There are also many I did not use for this essay too.

So I am also including them to save for future use.

Breaking Boundaries Citations

(Arden, 2006) “I want means: if I want it enough I will get it.” This equates to making decisions you need to get what you want. Not the decisions you think you ought to make or the ones other people want you to make – safe = dull and predictable.

(Arden, 2006) “Even when we want to be timid and play it safe, we should pause for a moment to imagine what we might be missing.”

(Arden, 2006) “You can’t afford the house of your dreams. That’s why it is the house of your dreams. So either find a way of getting it (you’ll find the means), or be satisfied with dissatisfaction.”

(Arden, 2006) “Ask someone for a slap in the face. If you show somebody a piece of your wok and ask them ‘What do you think?’ they will probably say it’s OK because they don’t want to offend you.” So don’t ask them what’s right – ask them what’s wrong. You are more likely to get a truthful answer, and although it might be hurtful, it is much better and more useful than getting a false pat on the back.

(Arden, 2006) “There is no right point of view. There is a conventional or popular point of view. There is a personal point of view. There is a large [point of view which the majority share. There is a small point of view which just a few share. But there is no right point of view. You are always right. You are always wrong. It just depends from which pole you are looked at. Advances in any field are built upon people with a small or personal point of view.”

(Arden, 2006) The Czech artist Jan Svankmajer had his work suppressed by the communists in 1975. Did he have the wrong point of view? Or was it the right view, seen by the wrong people? Today he is a national treasure. Is he still wrong and they right? Is he now right and they are wrong? It’s the same work as it was in 1975 – its just now seen from a different point of view. “People are like sheep: they follow the leader. It is the leader who has a point of view about which way they should go.” The value of an original idea or point of view is huge. Having the courage to stand up for what you believe in is massive.

(Arden, 2006) “If work is fresh and new, you can’t expect to like it straightaway, because you have nothing to compare it with. The effort of coming to terms with things you do not understand makes them all the more valuable to you when you do grasp them. Good art speaks for itself. That doesn’t mean you have to like it.”

(Arden, 2006) “What is a good idea? One that happens is. If it doesn’t, it isn’t. When a client asked how much it would cost to get permission to photograph the Eiffel Tower for use in an advertisement, the bureaucrats representing the City of Paris said £10,000. The client didn’t think it as such a good idea any more. So they didn’t use it. I wanted it for this book, but I don’t think £10,000 is such a good idea either. So I didn’t ask.” He uses a photo the tower in the book with a lampshade on it.

(Arden, 2006) I’m quite skittish with my work. I flit about quite a lot. I’m trying to stop doing it. “Having too many ideas is not always a good thing. It’s too easy to move on to the next one. If you don’t have many ideas, you have to make those you do have work for you.”

(Arden, 2003) “Most people are looking for a solution, a way to become good. There is not instant solution, the only way to learn is through experience and mistakes. You will become whoever you want to be.”

(Arden, 2003) “Do not seek praise. Seek criticism. It is quite easy to get approval if we ask enough people, or if we ask those who are likely to tell us what we want to hear. The likelihood is that they will say nice things rather than be too critical. Also, we tend to edit out the bad so that we hear only what we want to hear. So if you have produced a pleasantly acceptable piece of work you will have proved to yourself that it’s good simply because others have said so. It is probably ok. But then it’s probably not great either. If, instead of seeking approval, you ask, ‘What is wrong with it? How can I make it better?’, you are more likely to get a truthful, critical answer. You may even get an improvement on your idea. And you are still in a position to reject the criticism if you think it is wrong.”

(Arden, 2003) “Do not covet your ideas. Give away everything you know and more will come back to you.”

(Arden, 2003) “The problem with hoarding is you end up living off your reserves. Eventually you’ll become stale. If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish. Somehow the more you give away the more comes back to you. Ideas are open knowledge. Don’t claim ownership. They’re not your ideas anyway, they’re someone else’s. They are out there floating by on the ether. You just have to put yourself in a frame of mind to pick them up.”

(Arden, 2003) “Don’t look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity.” Don’t rush through your current project with the premise that the next one will be the one you make good. “Whatever is on your desk right now, that’s the one. Make it the best you possibly can.”

(Arden, 2003) “Accentuate the positive. Find out what’s right about your product or service and then dramatize it, like a cartoonist exaggerates an action.”

(Arden, 2003) “When it can’t be done, do it. If you don’t do it, it doesn’t exist.”

(Arden, 2003) “If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you’re playing by the rules.”

(Arden, 2003) “Change your tools, it may free your thinking.”

(Arden, 2003) On chatting to Richard Avedon, a fashion photographer about why he was so enthusiastic about his current project when he could produce the work he wanted all the time. “He said, ‘It’s not true Paul. I am employed by Vogue and they tell me what they want, and what they want is not always what I am interested in but I do have a studio to run. So I do it.’ Quite an eye opener.”

(Arden, 2003) “’Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.’ Winston Churchill”

(Atavar, 2009) “Don’t be critical of what you see. It’s your world, your vision. You brought it into being when you were born and you will take it away again. Everything is you, so record it, look after it.”

