Revisiting: Making myself well: Participant collaboration in ‘Woolly Wellbeing Reflection Boxes’
In sorting references for something else lately, I realised that the article published online for the 2017 Intersections Conference was no longer hosted on its original website. I'm making it available here instead, in case it continues to be useful for others...
(Contact me if you need a pdf of the original)
Making myself well: Alison Mayne Sheffield Hallam University © 2017 Mayne, A. Initially published by Loughborough University Textile Design Research Group INTERSECTIONS under the CC BY-NC license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) and no longer available through the Loughborough website. It is re-presented here as in the original. |
Keywords: wellbeing; amateur making; yarncraft; participation
‘Woolly Wellbeing Reflection Boxes’ – the context
This paper presents the collaborative process of ‘Woolly Wellbeing Reflection Boxes’ – one of those rich diversions in research where original plans shift, but significant insights demand their own separate investigation. The ‘Reflection Boxes’ began as part of a larger PhD study into female amateur makers and their relationship between knit, crochet, wellbeing and sharing crafted objects on Facebook. A number of participants contacted the researcher to express how they would prefer to contribute directly and personally, rather than sharing their views online – perhaps through a journal. The concept of a Reflection Box was developed to support thoughtful responses over time and were sent to participants for engagement for eight weeks between April – June 2016. What follows is an exploration of how the boxes were designed and how participants responded to reflecting on both their creative making and their experience of taking part in research.
An existing PhD research cohort had been established to study the subjective perceptions of wellbeing in women who crafted in knit or crochet and shared their making on Facebook, with data gathered through a closed group on that platform. Using a feminist lens, the project deliberately focused on the experiences of women often invisible in social media research: Participants in the broader group were a purposive sample, identifying themselves as amateur makers, active on digital platforms and with a story to tell about the impact crafting in yarn had made on their lives. Seventeen participants from this group volunteered for the boxes project following a call in a post by the researcher and ensuing discussion with other members in the closed Facebook group. The ‘Reflection Boxes’ were then developed in response and were sent to locations in the UK, Ireland, Italy, USA, Canada and Russia. Fourteen boxes were returned.
The construction of the boxes drew on current practices of monthly subscription boxes by mental health organisations such as The Blurt Foundation (2017) and small yarn businesses such as For the Love of Yarn (2017), as illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 below. These may be designed to support wellbeing, inspire makers and be a surprise and delight for the recipient.
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Figure 1. For the Love of Yarn Mystery Box Source: For the Love of Yarn (2017) | Figure 2. The Blurt Foundation ‘Buddy Box’ Source: The Blurt Foundation (2017) |
The initial idea of a journal may have been limiting for those who wished to express themselves in ways other than through extended writing, or who may have felt overwhelmed by a blank page. The ‘Reflection Box’ - filled with cakes of yarn, hand-crafted stationery, pens and pencils, a thumb drive and suggestion cards for activities - was therefore developed to facilitate different ways of communicating data and to provide prompts to support a variety of responses. The participant was encouraged to choose for herself which of these activities to engage with or to focus on her own inspiration: The activity card designated the most important was the suggestion to ignore everything provided and contribute creatively in whatever way the participant chose. Details of the box contents can be found in ‘What’s in the Box?’ below.
Why boxes?
Theoretical Inspirations
Through tactile engagement with material objects such as yarn, the theoretical background to the ‘Reflection Box’ project has drawn on Pink’s (2015) work on sensory ethnography and aesthetic ethnography as posited by Warren (2008). Participation through alternative ‘hand-made’ prompts in order to capture thoughts and experiences has resonance with the textile nature of the box materials and of participants’ interests in yarncraft, as engagement is connected directly to an embodied practice of making. Participants were encouraged to create their own images through photography or drawing as a way of reflecting on personal experiences of making, as well as creating knit or crochet artefacts. Therefore, the box and its contents, alongside what participants crafted and embellished, became material and memory objects which Pink (2015) suggests are ‘evocative of the research encounter’ (p.144) and worthy representations of knowledge in their own right.
