Field Study Proposal

In many traditions, the temple summarizes the creation of the universe (the cosmogeny) seen as a divine unit that has exploded into pieces. The Tarot can be seen as such a temple. Alejandro Jodorowsky calls it a nomadic cathedral, whose mirrors reflect the multifaceted nature of the soul. The Tarot is a mandala, with its own spatial orientation, architecture, and symbolic structure. It has been used as a tool of self discovery for centuries. Through examining the history and symbolism of the Tarot, and by practicing the language of reflection in its mirrors, I hope to gain insight into the complex, multidimensional nature of the unconscious. Perhaps it is only through the study of “beauty” that one may grasp the ineffable and the divine. The study of Tarot can therefore be undertaken as a study of “beauty”. In many ways, the plasticity and complexity of the Tarot reflects the nature of the human brain. If poetry is one way to recycle neurons, it occurs to me that Tarot must certainly be another; as it too is a language that begs for differential interpretations of its words. In The Way of Tarot, Jodoroswky writes, “You start with a pack of cards, you mix up the arcana and lay them flat, which is to say you cut god into pieces. You interpret them and put them back together in sentences. It is a sacred quest that the initiate reader must perform. God is resuscitated not in immaterial form, but in the material world.”.

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ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

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Bachelardian Reverie

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Poetry

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Poetry Observed

Term Paper Abstract

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 Field Study Proposal

Michael Doughty will spend a month immersing himself in the intersection between transgender narratives and how reading can change the way that people view the world. He will use this knowledge and experience to create a narrative that is designed to give the reader the experience of coming out as a transgender person and then transitioning.

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ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

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Bachelardian Reverie

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Poetry

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Poetry Observed

Your Journey Home Introduction

Poetry Observed

Holdrege Paper

Abstract: Every person has a conversation with culture. They take in ideas, ideologies, and contribute a piece of themselves in return. This paper is about my conversation with culture. It is about what literature thinks of transgender people and the rebuttal of my own experiences. It is the story of my story, how my narrative designed to give people the sensation of being trans* was born.

Read full Winter Term Paper

 Novella

This is the story that was the goal of my project

Your Journey Home Through the Boyhood that Wasn’t

Field Study Proposal

How tightly woven are language and gender? Body and environment? During this four week field study, entitled B is for Body Mapping, the student will explore the effects of environment, language, and gender on the body through use of Derives (drifts through a city), writing/reading poetry, and letterpress. The student will keep a field study journal for observatory notes to craft into poems and create visual text-art via Letterpress. The student will develop a bibliography and put her ideas, questions and writing in conversation with multiple authors and text that have explored similar themes such as: Beyond The Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life, Gaston Bachelard, Michel De Certeau, Helene Cixous and various poets. The student will also help curate an anthology of the programs collective work.

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

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Bachelardian Reverie

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Poetry

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Poetry Observed

Authors Note:

This stop motion film is meant to capture my process of setting up and printing with letterpress. I chose this form because I wanted the object to speak for itself, or rather, speak for me as I have given it the language. Though this is a short video it took me about 2 hours to complete.

Fall Term Paper

Fall Term Paper Abstract:

I recognize that I am part of a culture that values materials more than basic human rights, a culture that views humans as objects, a culture of material worth. In such an environment I have become detached from my body, my multitude and nature. I have since seen this fracture as an opportunity to rebuild myself the way I see true. This paper is that exploration.

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Winter Term Paper

Winter Term Paper Abstract:

This paper is modeled after Craig Holdreges seven steps of “Delicate Empiricism” from his essay addressing science as a conversation between observer and observed. What follows is the conversation I had with the language surrounding, inscribing, and labeling the body. I will talk about my search for my body through language, urban environments, letterpress, gender, poetry and science. Knowing that these conversations are far from over this collection of findings and metaphors does not end with a conclusion but an invitation to go deeper. The voices I have peppered in with my own range from feminist theorists, philosophers, scientists and poets, and I encourage you to question, to add your voice, to join in reverie with those speaking here.

