During the ‘Mark to Material’ CPD session, what struck me most was not only what the participants produced, but how the atmosphere of the room shifted over time. Within three hours, a group of secondary school art teachers, initially tentative and slightly cautious, transformed into a collective space of playful energy, collaboration, and experimentation.
I had planned the session with more structure than I eventually delivered. Allowing activities to merge organically created space for deeper engagement. It also revealed how much can emerge when we step back from control, instruction, and fixed outcomes, a lesson as relevant to teaching as it is to creative practice itself.
Triangulating Perspectives: My View and Oliver’s Notes
One of the most interesting aspects of this project was the ‘triangulation’ between my own reflections, the participants’ feedback, and the observational notes taken by Oliver my assistant, student ambassador and a former student of mine. His perspective added a valuable layer to the ethnographic understanding of the session.
Before seeing his notes, I had the impression that participants were relaxed and fully immersed, with energy building as the session progressed. Oliver’s notes confirmed this, but he also noticed nuances I had missed, moments where some participants hesitated at first or quietly observed before engaging. His documentation captured shifts in tone and confidence that might have gone unnoticed in the busyness of facilitating.
Oliver’s positionality, as a recent UAL graduate and someone who had once been taught by me, offered both proximity and critical distance. He curated the playlist (Raye, Florence + The Machine, the Bodyguard soundtrack), consciously shaping the atmosphere through rhythm and tone. He also began curating the emerging work on the wall, arranging pieces in clusters and photographing them alongside the professional photographer. His visual documentation reflected his interpretation of value: moments of process, gesture, and energy, rather than polished outcomes.
This triangulation between ‘my interpretation’, ‘Oliver’s documentation’, and ‘participants’ reflections’ echoes the idea of ethnographic reflexivity discussed by Gray and Malins (2004), who argue that creative research requires a constant negotiation between subjectivity, interpretation, and the artefacts produced. The artefacts in this case, the drawings, textiles, and photographs, became “data” not just of what was made, but of how creative confidence was negotiated collectively.
Freedom, Fear, and the Culture of Expectation
The workshop revealed how easily we criticise ourselves in isolation, and how quickly that self-consciousness dissolves in a supportive environment. The lack of examples or demonstrations initially unsettled some participants, but as one teacher put it, “It freed me up and gave me permission to be creative.”
This made me reflect on the broader educational culture from which these teachers come. Many noted that their own teaching contexts, shaped by time constraints, exam pressures, and the marginalisation of art and design within the national curriculum, make it difficult to prioritise process, play, and experimentation. There was an underlying concern that if teachers themselves struggle to take creative risks, this inhibition might be passed on to their students.
As Harris (2020) observes, the privileging of STEM subjects within UK schooling has increasingly framed creativity as a supplementary or ‘nice-to-have’ skill rather than a critical mode of inquiry. The teachers’ reflections echoed this, a desire to reclaim creativity as an intellectual practice, not just a decorative or recreational one.
Process, Positionality, and Interpretation
My positionality as a UAL tutor inevitably shaped the workshop. I was conscious that participants might expect a certain level of academic or aesthetic ‘standard,’ or anticipate a learning outcome that mirrored higher education assessment norms. Yet my motivation was to remove those hierarchies, to create a space where making for its own sake was enough.
The artefacts that emerged (layered, intuitive, and diverse) were testaments to that freedom. No two pieces resembled each other. The participants’ surprise at what they achieved without detailed instruction revealed how ingrained the desire for approval and direction has become, even among educators.
This resonates with what Kara (2015) describes as “creative reflexivity” in qualitative research, a way of “thinking through doing” that values both the process and the researcher’s affective engagement. My own interpretation of the session, shaped by my emotions and expectations, became as much a part of the data as the participants’ words and artefacts.
Analysing the Data: Drawing Meaning from Making
Using Braun and Clarke’s (2023) reflexive thematic analysis framework, I reviewed the pre- and post-questionnaires, Oliver’s notes from the group reflection transcripts. Themes emerged around ‘playfulness, confidence, inclusivity, and redefined notions of creativity’.
Quantitatively, confidence in using experimental methods rose sharply (from 5 to 17 participants reporting “very confident”). Qualitatively, participants described the experience as “liberating,” “non-judgemental,” and “therapeutic.” They valued the chance to play and reflect without outcome-driven expectations, echoing the ethos of “learning for action” (2017), where reflection is embedded in doing, not detached from it.
Conclusion: Rethinking the Value of Process
Reflecting on this session, I see ‘Mark to Material’ as both a learning environment and an act of research. an exploration of how inclusive, process-led methods can nurture creativity across contexts. It reaffirmed my belief that freedom, structure, and reflection can coexist; that creative play is not the absence of discipline, but another form of it.
The workshop became a dialogue, between me, Oliver, and the participants, about what it means to make without knowing, to teach without demonstrating, and to assess without measuring. In that space of uncertainty, genuine creativity flourished.
References
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2023). “Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide.” SAGE.
Gray, C., & Malins, J. (2004). “Visualizing Research: A Guide to the Research Process in Art and Design.” Routledge.
Harris, A. (2020). “Creative Ecologies and the Future of Education.” Palgrave Macmillan.
Kara, H. (2015). “Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide.” Policy Press.