Methodological Inspirations
There are also connections acknowledged here with cultural probes, although this language has perhaps come to feel uncomfortable in suggesting an intrusion rather than collaboration; an action taken by the design academy and ‘done to’ participants. Probes as constructed by Gaver et al (1999) originally suggested a research approach which celebrates choice, empathy and engagement as a way of eliciting inspirational and intriguing responses through creative artefacts. In a follow up article, Gaver et al (2004) explored the problematic appropriation of probes by the design academy where responses tended to be rationalised in the analysis of straightforward, unambiguous and specific research questions, thus limiting the potential for rich engagement. More deliberately, the principles in this project are aligned with the collaborative, gentle explorations proposed by Wallace et al (2013) and Wallace and Lindley (2015), where creative artefacts provide a scaffold for participant responses to explore their experiences. In contrast to the work of Wallace and her collaborators, this project could not encourage engagement when physically alongside participants. ‘Conversations’ in the journal – often written to the researcher by name - generated rich responses from a wide range of participants which would not have otherwise been geographically possible. The soft, textile materiality of the ‘Reflection Box’ contents and the options for ways to respond supported dialogical engagement over the eight-week period, quietly exploring personal creativity in acts of amateur design and making at home common to crafters across the globe.
A gift
The crafted packaging of the ‘Reflection Boxes’ was also designed to construct a physical representation of what Limerick et al (1996) and Oakley (2016) have described as the ‘gift’ of what participants offer the research process. Such gifts – of time, insight and shared data – are given within the unequal power structure of the academy. Claiming that participants are empowered through collaborative research still masks the hierarchy in projects where the researcher asks and the participants provide.
In Les Back’s book ‘The Art of Listening’, he ponders whether
‘when we listen to people, do they give us their stories or do we steal them? At the heart of all social investigation is a dialectical tension between theft and gift, appropriation and exchange’ (2013, p97)
This project accepts the responsibility of working towards ameliorating such tension, respecting that what is given by participants in collaboration measures more than ‘data’ to be analysed. As a way of acknowledging this, the boxes were carefully wrapped and beribboned, packaged as a delightful present for participants to explore and use as they wished. The generous insights and textile treasures of the completed ‘Reflection Boxes’ were gifted back to the researcher, with explicit permissions granted to use quotations and images to share in presentation or publication for a fixed period - but they are not owned by the researcher. Taking part in the project came with a guarantee that the boxes and their contents would be returned to their makers at the end of 2017.
What’s in the box?
The hand-crafted aesthetic of the box may be observed in Figures 3 and 4 below. Wrapped in tissue and colour themed, they included stationery, a hand-stitched fabric covered notebook and three cakes of merino and acrylic mix 4ply yarn:
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Figure 3. Woolly Wellbeing Reflection Box A Source: Mayne, A. (2016) | Figure 4. Woolly Wellbeing Reflection Box B Source: Mayne, A. (2016) |
It was important to support reflections on the impact of making by hand through providing a box which carried messages about the value of the handmade. Therefore, the fabric -covered notebook was stitched by the researcher to support hand-writing or sketching responses and yarn was provided to facilitate making by participants who may not have necessarily been able to afford to contribute their own materials. Different ways of contributing were created in line with participants’ suggestions – that they may like to draw, annotate or craft a response with a variety of materials. A purple theme was adopted to match the colour scheme of the Facebook group graphics, making connections between the haptic experience of the box project and the digital experience of the social media platform research. The contents, each packed separately in an organza bag and secured with ribbon, are identified in the table below:
Table 1. ‘Woolly Wellbeing Reflection Box’ contents, as shared in participant guidance | ||
A pack of cards, each suggesting a reflective activity from the box – choose what you want to do, when you want to do it | ||
A USB stick – for saving lots of images if you want to take photos that may be too big to email OR if you’d like to record your reflections using a word processing tool | Some yarn – use it to make something if you like, or take pictures with it to show how you feel on any day – tightly wound, neatly stitched, all in a muddle… | A fabric covered notebook, if you prefer to hand-write any reflections, draw or doodle |
Some postcards to record thoughts on – to the yarn / yourself / another | Some coloured pencils to draw, design or doodle with | A lovely pen to write with if you wish |
Some rose paperclips to fix things to things! | Some labels to attach to crafted object or images, to add your thoughts or explanations | Of course, add anything else in that you’d like or record your thoughts in a different way |
There were 36 cards containing suggestions for activity in the ‘Reflection Box’, the most significant one of which was highlighted to participants as ‘Ignore all these suggestions and write / make / draw / stitch ideas in your own creative way’. Others included:
· What has making meant to you lately?
