Writing as a Gateway to the Self
A two-day workshop on creative writing that blended art and writing techniques enables Projects Abroad journalism volunteers discover themselves and others, through the medium of writing that enables them to plumb their inner depths and yet connect with the collective experiences of others
Katherine Keefer- The Trainer
American sculptor and writer Katherine Keefer, based in California, US, with more than 40 years experience in teaching art and writing, conducted a two-day workshop for Projects Abroad journalism volunteers on the 1st and 2nd of November 2011, at the journalism office, to share her experiences on art and link it to our writing.
Exploring the self through Writing
Ambitious and confident, she had just two days to show us how to express ourselves and to discover our own style of writing. The workshop opened with an imaginative collage-based exercise. We had to cut pictures out of magazines and later, individually explain to our choice. Keefer wanted to get us to open up, so that each of us could see ourselves for who we really are. After we pasted all the pictures on a paper, she explained to us that pictures on the left are related to our past, those in the middle are related to our present and on the right, our future. Thus we discovered that any creative exercise, even when it seems to be very simple, says something about the deeper workings of our consciousness. By doing this, she created a safe and trusting space which relaxed the group so the creative juices could start flowing. We covered many topics such as poetry, concrete imagery, and repetition… with six different exercises.
Because of her creative pursuits, Katherine Keefer seemed to be an interesting person, but at first, we were not very excited by this workshop and we were a little apprehensive that it could be boring. However, never has the office been as alive as in these two days.
“Amazing,” “very useful,” “so interesting,” are just a sample of responses from the participants. All of us discovered a little more about ourselves, but what is really interesting is the fact that each of us has learnt something new, despite our different levels of writing. Some learned a way to write personally, where feelings and emotions are more important than the mechanics of writing such as punctuation, spelling and rules of grammar.
Spontaneity, Creativity’s Twin
We understood it especially with an exercise where Katherine Keefer called out a list of words, one by one, and for each of them we had a few minutes to write our first thoughts as soon as we heard the words. Here we didn’t have time to think about any kind of writing norm, sometimes we could just write a series of words, but sometimes we also were inspired to write a little poem. Others learned about the importance of a simple word, which could be sufficient enough to express a complicated feeling or emotion. But we also all learned about each other, thanks to the first exercise (collage) and the fact that we always shared our writing. Katherine Keefer knew how to manage personal and collective needs in order to make the workshop deeply instructive in a creative way.
Stepping beyond Comfort Zones
But a creative way doesn’t mean easy. “It was a real challenge for me,” said Leonie. While some of us were used to writing, many of us were not used to writing in English. Trying to write a poem in English or even finding the right word to define your thought when it is not your mother tongue, can be a real difficulty, especially with the two exercises on using concrete imagery. In one exercise, we had to describe an imaginary scene with more details than we normally use. In the other, we were asked to go out on the street and find a scene and then describe that scene in as much detail as possible. Here, the difficulty for us was our lack of specific vocabulary. But even those who wrote in English had difficulties in making the reader feel the smells and hear the sounds of our scene.
Active participation- Projects Abroad Volunteers
Another exercise, called Inside/Outside, also posed a problem for the group, English or non-English, because of its personal tone and feel. Here the aim was to describe two scenes, totally different, one being inside of something and the other outside. Because of the example and the instruction that Katherine gave us, automatically we linked the inside part to our own mind and the outside part to our gaze on the exterior. This exercise was then really personal, “the question was: which aspect do we want to share with others” wondered Lea when she tried to explain the most difficult feature of this workshop.
Despite such very valid fears and the boundaries that we all tried to maintain between sharing and intimacy, everybody did this exercise and tried to give a little bit of him/her in his/her writing. In fact, it was easier because of the good atmosphere among the participants during these two days and mostly to Katherine’s skillful facilitation. She told us there were no wrongs answers; we are all trying so nobody will judge you. To make us feel at ease in this exercise she told us of her own experiences and mentioned the fact that for her also it is still difficult for her to do this kind of exercise; thus we were all equal in this work.
A two-day workshop is not just two days of work and then your daily life goes on… at least not in this case! Here, on one hand it helped changed our style of writing for the better: to be more creative, to use concrete images, to take some time to find the right word, or just to be careful when writing. On the other, it changed something about our own personality: “I discovered that poetry is a really good way to express yourself,” says Matt Penticost, who is now writing poems for his own pleasure. As for Lea, who discovered another view of daily life in India, thanks to the exercise where we had to describe a street scene. Leonie managed to clear her own feelings about her experience here, because she succeeded in explaining them in the workshop. Even Yuka, who had just arrived in Madurai, discovered our group and could introduce herself deeply without be embarrassed.
“Before this workshop, everybody was in their own world, now we know each other better,” says Leonie
We shared our varied experiences at different levels in a totally comfortable atmosphere, which is so difficult with these kinds of personal exercises. Katherine Keefer gave just all of herself to allow each of us to be open to the art and to others.
