Phenomenological Analysis
This writing is based on a process described by art therapist Bruce Moon. He outlined the phenomenological analysis to work with dream imagery, but here it is used for reflection on my art piece “Setting the Table: Systems of Abundance”.
Create an image:
2. Create a written record or script of your image.
My body is flattened on a feasting table, the family table used for large gatherings, sharing food, playing games, making puzzles, doing projects together. The outline is traced by my spouse of 24 years; someone I’ve known most of my life. The act of tracing is intimate. We shape each other without words and there is both comfort and security in this as well as vulnerability. The knowledge and felt sense of interdependency comes with navigations, permeabilities, growth within the context of compromise.
Evidence of processes accumulate from other times and places, fluidly assembling themselves together into my body. Autopoiesis. Lyrics from a song I remember “You came from the ground, from a million little pieces, You’re a pretty human being, Yeah you’re a pretty human being-Everything you need is here, Everything you fear is here, And it’s holding you up, It just keeps holding you up.” (Cloud Cult)
Wooden toys made by my father, a rug from my great-grandparents, the sewing skills of my mother. Jokes pop up to surprise me. The duck-billed dinosaur made of lead from another generation. His name is Trachodon and he’s a “nomen dubium”. My kidneys are beautifully inflamed with purple brocade and reindeer lichens.
Lichens: The things that come out of my mouth sometimes!!!
All the inflammations of a lifetime. Lodgepole pinecones only open in the intense heat of a forest fire. Out of the Ashes, something new is born. Crawfish, insects, snakes, trilobites all must shed their former skins to grow. The boundaries change, the relationships negotiate new shapes to accommodate each other. Troubled surfaces emerge and concentric circles repeat, cause and effect ripple both inward and outward. My uterus is a nest inside of a nest inside of a fondue pot! Cells from my children still migrate and interact within me, a pregnancy is a symbiosis that lasts a lifetime; the meanings change, but the cells are always there in process and conversation, cleaving, an ongoing mitosis. A chorus of cellular voices; the illusion of aloneness is the silliest of notions. I may feel alone in my internal experiencing but am anything but. That aloneness is itself a consensus reality, an emergent property, a lie told out of convenience. “We are alone in this together. We’re all alone in this together.” (Typhoon)
The harder, but softer reality is that I am abundant and many. There is hidden wealth, an opulent feast of resources. The sensory softness of my teenaged heart up against the sand-casted turbulence of post-partum; a body that felt foreign to inhabit, a body that felt too public and ossified by duty.
The face of my 20-year-old self found in the bottom of a box in the very back of the attic, along with a bag of moth-eaten craft store feathers and my own wooden ribs. The steering wheel that broke my sternum also broke my trust in doctors; he said I didn’t have a chest injury, “just panic attacks. Take some paxil.” The follow-up x-rays said otherwise. Evidence. Epistemic justice. The seatbelt that saved me also broke my collar bone, the wheel well I braced against broke my left ankle. The physical wounds healed, the social wounds made a different sort of mark. A rich tapestry, a history written in cells, proteins, hormones, genetic expressions and silences; a litany of lab results written in liters of blood. My joints feel undone, needles injecting or removing fluids; needles sewing my shape over a table-runner that suddenly recalls my “vintage circus era” circa 2011. My teenaged children’s vocabulary enters my lexicon through tiny slips of typewritten transcripts, “Am I in my current form?”
The things that come out of my mouth sometimes!!!
The large polyphemus silk moth has no mouth. It does all its eating as a caterpillar then spends the majority of its life in a cocoon it creates using its own silk thread to sew together oak leaves. It melts into goo in there. Completely unmakes itself and slowly rebuilds into something so soft and luminous, so intent on attraction and connection. With large eyespots, it fools predators. What it’s really eyeing up is the flame, the center candle in the candelabra. Poised on my nose, it’s both sending and receiving pheromones. The flame entrances, promises. It’s an answer, an opportunity, a striving. It is consuming and it is consumed. It illuminates and it burns.
1. Read the script out loud.
2. Hear it aloud again.
3. Identify the horizons of the image.
a. The family table
b. Fabric and sewing
c. Wooden toys made by my father
d. Wounds
e. Lodgepole pinecones
f. Concentric shapes
g. The face in the attic
h. The things that come out of my mouth sometimes!
i. Abundance
j. Moth and flame
4. Amplify the horizons.
a. The family table:
a. The Family Table
This table is from IKEA and has been in our basement rec room for years. Our house has no dining room, so when we host gatherings, this is the table where we eat. Normally it’s used for board games, D&D, art projects, puzzles and more. It has the leaf taken out to for this art piece because I’m not super tall. The leaf gets hidden inside of it.
b. Fabric and sewing
My mother is a quilter and I grew up with her fabric and finished quilts all over the house. We still have her quilts and table runners in my adult home and it’s cozy knowing the blanket you curl up in was made just for you. While I never took up quilting (to her dismay) I’ve used the sewing skills she taught me in my childhood countless times. I passed the gift of that skill to several clients in internship last year.