· Draw / take a picture of some yarn, to show how you feel today (tightly wound… jumbled… neatly threaded… peacefully in a ball?)
· How do you feel after crafting with yarn today?
· Draw / take a picture which you’d like to be used to identify you in the research (not faces, but perhaps working hands, the top of a crochet hat, or woolly-socked feet
· Write a postcard to yourself in a year’s time – what do you hope making has done for you in that time?
· Draw / take pictures of your hands working OR next to your work…
· What does your making reveal about you today?
Participants were encouraged to respond creatively and individually – as indicated in ‘Methodological Inspirations’ above, the project was designed to allow participants to lead with what they felt was significant, whilst providing a scaffold for those who wished to use it. Some used each card, drawing them randomly from the organza bag they were stored in; some selected one or two cards and used them as a regular prompt; others sketched and wrote as they wished - inspired or frustrated in turns by their textile making.
Unboxing collaborative responses
The fourteen boxes returned in June 2016 contained a rich treasure of data, often breath-taking in its detail, artistry, and frequently raw personal honesty. Common threads have been established which include reflections on the positive impact on wellbeing that making with yarn experienced by participants, alongside some juxtaposing messages about its frustrations and confusions. There were valuable insights into amateur makers’ descriptions of a personal creative process which perhaps would not have been exposed if not for the extended reflection facilitated by collaborating in the box project. Some also reflected on the experience of collaborating in the research project itself.
Positive experiences of wellbeing
There were perhaps familiar messages about the positive impact of making with yarn had on subjective wellbeing, although the prompts in the ‘Reflection Boxes’ supported participants in repeatedly returning to think about the ways this manifested. For JM, the tactile quality of yarn itself, as well as the production of a defined object enabled her to manage the stressful nature of her job:
‘Yarn keeps my stress levels down, and making THINGS, something I can touch / see. When you teach you work very hard but you can’t touch or see the results. Yarn is an antidote for that’ (JM)
A number of journals contained references to the meditative, repetitive nature of stitching and the comfort that this brought to participants, echoing the findings of Corkhill et al (2014) in what has been termed ‘therapeutic knitting’. An example of this is AM, writing:
‘I feel exhausted. I often feel exhausted before taking the hook. Crocheting is my meditation… and all possible refreshment, all in one. It will probably even lull me to sleep in half an hour, but that means that my mind is at peace’ (AM)
Similarly, this balance of calm and restoration can be seen in AW’s entry:
‘I take comfort in doing a repetitive, squishy task that concentrates the mind and allows my stress / agitation to diminish… it gives me a daily purpose of making something positive’ (AW)
Interestingly, she goes on to describe how the act of knitting is perceived as the self-care equivalent of bathing her young children in the evening before settling them into bed, with all the comforting, warm overtones associated with such an act. Comfort – to the extreme of being entirely covered by soft textile is recorded by CW in her journal of sketches and expressive descriptions:
‘when you make a blanket, there is a stage that you reach, where as you make, the fabric starts to cover your belly and then your thighs I like to think I could keep going and cover myself COMPLETELY – and then I would be safe from everything’ (CW)
There is a yearning for protection which this participant feels is satisfied though her making, resonating with Shreeve’s (1998) connections between infant memories of being wrapped in soothing, tactile warmth. For some, the journal entries reflected the ways that being creative through yarncraft helped to manage pain and symptoms of established conditions. CJ used her journal to list current physical difficulties, such as:
‘1) physical pain quite irritating (fibromyalgia)
2) mood: middling depression
3) legs heavy & dragging (Multiple Sclerosis)’ (CJ)
Adding below that ‘creativity is a magical distraction’ from the daily challenges which her conditions bring.
