Transformative Learning Final Project

Metaphors allow us to connect the inner and outer, to make the implicit explicit, so that we can better understand, more deeply experience, and more eloquently express who we are and what we do.”(Campbell, 2009 p. 211).

This semester, I began my transformative learning final project hitting the ground running. I chose to focus my practice as a painter and writer in a way that revisits my sense of self and transformation through critical self-reflection and individuation. I started to think about moments of struggle, confusion, stress, and transformation in my life and how I can further dive into the transformative processes, guided by the readings throughout the semester. Ultimately, I sought authenticity within this journey, as Dirkx suggested,I began to “take note of our reaction to particular metaphors, symbols or images- what our attention is drawn to – and our emotional reaction to these images” (Dirkx, 2006 p. 35). 

In “Learning to think like an adult” Mezirow provides us an overview of transformative learning theory as a way of making meaning of our assumptions and experiences “to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change, and reflective so that they may generate beliefs and opinions that will provide more true or justified to guide action”. (p. 76). Mezirow believes critical reflection and constructive discourse are essential to this process. Transformation can be “epochal” as a result of a sudden event or “disorienting dilemma” or “incremental” as a result of a series of events over time. (From Module 1). 

Life consists of many waves, the ebb and flow of circumstance---destiny, crashing onto rocks or rolling it's sea-foam safely to shore. Water began to appear in a variety of ways, in dreams, meditations, and synchronicities. Rather than not reflecting or pushing away daily symbols, I dove into the water as a way of understanding my psyche. This led me to do further research on water, relying on my handy-dandy Book of Symbols: 

We are droplets in the vast liquidity of the sea, and just as the ocean can swallow whole our titanic ships and jumbo jets, so out little vessels of human consciousness are liable to engulfment by the deepest waters of psyche. It's vital energies can loom like mythical sea monsters: sucking us up, spitting us out, dismembering. The churning of its abyss can activate archetypal epicenters of potentially shattering force. (The Book of Symbols, p.36)

Eventually, I arrived at a specific memory. 

I remembered going to the beach as a little girl and making 'tamales' with sand and sticks. I believe this memory revealed itself to me as a way of providing me with a story to re-experience as an artist---I decided to paint about this memory and and reflect on how I felt getting lost within materials, the same way I was lost as a little girl in sand, and seashells, and sticks. I eventually incorporated actual sand and masa (used to make tamales) within the paintings. 

Attempting to incorporate more methods of processing critical self-reflection and individuation in a more concrete way, I began to write. The poem I wrote became a recantation of the memory but dove deeper into my struggle with identity. I always understood the ritual of tamale making to be continued on by the mother's side of the family. Because my mother's cultural background is European––and my father's side Mexican––I never was able to participate in this tradition. 

Masa

Que masa, que mas

jealous of the little chicana girls who make tamales with their abuelitas y tias

hermanas

their christmastime assembly line
their ring of aromas and laughter and song

my doughy fingers and toes grasping at sand on the beach
digging and kneading wet corn flour and stuffing my tamal with seashells and sticks

I do not know where I belong

and the waves, they crash into my little body and drag me beneath the surface of my deepest desires

in darkness,

and in darkness my breath sparkles to sky
and in darkness I am not asked where I am from

and in darkness, my mother and father reach out with wide open arms and


pull me back to shore. 

This process revealed to me that the arts can present multiple ways of unpacking those critical moments that help shape who we are. I think being trained as an artist gave me more confidence to enter these transformative atmospheres and pull from these reflections new ways of being, thinking, and doing. Inspired by this process, I convinced my co-collaborator to team up with me to host a weaving workshop as a closing celebration to our exhibition in Macy Gallery. See description Below: 

Join artists Arredondo and Onyewuchi for a dialogue about identity, process, and artistic exploration. Discussing their journey to Rehearsal Lines for 1000 Suns, the artists will lead a two-part mixed media and basket weaving workshop.

Drawing upon memories, music, and meditations, using a variety of mediums, participants will develop designs onto pliable materials, that will then be used for weaving together traditional Igbo baskets. All materials are provided, but participants are encouraged to bring objects and/or materials they would like to explore.