk mill’s collection of 17,000 objects will all be on display across the four floors of the building.  it’s a huge under taking and i’m starting to grasp from a curator’s perspective how this might be.

the collection is diverse.  from a lump of slag to an absolutely beautiful fully operational (we believe) model of a traction engine.

i found an object that completely lit me up.  i want to see it working and was able to ask the main curator if this might be possible.  his answer was very revealing.  i learnt a lot about curatorial practice and the relationship with an object in the museum.  we’ll find out soon if the object’s record has designated it as one to be used.  from a visual inspection, we found the last pat test date of it.

earlier in the day we’d ventured through the first floor.  here we were being shown the lego robot kit that is part of a collaboration between the museum and the institute of engineering and technology (that’s what i managed to write down, i hope this is correct !).   i learnt about the first lego league.  this spans 96 countries and encourages exploration, experimentation and visual coding with lego in a competitive fun format.  one of our maker team has previous experience and i hope be part of some peer to peer learning with this kit.

the first floor also houses the midland railway company archive and an extensive model railway.  soon this will be packed and and stored in preparation for the renovation and revitalising work scheduled to be carried out on the internal structure.  taking pictures of the railway area felt ery documentative of something set to soon evolve.

in getting ready for our object handling training we again ventured onto the first floor.  along the edges of the walk way were rows and rows of bricks.

i had to ask about them.

the museum has a collection of 461 bricks.  i was thrilled to learn this as it totally ties in with a fledgling idea i have in response to one of the maker briefs.

a couple of other images from the store.

i’m feeling happy.  i’m enjoying the journey into derby and the knot i had been getting in my stomach is no longer with me.  the maker ed, maker corps programme is beginning and later i’ll be part of a global connection via google hangout with other makers.

looking at the grass in the garden, i’ve been reminded of this …

as the residency settles into it’s rythym my thinking continues to be a banging buzzing booming confusion.  i just had to write that so i can begin to ease the need to think it.

after catching up with grayson perry’s all man i again see the importance of talking about what is on your mind.

since thursday i’ve been juggling many thoughts i’ve wanted to record them.

in this moment they have all flown the coop.

let’s see how many will return to be recorded.

firstly some words about the post on friday.  i had images from what i experienced on thursday and in the packed day to day schedule wanted to make a post based on the available time i had.  i knew if i didn’t make a post the moment would be lost and the uncatchable catch up scenario would be started.

i again was at the museum on saturday(yesterday).  the day started with extra intrigue as an organisation who helps people with sight loss was staging a duck race as part of their fund raiser.

a mooc is a massive open online course and this week i’ve begun the backstage of the 21st century museum course on future learn dot com.  i see this course as an additional research resource within my residency at the silk  mill.  i’ve been joining in with the dicussions and i’ve really enjoyed the first week.  it’s run by the museums studies department at the university of leicester.

using the museum of liverpool as a working case study, the course is considering the aspects of what might go into make a museum of the 21st century.

democratic, accessible are two of the strong aspects that have come out.  the museum as a social space has also been shown to be important.  the museum of liverpool demonstrates how architecture can influence visitor experience as well as representing what happens in the city.

watching the videos of the museum in action, the thing that struck me was how many varied opportunities the museum has made for visitors to use their hands to interact with objects in the museum.

currently derby silk mill museum opens to the public for two sessions a week.  at these the maker bar is available as a drop in resource for visitors to make something be it the set activity or their own take on it.  i made sure this week to be at both the sessions so i could establish a baseline observation.

i kept the activity simple.  (keeping it simple is important to me because at the beginning of a relationship the simplicity allows for connection to be made.  as our relationship progresses we can together explore how the idea can become more complex and interesting.)

one of the aspects of the residency is juggling connecting to the collection within the curatorial theme of the month.  with this in mind i wanted to make paper planes for the activity this week.  i observed it was popular and for the most part within the ability range of those participating.  i saw a lot of decorating of the planes once they had been test flown.  i also saw lots of children smiling and running around the museum flying paper planes. (i now have an idea of baseline material resources for the maker bar.)

i learnt that i needed to have aspects of my practice with me.  i learnt this on thursday as steve (fellow steam powered maker)  brought along parts of  his experiments and an activity to engage visitors.  i enjoyed his company and we had some great conversations and a few giggles too.  on saturday in the lulls of active participants i was able to play with some of my own experiments.  i had a piece of wood beginning to control a white circle on my laptop by the close of play.

i’m settling into the residency.  slowly negotiating with myself the order in which i do things.  earlier in the week i touched upon how i learn.  i explored this further through taking the online vark questionaire.  this is a resource that gives an indication for your learning style strengths.  answering the questions has helped me to further understand myself and my learning style preferences.  i feel it important to understand myself so i can start to understand and help others.

in reading about learning styles and the vark questionaire i also read an article about preschool children.  i learnt that a question begun with what gives them the space to answer.  a question being why will be quite closed for a child.  i’m going to attempt to ask more questions starting what ….. (this is quite difficult to do.)

