Recording the Creative Process: An Empirical Basis for Practice-Integrated Research in the Arts

A case is made for a form of narrative reporting (the Creative Process Journal) as a methodology for practice-integrated research in the arts. It is argued that this stage of research creativity, which applies in all domains of academic study but is often not reported, is fundamental to the kind of arts research which allocates practice a central role. The practical and technological character of making a CPJ, and its consequent benefits to the maker–researcher are outlined. Undergraduate students in the visual arts commonly maintain some record of the process leading to the final assessed outcome of their practice. Among qualified practitioners this stage is rarely recorded systematically and these kind of data are typically buried or discarded en route, constituting the ‘undocumented tradition’ referred to by Agnew [1] below. Agnew was writing in the context of engineering design history. Our interest is in the role that a focused recording and analysis of process could have in explicating design outcomes, and the development of designers’ ability to evaluate their practice so as to carry it forward. That this function extends to the visual arts in general is apparent in a self-report account by the artist Antoinette Herival [2] which is discussed below. It should be made clear that our focus is quite different from the vogue for ‘learning journals’ [3], which are primarily concerned with ‘reflection’ and self-analysis. Our emphasis is on the importance of detailed description to provide the raw data for critical interpretation and interrogation. Here ‘description’ is as much visual as textual and we are particularly interested in the potential of new media for integrating and representing these varied components in a coherent and accessible fashion. The term ‘practice-integrated’ is used in the sense that the recording, analysis and commentary on the process of making should be recognised as fundamental to constructing practitioner research. We seek to distinguish it from the overinclusive category of practice-based research and suggest that that term should be reserved for investigations where the research element is essentially something added to practice; and from practice-related research, a term of wide application including ‘basic’ research with potential for informing practice.