Life in action : conversations on making and being

Abstract

This is a study of thresholds. Pay attention as you cross, and especially as you return because you will always be somewhere new, and you will never be the same person. My research draws on qualitative material from interviews with a professional woodworker and autoethnographic experiences gathered using arts-based methods to explore conversations between makers, their materials and their environments. Intuitive inquiry provides a framework for this learning. Considering aspects of conversation, expression, flow and joy, I review the impact of such conversation in the context of environmental learning and describe the importance of liminal space in circular processes of making and being, where learning is both ongoing and emergent. I conclude that active presence in this space encourages self-awareness in relation to the world outside oneself, transforms both materials and perceptions-of-self, and so allows the makers studied to shape futures that incorporate understanding of human relations as ecological relations.