i want to reflect a bit now upon the making task i set this week.

what?

a making task inspired by the eagle engine (including worlds first air mail), making paper planes and flying them in the museum.

so what ?

happened was i saw people approaching the maker bar showing on their faces that they didn’t comprehend what the bar was about.  greeting them with a smile and chatting with them they chose to engage in the activity they wanted to do. for the majority it was to make the plane.  there were some who simply wanted to draw and in some instances  encouraged them when needing inspiration.

with the adults present in almost all cases we got into conversation.  on thursday ian from adelaide showed us some wing modifications and i shared this addition with subsequent participants.

now what ?

there is a collection of made paper planes and some communication material i created by hand to help the activity become familiar and friendly.  i don’t know where these will go.  the objects are based on the monthly  theme and i need to investigate wether it is possible to create a dynamic monthly exhibition from the pieces of the activity that remains at the end of saturday each week.  a space that begins the month empty and through the month is populated from the activities.  at the end of the month the exhibit is documented and made available via digital online means.  the monthly activity documentation becoming part of the digital collection.

steve and i chatted a lot about the briefs we can select from.  i need to consider the negotiation of seeing the steam engine running before the end of the residency as this is what will help me to be inspired to access the brief connected to this machine.  i note the model railway will be running at the end of the month.

my banging buzzing confusion has now calmed down through the writing down of stuff.  at a personal level it’s been a demanding week.  i’ve responded by eating more and talking at my partner more as i work to make sense of what has been happening.  in other words i’m actively working on my hierarchy of needs as laid out by maslow

the weekend has been punctuated by heavy downpours.  as the rain eases one of my favourite tunes to look at the window with is by elo…

i’ve learnt that sometimes it’s best to leave writing a blog post until a while after the event.  this is such a post.  there is still much information transferring and it’s taking me a while to catch up.

lots to add, so i’ll lean on some informal mindfulness to help me focus on where to begin.

i’m excited by the proposition of using google drive as a place to collaborate via shared documents.  i’ve been playing this evening and added a simple hello world document and invited the other collaborators to add their hello world message.

our site is a partner venue in the maker ed #makercorps project for summer 2016.  today i’ve joined up online and begun to explore all the resources available.

yesterday i took part in our first brain storming session at the building and i’m going to use what, so what, what now as a reflective tool:

what?

we initially stood in a facilitated group talking in flow and adding key points as written postit notes onto a wall in the space.

so what?

i felt awkward at first as i posted before the facilitator had given us our operating boundaries, although i posted in order to discover what those boundaries were.

while the facilitator was present i felt happy and being part of a constructive positive process that had purpose and direction.

the discussion went on for 3 hours.  i worked hard to stay with it.  the effort required left me feeling unhappy.  in reflecting about the experience with my partner i was able to vocalise something that i’d never been able to say before.  the method of working in the brainstorming after the initial hour does not suit my kinesthetic learning style.

now what?

i need to discuss further my findings about myself with those in the project.  i will take the opportunity here in this post to collate my thoughts about what i realised last night.

to aid my brain storming ability, i would like to try a brain storming session that lasts one hour.  after this hour i would like the opportunity to take what i learnt in the brain storming session and wave my arms around while collecting materials and trying out ideas based on what i learnt. in other words to immediately attempt to prototype something.

last night in our living room i waved my arms around and spoke at my partner while i worked out why my head felt like it had been solidified by something that solidifies things.

i passionately spoke to her about how i’ve never really been able to express what my needs have been in terms of what i need to help me move towards my potential.  i asked her if she thought i might be the only person like this.  “i doubt it” came her reply.

i started to explore my forest school experiences for anything that i could connect to.  for sometime i’ve felt that kinesthetic learners are those who have an immediacy of connection with a forest school session and ultimately the process.

there are examples of this i can recall at the school i volunteer at.  the forest school ethos / process is made available to children who have the potential to improve their current levels.  i asked the question last night “of those children, how many have kinesthetic as their main learning style?”  through more focussed observation this might be understood.

i started to make further connections.  the school process is about sitting and listening and responding in written form(for the most part).  we hear of children who are extremely good at this and are at their target level and sometimes above.  we also hear of children that are below target and find it difficult to do the work needed to make the level.  would those below target respond better to a different learning approach ?

something i must add here.

to help me feel like my head was suidgy/maleable again and me … me, i took a path of things to make me feel better.  i played, i listened to some music. i did things that helped me affirm i was me and happy again.

there was a moment where i asked the question “of those kinesthetic learners at school who are short of their potential, how many of them do things to clear their heads that annoy others (their intention being merely to clear their head and to feel themselves again)?”

yesterday i became aware i am going to work be better, be more productive, happier, more energised by a modified brain storming process.  i look forward to sharing this with the group when we next meet up.

monday was my brother’s birthday.  i sent him a card made by the scribble/squiggle bots i took with me on thursday last week to help describe my passion/interest in making.  the image is a detail of that card.

