In October 2008, I approached the organisation’s director to survey the feasibility of accessing its artists for this research. She invited me to a meeting of its trustees
in May, 2009 during which I proposed this research. The response of the trustees was positive. In September, 2009, I met again with the director, as well as its founder. The purpose of this meeting was to establish a possible timeline for the research, discuss possible ethical concerns, and develop a plan for accessing artists to participate in the second phase of research. This second phase planned for three individual interviews with each artist over a 10-week period.
I received a list of 11 active members of the organisation from the director. I sent to each artist a personalised letter and an example is presented in Appendix B. This letter stated the level of commitment in this initial phase of data collec- tion. Then the organisation’s administrative assistant sent an email on October 21, 2009, to these artists, encouraging participation in the research. This email, which can be read in Figure 4.2, described me as a “very nice young man.” It seemed that I was positioned as young or younger than the artists themselves and perhaps friendly. I am unsure the extent to which this description may have af- fected who opted into this study and/or my relationships with them.
Following this introduction, I sent a brief and personalised email to each artist assessing interest. I received 11 responses: four affirmative, three negative, and four unsure. Of the four unsure responses, they expressed some concern whether they were fit for my research because they were not offering workshops through the organisation at the time or they did not consider their current work as relevant to my research. From these responses, I considered what I may have unintentionally conveyed in accessing the organisation. Whilst I expressed an interest in all facets of their work, I suspected that contacting them through the organisation may have contributed to the impression I was only researching workshops the artists facilitated through it. Whilst this ultimately did become the focus, it was not
Hello Everyone
I hope you are well. You should have recently received a letter (via xxx) from Tyler Denmead.
Tyler is working on an educational research project at the Faculty of Education and would like to contact artists who might be interested in taking part (see letter for details).
This email is by way of an introduction so Tyler can follow-up and see if anyone would like to be involved. He's a very nice young man if that helps! :-)
Over to you Tyler Best wishes xxx
Figure 4.2: Introductory email from administrative assistant
necessarily my intention at the time. From my M.Phil. research, I was aware that the boundaries between what constituted their pedagogies within and beyond the organisation were perhaps unclear. Therefore I wanted to present a more holistic interest to provide a potentially broader starting point.
I was surprised that three of the four individuals who were unsure about par- ticipating in this phase of research also expressed concerns whether they could be considered artists, facilitators, and/or creative practitioners. I included these three terms recognising the potentially problematic ways in which people can con- struct and apply these narrowing identities (Hall, 2010). The organisation had stated that central to its ethos was an inclusive understanding of who was cre- ative. Therefore, I assumed that I had used enough terms to include all the artists affiliated with the organisation.
I assured the three artists they were good candidates for my research, but they ultimately declined. In retrospect, it was possible that two suggested they were not the right fit as a polite way of saying no. One unsure participant, the direc- tor of the organisation, did agree to participate. I assured the fourth artist, who suggested she was initially too busy, that my research design was flexible and she could join at a later point. The next spring, this artist facilitated workshops at the first site I observed and became a participant in the research. Although not ideal or as planned, she had participated in my M.Phil. research so I had two earlier interviews with her upon which to draw.
Of the three negative responses, each cited feeling overworked. This sensitised me to this possibility for artists who opted in. It reminded me of my ethical re- sponsibility to treat their time and commitment with respect. One who declined also cited a preference for “making work rather than talking about it”. This was a curious observation that became significant later.
From this initial invitation of 11 artists, five agreed to participate initially, one belatedly, and five declined. Of the six committed artists, three had participated in my M.Phil. research. This concerned me. As I felt my research skills had de- veloped since that study, I hoped for a fresh opportunity to engage with a bigger sample. My initial sample size also did not feel sufficiently large to develop a stronger theoretical sample in later phases.
So I contacted the director to discuss inviting potential candidates from the or- ganisation who had not been invited in the first round. I learned that the director had decided to not include four artists because they had not contracted with the
organisation in some time. This was not a concern for me if they met my criteria, which they did. With the director’s permission, I contacted them and two more agreed to participate.
Following this second round of invitations, my sample consisted of eight artists, one of whom who planned to join later. This sample size was satisfactory when considering my research aims and limitations. Six months later, a ninth artist joined the organisation and my research. Therefore, I individually interviewed her at that time. One artist lived and worked both in England and France and was only interviewed once because it became impractical to include her in the study. I deselected this artist after finding it too difficult to schedule a second interview and opportunities to observe her. Therefore, I focused on the remaining eight.
The majority of the eight participants were from the UK, although it was an international group with a few who were born and raised in other countries. They also represented a diversity of arts and design disciplines, including: creative move- ment, visual art, installation art, performance art, graphic design, fashion design, set design, and sculpture. Two artists also did not necessarily see themselves as having a traditional arts background. One had a professional background in mar- keting, and the other in biological anthropology. This diversity contributed most significantly to the varied sample for which I hoped. At the same time, all partici- pants in my initial sample were women, which reflected their predominance within the organisation. I now briefly discuss other preparations I made for fieldwork and then describe the second phase of research.
I'm a student in the PhD program at the Faculty of Education at Cambridge. I am interested in understanding the work that you are doing as educators, artists, or creative practitioners, or facilitators --- or however you might or might not think about yourself and your work. I was the director of an arts studio in the States for high school students, young artists, and educators.
I played, I guess for a lack of a better term, the executive role within the organisation for ten years, building support and interest in what I hoped was a semi-functioning organisation. This was a difficult job, in large part, because I wasn't entirely clear what it was that our artists were doing as educators.
So, I thought research presented an interesting opportunity to begin to sort this out, and I thought that it might be interesting to approach this problem in a different culture and context. This brought me to Cambridge, [this organisation] and to you.
I think this research might be helpful for folks with similar interests and questions, whether they are artists, educators, academics, or policy makers. But, at this point, I’m completely unfamiliar with what you do and why you do as an artist and educator.
Figure 4.3: Script I used to introduce my research to artists