c. Wooden toys made by my father:
c. Wooden toys made by my father
My father passed in 2014 and left much behind. He was a quiet man with many hobbies and the mind of an engineer. The wooden grandfather clock he made from a kit and gave to me when I was a child (maybe 7 yr). I put it on my arm where I wear my watch, a reminder of the passing of time and where time lives on my body. On the other forearm, I attached some wooden chess pieces he carved in retirement. He never made an entire set, but I carry his engineer’s mind, his strategy and precision with me and apply those skills in unexpected ways.
d. Wounds
It’s strange to find whose voices are living in which parts of my body and asking them if they still belong there. In all cases, the wounds are a balance of protection and harm. A dialogue of intentions and consequences, a reciprocal relationship of causes and effects and the effects that in turn trigger more causes.
e. Lodgepole pinecones
e. Lodgepole pinecones
You can’t regrow a forest without seeds. Seeds are powerful. The amount of energy and potential contained in such a tiny package is awe inspiring. The pain of loss is accompanied by the hope of new growth.
f. concentric shapes
The concentric circles of Bronfenbrenner’s systems came up over and over in this art piece and process. It was often not intentional; it just kept happening:
g. The face in the attic
My spouse reminding me of its existence and me going on a quest to find it became a turning point in the process of this piece. Once the face was there in its full 3-dimensionality, the rest of the body needed to be 3D. It assembled and rose up from the table, it breathed. I breathed myself to life.
h. The things that come out of my mouth sometimes!!!
Lichens. I decided to have lichens growing out of my mouth because they are symbiotic composite organisms. They’re beautifully complex, and, in an ecosystem, they’re often the first things to break down rock and build soil.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention David Griffin’s 2015 article Queer Theory for Lichens which I came to through Merlin Sheldrake’s 2020 book Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds, and shape our futures. I initially had an interest in lichens because they are so intricately beautiful. My love of them only grew when I learned the strange science of them; they are amazingly resilient as the most complex organisms that can survive unprotected in space. They deconstruct notions of biological boundaries as they are species made up of multiple species from multiple kingdoms/queendoms of life. They dismantle evolutionary narratives of competition as the sole driver of fitness; they’re strong because they are collaborative, each component organism contributes and benefits from the relationship. They shape each other to meet each other’s needs within the context of a shared body.
Words can be fertile soil for others; an invitation, a few words of encouragement, an expression of empathy, a truth spoken aloud. Lichens are epistemic justice. When we speak our truths together, we are strong enough to survive the vacuum, extreme cold, and radiation of space.
i. Abundance
The sheer number of “things” that ended up on this table was overwhelming. Some members of the cohort suggested that I not put the objects out or that I glue or sew all of them down out of fear of theft. I sewed down a small number of sentimental items, but most I didn’t bother. There is enough to go around. And through process philosophy, I view objects as processes rather than permanent or immutable “things”. Nothing truly belongs to any of us except our lived experiences. How our things live beyond us is carried in their meaning, relationship, and causal ripples and loops. Using personal items as art supplies emphasizes process and the abundance of resources accumulated over a lifetime of relationships.
j. Moth and flame
This was another part of the process that happened unexpectedly. I was working on the parts separately split between home and studio. When I had enough, I started to assemble them and only then realized the moth was aimed right for the flame! I relate the moth and flame to a horizon from the phenomenological analysis I did in research class last fall, “consuming and consumed”:
“When I get interested in something, it’s hard not to read everything I can find. I always have a list of books I want to read that’s more than any human can read in a lifetime. The questions and enticing ideas to chew on and mull over just keep pulling me in. For some reason that’s part of the joy is knowing that there’s no real end to what’s out there. There’s always more. It’s rich and too much to digest at times, and then I find that I’m the one being consumed.”
7. Cluster the horizons.
Cluster 1: the family table / abundance / the things that come out of my mouth sometimes!!!
Cluster 2: Wooden toys made by my father / fabric and sewing / abundance
Cluster 3: wounds / lodgepole pinecones / moth and flame
Cluster 4: concentric shapes / the face in the attic / the things that come out of my mouth sometimes!!!
8. Identify existential statements of concern.
a. There are abundant resources when I tune into them/ask for help
b. My history is always with me, but so is my future
c. Things that protect me can also hurt me; I can honor the safety they provided while also healing from their hurt
d. I can use my gifts carefully to impact larger circles of causation
9. Summarize existential statements of concern.
a. I am stronger and more resourceful than I often recognize, and I impact and shape people as much as they impact and shape me. Boundaries are important, but they are in many ways a constantly evolving construction rather than a solid immutable “thing”. The process of discovery is worth the pain it sometimes incurs.
10. Define a course of action in response to the image.
a. I will continue to chase the flame of my curiosity while feeding the parts of me that are still growing and developing.
b. I will recognize and utilize my resources, both internal and external
c. I will share my abundance making good soil for the seeds we can plant together.