in the united states the steam process is described as project based holistic learning.  it’s within a ball park of the forest school ethos.  i think my next steps are to start to explore what projects i want to attempt and let myself discover where this takes me.

in the beginning …. such a biblical proportion of a statement.  the start of the residency does feel of biblical proportions, the ambition of those behind the re-imagining of the derby silk mill museum being bold and looking way into the future.

their vision is that by 2019/20 the museum of making will be fully open to the public.  in the up coming 14 weeks the 6 of us are part of the on going research and prototyping of that vision.

within this blog my intention is to record what i do and reflect upon that.  part of the brief is to answer 21 questions set by the museum team.

yesterday was the first official day of the residency.  i met with the museum team and the maker team.  the makers being guided through the history of the project and informed of the current status.

it was then quickly down to work.  guided by the main curator we were taken high into the building and introduced to one of the collection rooms.  our brief was to find something that could inspire a making activity based around a theme of communication to the drop in public audience later that afternoon.

part of that experience was to chat with the curator re his interpretation of communication.  the maker team had quickly latched onto the verbal obvious forms of communication.  our curatorial guide gave examples of social non verbal communication.  for example how the collection of qualcast lawn mowers communicates aspiration.  how the textiles machine communicated something about ambition and status to the people who worked with them.  i felt uncomfortable with this notion of social communication, partly because over time i have rejected it as a sub-concicous notion to participate in.

over lunch the makers sat and discussed the morning and particularly the visit to the store and the need to develop an activity.  as i listened and tucked into lunch i became aware of what i was part of.  it resembled something from a realife tv series where a bunch of people are brought together and given a task to do to see how they cope.  i loved the experience because the dialogue became very open and very honest.

currently the silk mill building is only open to the public on the ground floor.  through the re:make project the interior was gutted, asbestos removed and all made beautiful again.  there’s an area to view things and there’s an area in which making occurs.  currently in the viewing area there is a maker bar and curatorial hub where objects from the collection are cleaned and documented ahead of the upper floors make over project.

the activity we arrived at was to create personal totems, adding them to a collective totem pole.  i found the process really exciting as working with 5 other people meant i could action the small ideas i had to offer, feeding this into a collective effort without having to worry at all as their were interpretations of what i was doing that helped to collectively arrive at something we were all happy with.  a benefit over working alone where it’s so easy to get bogged down in a small detail.

there are however some details i do need to consider.  we left the day with a briefing document.  7 considerations each with 3 treatments.

for this blog i’m going to return to the driscoll (by borton) model of reflection.  i’ve not practiced much with this so i’m going to be a little clunky over it’s use while i get familiar again.  we covered a lot yesterday so focussing in on something to reflect upon is going to make this process more manageable.

so my focus today is the 21 point making brief….

step 1. what ?

This is a description of the event.

Trigger questions: What…

• … is the purpose of returning to this situation?
• … happened?
• … did other people do who were involved in this?
• … did I see/do?
• … was my reaction to it

what happened was as a group we arrived at a making activity for the public based on an object in the collection, group discussion, group prototyping and group deployment.

step 2. so what ?

This is an analysis of the event.

Trigger questions: So what…

• … did I feel at the time of the event?
• … are my feelings now, after the event, any different from what I experienced at the time?
• … were the effects of what I did (or did not do)?
• … positive aspects now emerge for me from the event that happened in practice?
• … have I noticed about my behaviour in practice by taking a more measured look at it?
• … observations does any person helping me to reflect on my practice make of the way I acted at the time?
• … is the purpose of returning to this situation?
• Were those feelings I had any different from those of other people?
• Who were also involved at the time?
• Did I feel troubled, if so, in what way?

my reaction to it overall was good.  i enjoyed every stage of the process.  i enjoyed putting forward my thoughts/ideas and it was ok that my main idea wasn;t picked because what was picked was something i hadn’t considered or thought of and it worked really well.  i was able to adapt to the evolving idea and made things.  i felt good in myself that i had been able to make a positive contribution to the activity.

step 3. now what?

Proposed actions following the event

Trigger questions: Now what…

• …are the implications for me and others in clinical practice based on what I have described and analysed?
• …difference does it make if I choose to do nothing?
• …is the main learning that I take from reflecting on my practice in this way?
• …help do I need to help me ‘action’ the results of my reflections?
• …aspect should be tackled first?
• Where can I get more information to face a similar situation again?
• How can I modify my practice if a similar situation arises again?
• How will I notice that I am any different in clinical practice?

the process of drawing inspiration from collection, prototyping activity and delivering activity will happen each week.

as well as developing ideas to connect and engage with external groups of people.

as well as making things inspired by the collection.

as well as being an active member of the maker corps programme by maker ed.

the implications are there is a lot of work to do in 14  weeks and over thinking it will lead to build up of stress, which is not required.

the process is curiosity led with a systematic approach to answering questions.

i love that through our potential we will inform the prototype of the museum of making.