Frustrations and anxieties
However, not all participants echoed such a positive experience in reflecting on their creativity in making. CJ also wrote in her journal of feeling benighted, unable to make at all, with
‘fears anchoring me in the past, creativity trapped under armed guard. Constraints suffocating my flow hold my creativity inside, holding me inside’ (CJ)
It is of interest here that the participant articulates the opposite of Csikszentmihalyi’s (1992) ‘flow’ - where instead of anxieties and distractions slipping away, lost in the task of making, CJ experiences strain and distress. LG also wrote extensively of her frustrations in being unable to remember how to construct what she wanted to make:
‘After 40+ I could have remembered some of this then – back in the 70s I picked this up after I recovered from back surgery. Apparently not. So when I began again after so many years… my brain’s file cabinet opened in the night and information slipped out (or was misfiled)’ (LG)
Her description of the difficulties of memory are evocative and moving as she recounts the ways that yarn crafting has helped her manage traumatic situations in the past and yet is aware that she cannot recall how to make things as well as she could previously. Frequently, participants communicated their frustration in losing motivation or being unable to channel the creative making which usually sustained them. This is illustrated through CW’s journal:
‘All I want to do is sit and make something lovely but for some reason my hands won’t translate what I have in my head. I’m feeling really frustrated with it. Normally I can just pick things up and get on with it, but lately I’m pulling apart and throwing away much more than I have before’ (CW)
There is a salutary reminder here that there are negative implications for wellbeing in being engaged in creative production and that working with textiles is more complex that offering a panacea for all ills – an under-researched aspect of the ‘arts for health’ agenda.
Creative making
Gauntlett (2007) argues that a creative method such as that offered by the box project can be revealing where participants are ‘invited to spend time in the reflective process of making something’ (p.182-3). Whilst consideration of personal process in the everyday creativity of making with yarn was not an explicit focus in the box card prompts, many participants wrote about their own creativity – some with confidence and others with uncertainty. CW expressed anxieties about sharing what she made with anyone else, including the recipients of gifts. The idea of selling what she had made at a local craft fair filled her with worry: ‘I think the truth is that I am AFRAID that something that means so much to me could mean LESS to someone else’ (CW). For this participant, creativity was something deeply personal and private, whereas for CJ, her textile creativity was a way of communicating with others. In a journal entry where she ruminated on the meanings of ‘well, well, well’ as both a sign of pondering and a connection to wellbeing, CJ wrote about her making in an evocative celebration:
‘Art allows artists to express feelings through colour, texture or pattern. Art is a communication from the artist to the world… I want my art to look beautiful, feel sumptuous, smell fresh, sound quiet, taste delicious! My art will help me talk to the world using cloth, stitch, knot, loop, thread, fibre, needles.’ (CJ)
Between these two positions of wanting creativity to remain hidden or to be shouted from the rooftops lay a common ground where participants often wrote about the ways that making with yarn allowed for personal expression and a crafting of the self which could help balance expectations of gender or familial obligation:
‘It has given me an individuality, a recognition that I am an individual who can make individual things, rather than being a wife, daughter, mother and grand-daughter. I can mean something somehow’ (AW)
In a postcard sent ‘with love and a hug to myself’, AW also wrote encouragingly about fostering her personal creativity:
‘Don’t despair if you have given up, if life gets in the way. Be inspired to start again. You deserve to be creative. It is not a waste of time’ (AW)
Here, the participant seeks to remind her future self not to discount creativity, but to see it as empowering and rewarding – her quiet, creative making at home is acknowledged as having the potential to nurture personhood.