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The Meditation of Craftsmanship 

The meditation of craftsmanship is a firsthand investigation into the shared qualities of Buddhist and Yoga meditation with traditional Japanese woodcraft and to see how these techniques create a physical space that facilitates an integral sensory experience between mind, body, and spirit, all encompassed in the Chanoyu tea ceremony.  The student will show how practicing Japanese woodcraft and participating in the Chanoyu tea ceremony invite meditation that “recycles neurons”, an essential process in further developing critical thinking skills.  Working with the Chanoyu: Traditional Japanese Culture and the Way of Tea program, the student will join in the construction of a traditional Japanese tea house on campus and practice Chanoyu tea ceremonies with the class.  Conclusions drawn from the investigation will be presented in a final 5-7 page paper that integrates weekly field observations and poetry posted to an online forum.  The paper will be presented week 10 along with a demonstration of woodworking and an interactive component using Chanoyu and haiku.

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

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Bachelardian Reverie

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Poetry

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Poetry Observed

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJleRRj4-Vw]

Term Paper Abstract

Read full term paper here

[http://blogs.evergreen.edu/ealphabet/wo-term-paper-winter/]

Field Study Proposal

In this project, entitled P(r) is for Presence the student intends to explore the connection between the body and the
mind and to put various theories on movement and meditation into practice in an effort to reconnect both to her
physical self and the world around her. At the end of the project, the student will have amassed a collection of
poetry and photographs, as well as a Holdrege-style research paper detailing her efforts and experiences during this
project.

Read the complete field study proposal (pdf)

Gallery of captured moments

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

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Bachelardian Reverie

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Poetry

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Poetry Observed

Term Paper Abstract

In our current culture of excess, materialism and gratification few people live in the moment, and even fewer live in their bodies. They live in the past and dream of the future. The closest they come to the present is thinking about what they want right now but even that is a dream of the future, never an acceptance of what is. Bodies are a nuisance, objects to be tamed and altered, decorated and abhorred, rarely appreciated for the extraordinary machines that they are or thanked for the physical and emotional abuse they endure daily. If our bodies could talk, what would they say? But our bodies do talk, all the time. They are constantly telling us about ourselves internally, and give us moment-to-moment updates on the spaces we inhabit, each moment shaped by the preceding moment and shaping the next. Our bodies put 24-hour news feeds to shame. What a wealth of real-time information is available to us if we would only listen. That is my aim: to learn to access the information my body holds, to become a presence in my body and in the present moment, not watching them both from the outside.

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Field Study Proposal

Why does the ocean and water in general have such a powerful resonance for our imagination and attraction for our bodies? Using the Goethean-inspired practice of direct perception and delicate empiricism, the student will investigate the movement, reflection, horizon, diffusion and luminosity inherent in the ocean and in art about the ocean. The student will conduct field studies during which she will write, draw and photograph as a way to record and investigate these qualities of the sea and what effects they have on the imagination and body. She will also explore how other painters, poets, photographers, artists and scientists explain and study the poetic aspects of the ocean and will compile her research at luminoussea.tumblr.com as ‘an anthology of the ocean’ through poetic, artistic and scientific lenses alike. As a supplement to her study of the ocean and art, the student will also study creativity, the process of delicate empiricism, and how “an object well-contemplated opens an organ of perception within us” (Goethe); what processes and techniques do curious people use to translate the essence of a phenomenon into art with love, openness and well-crafted poetry, image and research? The month’s research will provide the basis for a short winter term paper explaining the process of delicate empiricism. The student will then create a manual for conducting this process of sensitive  science, supplemented with her poetry and photography into a small, beautifully formatted booklet as a spring quarter project. This ocean study is about body-knowledge and water-knowledge, is about how art can show us where our selves overlap with the phenomena of the world, and how creativity is rooted in and resonates with the world.

