Tools for Seeing - Non Violent Communication
OBSERVE!! There are few things as important, as religious, as that. - Frederick Buechner, minister
I’ve looked as hard as I can look
but never ever seen a cook;
I saw a person who combined ingredients on which we dined,
A person who turned on the heat
and watched the stove that cooked the meat -
I saw those things but not a cook.
Tell me, when you’re looking,
Is it a cook you see or is it someone
doing things that we call cooking?
Excerpt from song by Ruth Bebermeyer in the book Non Violet Communication.
I’ve been working on my “critical framework” for my LA Chair project.
One of my central theses is: When we talk about chairs we tend to talk about chairs from what we are seeing.
And chairs, unlike objects that are not chairs, are crafted for use.
So why do we talk about chairs as if we cannot use them?
Why do we talk about chairs - rather than just articulating what we are feeling?
One time in grad school, I had a critique from a wellknown craftsperson.
He didn’t work in furniture, but he was frequent guest lecturer/critic at craft schools and programs.
The first thing he said about my chair was:
“Well, you’re democratizing art.”
I remember being so confused at his response.
Like, dude, what?
This critique has stayed with me for 12 years.
It’s like hangnail.
He continued, there was more to the conversation…but what occurred to me then, and resonates now, is that we spend a lot of time talking about, or around objects, and very little time talking about the object itself.
What are we seeing?
What are we looking at? Visually.
Phenomenologically.
What are we feeling?
Does that feeling have a name?
We move very quickly from observing to evaluating.
Later in that same critique, I had another professor comment, “Well, Eric is very good at promoting his work on Instagram.”
Again, nothing to do with the chair in front of them.
Nothing to do with the how the chair feels.
I submit, that if we can get better at observing.
If we can get better and articulating what we are observing.
Then this will lead to more robust discourse in the world of things and objects.
Observing and articulating.
The book Non Violent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg PhD is a great resource for learning to separate Observations and Evaluations.
So let’s take the phrase - “You are democratizing art”
In Non-Violent Communication terms this is how that statement would go down:
“Use of the verb to be without indication that the evaluator takes responsibility for the evaluation.”
Meaning, if the critic says ‘you are’ they are operating as if that was my intention rather than speaking from their point of evaluation.
An NVC reframe would be: “When I see this chair, I think about the idea that making furniture is a way of democratizing art.”
Something like that.
That creates space where the critic acknowledges an observation is being made that triggered a thought - and that is was his own thought. Not the chair makers thought.
Another term we often hear/read is -”They are blurring the lines between art and design.”
A NVC reframe is a clunkier way to write, but to me the clarity is important.
In NVC, I’m not even sure that phrase works. I’ll take a stab at it.
“When I see this object, I think about how often people can confuse art and design objects” ???
That doesn’t work. And it’s also not true.
I think that is why I don’t like this phrase. I don’t think people actually experience it - sensorially.
I don’t think people are confused at what is art or design in real life.
Objects are clearer than that.
Why do we write that phrase?
Have you ever encountered an object in real life AND THEN had the thought, “I cannot tell if this is an art object or design object?”
I have not.
Does an artist making chair in an MFA program “democratize art” more than any body else making chairs?
Are all chairs a form of democratizing art?
Are chairs art?
It seems that most of the blurring that happens in the world of things comes from people who talk about things as if they are not things that exist in front of them.
So rather than talking about the physical chair in front of them, they talk about the chair as a metaphor for an idea.
Chairs are chairs.
“Furniture is Furniture” - Donald Judd
I’ll end with this.
What I wanted to hear from the 60 year old man sitting in my chair was how it feels in his body.
How does it feel at your shoulders? The back of the legs? How’s the armrest height?
All I heard were thoughts about chairs - and nothing to do with THIS physical chair.
Thoughts are cool. Thoughts are sometimes interesting too.
I don’t make chairs to think about.
I make chairs for the human body to use.
The rad thing is, you can have any thought about the chair that you want.
Peace, Love, Cactus.
-E