(Atavar, 2009) “Just deliver one good idea well.”

(Atavar, 2009) “These days I see creativity as a process. Along the way, in time, during this sequence, you might make some things which could be called artworks. However, rather than being the clear focus of the work, these objects are the residues of a complex process that has happened to you. Other people, who are not the artist, might look at these as completed works, but you could more helpfully look at these things as old photo albums, interesting, but not necessarily where you are now. Part of you, but not the whole story.”

(Atavar, 2009) “A critical voice that polices out creativity … But… As artists we can survive this critical voice. In fact it might be part of us that we have to engage with, have to listen to, in order to become stronger.” When talking about our internal critical voice.

(Atavar, 2009) We all hear critical voices in our heads. They are distant memories of friends, families, teachers, colleagues, loved ones. They are an illusion. They don’t mean anything and it is the listener that is creating them. “Only as for feedback if you really believe that you need it and only from trusted friends and colleagues.” “Find a supportive context for your work, build relationships.” “Create your own network.” “Don’t keep working on any idea over five years old.”

(Atavar, 2009) “You can work across any boundary.” “Often we believe that the process of change will only affect out audiences, not ourselves. Actually the impact on us is far greater than on any third parties. Audiences have choices, they can walk away from a process. You can’t.”

(Atavar, 2009) “We spend so much of our lives not being who we really are, do you want to spend time in your artwork also doing that?”

(Atavar, 2009) “Your audience might be 1 or 2 but what’s the problem with that?”

(Atavar, 2009) “Only relationships make things happen. I find that the connections that are useful to me aren’t in far-flung places, where I don’t have any real contact they’re much closer to home. In fact usually right under my nose.”

(Atavar, 2009) “Failure is the best thing that can happen to you.” “But I’m also wondering about the need to ask for feedback. Is it seeking praise/validation/support through a different route? Search inside yourself and be honest – is the only feedback that you’d like to get POSITIVE?” “If you’re looking for praise, these can be very damaging forums. The feedback can come too soon, when you’re not ready, not at a time in your life when you are able to receive challenging opinions about your work.” “It’s OK not to receive feedback at all.” “As artists we all receive criticism for our work, no one is exempt. It’s perfectly acceptable to remove yourself from the source of pain. Just leave the building…” “It becomes less and less acceptable to refuse feedback. However at some point, as an artist, you will have to let these other voices fade away. You will need to ignore the opinions of others and stand by the statement that you want to make.”

(Atavar, 2009) “Listen to the feedback without comment. Don’t try to protest/challenge/debate. Take the feedback away, then discard what’s not useful. If it’s all useless, throw it away. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Imagine what their life/relationship/journey to work is like. This might help you to understand the nature of their feedback. Again just listen, don’t argue, but later use your curiosity to analyse the situation.” “Understand that you have your own agenda for asking for feedback. It may be validation, it could be the need for praise, it might be that you usually feel unheard by others. All of this will feed into the way in which you receive this feedback. Try and be mindful of your own process.”

(Moon, 2004, pp. 74-5) ‘She may tackle the learning in a manner that accords with her disciplinary background, for example, a scientist might tackle the process in a more scientifically systematic manner than a colleague from the humanities. In essence, in an unmediated situation, the learner herself will decide how to direct her attention through engagement of frames of reference that she decides to use either in informed or less informed ways. They will organise her learning process and the manner in which she accommodates to the new ideas. As part of this process, if it is to be effective, she will be evaluating the amount of the learning and its reliability in relation to her purposes or intents. These do not necessarily stay the same. Over the duration of learning, she might be getting hungry, finding the activity less appealing than earlier and hence modifying her intentions.’

(Moon, 2004, p. 77) ‘… it could be said that learners mediate their own experience through the process of bringing prior experience into the present, and bringing them to bear on the new material of learning.’

(Moon, 2004, p. 80) ‘”Reflection”, as a process, seems to lie somewhere around the notion of learning and thinking. We reflect in order to learn something, or we learn as a result of reflecting – so ‘reflective learning’ as a term, simply emphasizes the intention to learn as a result of refection.’

(Moon, 2004, p. 93) ‘Since reflection is an internal process, current reality is likely to coincide with the emotional influence on any reflective activity. We may only be aware of the influence of a mood or emotion on internal reflective processes when we are in a different mood a few days later. For example, if I am feeling angry when I reflect on something, the anger may influence the process of reflection. Because the feeling of anger is congruent with the outcome of my reflective processes, I may not notice the influence of the anger until I consider again the same issue on a day when I do not feel angry.’

(Moon, 2004, p. 142) Must be aware that many things influence reflection (and for that matter, feedback).

• ‘that different people can see the same even in different ways;
• That events can be conceived differently by the same person if she views it with different frames of reference;
• That, for the same person, frames of reference may be different at different times;
• The role of emotions in guiding our conceptions of events or people;
• That different disciplines rely on different structures of knowledge and have different ways of working with knowledge’

(Moon, 2004) Emotions and mood can influence how someone responds to what they see. This can distort reflection.