Read complete field study proposal here

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

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Bachelardian Reverie

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Poetry

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Poetry Observed

Fall Term Paper Abstract: The Bracken Fern

The language of scientific research is increasingly divorced from the poetic experience of observation. Descriptions are often stale and highly specific in a way that doesn’t encompass the entire character of the organism. By practicing Goethean science, one can use science and art to describe specific scientific findings with the subjective experience of being in contact with phenomena. The body emits electromagnetic frequencies from the heart that are constantly in flux with its environment. These waves manifest as emotions: in short, the sensory input from the heart as emotions is important data to use when perceiving phenomena. It is difficult to translate emotions into linear language, which is why poetic language and art can be more effective tools for conveying the sensory input of experience. This paper is about the search for knowledge about the Bracken fern through observation of the plant and observation of the observer as she observes. It strives to use poetic language alongside specific facts to compose a holistic portrait of the bracken.

Read full fall term paper here

Winter Term Paper Abstract: Seven Steps Towards a Delicate Empiricism

These seven steps are an attempt to illustrate a process of “delicate empiricism” as a way to conduct creative and scientific investigations. The process is based in the phenomenological experience of the senses paired with imagination, research, and creation that results in discoveries that may be communicated to others through art and science. These seven steps urge the observer to recognize the merits of using both the heart and the mind when exploring the world, and are a way to bring together the inquisitive nature of science with the subjective experience of art. These are the steps used by the student during a month long field study during which she studied the ocean, and are a part of a larger paper that explores the power of art as a means of expressing truths about the sea. Delicate empiricism is a process that illuminates how love can be translated from a phenomenon through the senses into art, which is a new phenomenon in itself. It starts: passion, observation, imagination, conversation, context, and organs of perception. It begins anew in love. 

Read full winter term paper here

Spring Term Booklet: waterbodies

This booklet is a manual to the methods I lived while sensing through art, the ocean, my body and memory during my winter term field study of the sea. The regular type poses the prompts I asked myself; the italicized type is the poetic voice of my experience with the wide, churning, sensual, somatic, deep, horizontal, salty subject of the sea, encompassed in the oceanic whisperings of parenthesis.
This project began with a question: How does the ocean affect the body and the imagination?
(Why does the opening from vertical land to horizontal sea seem to mimic a shift from brain analyzing to belly sensing?
Why does it feel that thoughts turn to substance and churn, settle, spread when in the presence of the sea?
What do artists render in art about the sea? How does art then illuminate ocean-experience in turn?)

This booklet explains some of how and what I learned.

Read waterbodies here

Field Study Proposal

I wish to study the poetry and other media works of Jim Morrison to find out what draws me (and many others) to Morrison. I will also argue why and how I am a modern day version of him by using his work for inspiration and recycling his works through my own style. Along with my backround in his musical career in The Doors, (entire discography) I have purchased his 4 published poetry books along with the known Biography ‘No one gets out of here alive’ and will be citing them accordingly. I will also be viewing his media works such as ‘The lost Paris tapes’ and will review some interviews. His poetry books include: The Lords, New Creatures, Wilderness and The American Night. I will be in between Lynnwood and Olympia to work with location for my poems, busing where I cannot get a ride from friends and family. My living expenses will be minimal, if I am not living on campus I will be at my parents house. I’ll have my laptop, access to Sno-isle Libraries and the Evergreen computers/internet and Media Loans.

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

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Bachelardian Reverie

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Poetry

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Poetry Observed

Fall Term Paper 

Fall term paper (Orcas pear tree)

Winter Term Paper

Lizard King, erotic politician, electric shaman, poet, existentialist, Rock God and mortal man.
Jim Morrison was on a rampage to live and push everyone around him to do the same by any means necessary. He had all sides of the spectrum as well, a sweet philosopher concerned with the issues of the world and capable of much kindness and a sadistic asshole with concerning alcoholism issues and random violent actions. His poetry is a sometimes confusing raw glimpse into his mind. It reflects his drug use, fame, love, his time and thoughts that plagued him enough to end up on paper. In recycling his work I have re-evaluated parts of my conscience previously known but also confronted thoughts and other parts that I believe have created a new me.

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 Photoshoots

Mr Mojo Risin pictures

Serene Lone Girl pictures