An " in vivo" analysis of crafts practices and creativity-Why affordances provide a productive lens

Abstract

Scholars are increasingly recognizing that creativity is grounded in the active sensorimotor engagement with the environment and materiality. Affordances-recognizable pointers to action opportunities in the ecology-provide a helpful prism for analyzing how this happens. Creative practitioners, as they seek aesthetic opportunities or innovation, depend on their sensitivity toward potentialities in their action space. Presently, we apply a high-zoom lens to a crafts process, giving our micro-genetic research design an affordance focus. By investigating one of the authors, a ceramicist and a practitioner-researcher, through her process of making of a vase, we tracked how affordances are responded to, developed, shaped, invited or, where necessary, rejected, as the ceramicist "routes" her creative trajectory. Several insights emerge: (1) The ceramicist's decisions-initially about general directions, then about aesthetic details-unfold while engaging with the clay; they emerge in stepwise fashion, but with a holistic orientation. (2) Choosing among affordances requires parallel sensitivities to object functionality, aesthetics and creativity, as well as technical feasibility; adhering to the proper technical procedure that provides the very basis for creatively relevant affordances to later arise. (3) While the hands and eyes engage with short-lived affordances the ceramicist must keep in view higher-timescale affordances that ensure a good task progression for making a vase, and affordances for the material's overall "workability". (4) The ceramicist typically relates to momentary affordances in light of expected as well as imagined others, to ensure a coherent end product. (5) Affordances contribute to material creativity in more ways than typically recognized in the literature. They range from serendipitous "finds" to options developed with a large degree of creative autonomy; affordances may also be indirectly invited and practitioners strategically change probability distributions as well as providing an enabling background for generative action. Thus, a crafts practitioner brings forth unconventional affordances through active engagement, using a mix of exploration, strategy, and imaginative potential. Affordance theorists err when stressing the possibility to just "find" creative options or that perceptual acuity is the sole skill.

Keywords: affordances; crafts; creativity; ecological psychology; interactivity; material engagement; micro-genetic analysis.

Figure 1

Preparation of the material on the plasterboard.

Figure 2

Centering the clay on the throwing wheel (repeated pushing up, pressing down).

Figure 3

Making a hole and starting to prepare the base of the cylinder.

Figure 4

(A) The finished cylinder; (B) cutting off the top rim with a tool.

Figure 5

Working the middle: (A, B) shaping the cylinder into a vase; (C, D) a new curvature occurs (serendipitous moment).

Figure 6

(A) An unexpected silhouette emerges; (B) correction (pushing back).

Figure 7

Finishing touches on surface; top part of vase turns wobbly.