Change and enrichment?
It is crucial to remember that the Research Excellence Framework (2012) guidelines recognise the significance of engaging with participants and that projects related to creativity may result in notable impact on individuals as well as wider groups.
As discussed above, the women engaged on the ‘Reflection Boxes’ project often wrote about how precious it was to consider their wellbeing and its link to yarn crafting, its frustrations and their own creative process. Some also commented on explicitly on the experience of being involved in research. For example, CJ recorded her excitement in being part of the study, feeling accomplished in the embellishment and presentation of her journal:
‘Awake all night buzzing with ideas and TAKING ACTION. Hand sewing a running stitch to stabalise [sic] the cover of this sketchbook. Also adding pockets for stuff. I feel accomplished.’ (CJ)
AM used her journal to record tumbling ideas and sketches for her own crochet designs, allowing herself space to consider a different future. She took the designs from the box project and submitted them to a Bulgarian crochet magazine, was accepted and is now designing for them professionally.
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Figure 5. Embellished journal Source: Mayne, A. (2016) | Figure 6. Design sketches Source: Mayne, A. (2016) |
Personal impacts like these – whether a quiet sense of accomplishment or an external form of validation – cannot be planned for, but form part of the rich experience of working collaboratively with participants, supporting them in engaging in a variety of ways which hold significance for them. Finally, an apparently simple and significant impact comes from MR, who wrote of changes to her low mood and lack of motivation:
‘I have been stuck in a hole that has been really difficult to get out of. This research project has actually helped me quite a lot. By using the tasks on the cards as instructions, I have managed to make a journal, finish some crochet squares. And put my feelings down on paper… making this journal has made me think a lot about how I do things… this has been the most creative I have been for a long time. Thank you.’ (MR)
She decided to focus not on making at the end of the project, but on writing - continuing to ‘journal for myself’. Such outcomes were not anticipated, but reflect that engaging in collaborative research may have impact for participants which reaches beyond the scope of the project and have value in their own right.
Opening, not closing
Using a collaborative strategy such as the ‘Reflection Boxes’ means that research is inductive: there needs to be space for participants to surprise and challenge our expectations; to be allowed to ‘genuinely… lead the way’ (Wallace and Lindley, 2015). In sending boxes to be interpreted and explored by each individual over eight weeks, responses were perhaps richer than data gathered in interviews constrained by time. However, for some participants, these journals became rich gifts received and given, full of hope, aspirations and whispered secrets. Data such as this, generated through a collaborative project rooted in the everyday are too frequently ‘the fragments, the voices and the stories that are otherwise passed over or ignored’ (Back, 2013, p1). It also resonates with current interest in creativity, from Helen Kara’s (2015) work on creative methods, the recent ‘Crossing Creativity’ (2017) symposium at the University of Westminster, to David Gauntlett’s second edition of ‘Making is Connecting’ (forthcoming, 2018).
Collaborating with participants in responding to their suggestions for alternative methods of contributing to research highlighted limitations in the original project: Whilst some group members were content to share their thinking through the closed Facebook group, participants in this project wanted greater privacy and preferred the opportunity to communicate with the researcher directly. For others, responding haptically about a tactile process supported the connections necessary to reflect on what making with yarn meant for them. Data provided through the box project supported existing messages about the positive impact of knit and crochet for wellbeing, but also highlighted the need to consider its negative implications. Perhaps some of the most celebratory outcome of the project were the reflections on the significance of personal creativity and what it meant for the individuals sharing their experiences.
This project indicates above all that there is exciting work to be done in further collaboration with ‘everyday’ textile crafters. The academy should pay the ‘courtesy of serious attention’ (Back, 2013, p1) to what is communicated by amateur makers working in their own domestic spaces, engage critically with them and explore further the collective ways of knowing (Welch. 2006) about women’s making.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the generous participants of the Reflection Box project for what they have shared and to Dr Alison Gwilt for her inspiration and support.
References
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