A Qualitative Interview Methodology

The methodology of interviewing in this thesis is akin to qualitative interview methodology because it centres around a conversation and is a journey of discovery in learning about practice and teaching. The way we interview is, of course, coloured by what we know and I have attempted to remove myself as much as possible from this possible ‘obstruction’ by formulating a series of open questions to reduce the risk of a guided enquiry, with structured ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers. I declared at the outset that I am both an artist and a psychotherapist so there is some element

99 of transference¹⁹³ that will immediately exist, which cannot be avoided if openness is to be adhered to; by that I mean there is bound to be some projections onto me, if the person has certain views around psychoanalysis or psychotherapy, both positively or negatively. Questions around art practice were implemented as a ‘tool’ to allow the interviewee to ‘step off’ into their own personal studio experience. To quote Dr.

Herbert Rubin in his book ‘Qualitative Research and The Art of Hearing Data’:

“Learning about the world through qualitative interview has extended our intellectual and emotional reach, and by turns roused and satisfied intellectual curiosity. Qualitative interviews have operated like ‘night vision goggles’ permitting us to see what is not normally on view and examine that which is often looked at but seldom seen.”¹⁹⁴

The method that he develops is what he calls

“‘Responsive interviewing’ – choosing interviewees that are knowledgeable about the research problem, listening carefully to what they tell you and sometimes asking additional questions with an aim to fully understand their studio practice or teaching experience.”¹⁹⁵

In thinking about how the questions should be transcribed and edited, I felt that there was a good argument for not editing the artists’ interviews.

My thinking is influenced by the writer Mario Vargos Llosa, who wrote a book called ‘The Feast of the Goat’ about the Dominican Republic under the sadistic dictatorship of General Trujillo. In this novel he explores a dictatorship; the goat represents the tyrannical father, the lamb, the

193 C. Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (Penguin Books Ltd, 1968), 7.

194 Dr. H. Rubin, Qualitative Research and The Art of Hearing Data (Sage publications, 2005), vii.

195 Ibid., vii.

100 abused daughter, the country.¹⁹⁶ In reality, after the death of the dictator, General Trujillo, Vargas Llosa went to interview the women that had been abused during Trujillo’s dictatorship in South America. This is true, he actually went out and did this. Llosa found that the women became

‘elective’ mutes when asked about their experiences of abuse under the dictator’s rule; members of his army had raped them. The theory, Llosa postulated, to the woman’s choice of becoming elective mutes, is really plausible when looked at from a psychoanalytical perspective; it is, if you

‘speak’ then you cannot postpone the psychic reality of ‘knowing’ what has been done to you. That is, if I do not say, I do not have to know and, of course, as we have all most probably experienced at some time, so often we do not know what we think until we speak. Therefore, my argument for not editing the interviews is that if I stop a person who is in the ‘flow’ of conversation to get to the essence of his/her point or edit for my own purposes, I would argue you are in danger of limiting the investigation into areas of ‘not knowing’ that the person is trying to find out about. Through adopting this style of interviewing I will not be over-influencing the material; therefore, with the free flow of thought and word, you often get to what you did not know you knew or thought in conversation. Llosa is stating very clearly that if we speak we begin to know our reality; in the same way, I feel that by giving the artists license to say what they want to say, unedited, you get a good and truthful picture of artistic experience. However, I would like to say at this stage, even though there is an analysis of all the interviews, I would encourage those reading this research project to read ‘everything’ that the artists

196 Mario Varga Llosa, The Feast of the Goat, (Picador USA, 2002).

101 have said to get a full picture of the artists internal life and their interesting insights into art practice.

Selection and Recruitment

At the outset of this enquiry the analysis of two groups of interviewees was thought to be sufficient. The first groups chosen were first year art college students and established artists. My initial ideas were to formulate workshops for students. The criteria for participants at the initial stages of formulating this methodology stipulated that students who were first encountering ‘obstruction’ in their art practice would be a good counterbalance to long-term established artists who were used to encountering ‘obstacles’ in studio practice. Using my psychoanalytical understandings, I devised a series of interviews and workshops on ‘poiesis and obstruction’, stating that the aims of these interviews and workshops at student level were two-fold; to investigate more fully the relationship of obstruction and poiesis through interview and to see if a didactic psychoanalytical/analytical approach would help the student both understand and work through obstructions in art practice. It is important to clarify how we are seeing the concept of obstacles; therefore, obstruction/block being seen as both a practical problem of an artist’s medium, an emotional problem related to the self and a dialectical obstruction, say, with supervisors or teachers, together, of course, with the student’s relationship to the art community at large. It was stated to students that there was no penalty for not taking part in the research project and that those wishing to attend should be self-selective.

102 Incentives at this stage were spoken about in terms of weaving this enquiry into their degree portfolios. I planned to run these workshops over a three-month period, beginning with a short talk about the theoretical orientation of my research ideas on the subject of ‘Obstruction and Poiesis’. Thinking about what would be psychologically useful to students starting out on degrees, I suggested the reading of Neville Symington’s book on ‘Narcissism’,¹⁹⁷ as this book addresses emotional obstacles and developmental problems. This would have been a useful tool of ‘insight’ into emotional difficulties in student life. After initial interviews with the students as to what they thought their obstructions were, if any, I then intended to proceed to a series of workshops

‘identifying obstruction’, ‘approaching obstruction’, ‘the unconscious and obstruction’, ‘the alchemist’s approach to obstruction’ and ‘a changed relationship to obstruction’. My supervisor would oversee these workshops and, at the end of the three months, I would then interview students again to assess the experience and the understandings found within the process of the workshops. After obtaining ethical clearance in early 2010, this workshop was advertised around the University of the Arts. Interestingly enough, not one student responded to this posting.

This result raised a number of questions, including the issue of location; I am working out of Wimbledon Research House and it is quite far out for students to make the effort to come. I also asked myself whether students in their first year of Art College might be worried about a psychoanalytical approach, exposure or fear of personal vulnerabilities in a college setting. Thirdly, are they not interested because it is not

197 Neville Symington, Narcissism a new theory, (Karnac Books, 1993).

103 relevant to where they are today? Fourthly, as Steven Furlonger, who has had 25 years teaching experience at Central St. Martins, says, “students are full of new ideas” so there was a possibility that obstructions and the call to the new is not what they are preoccupied by.¹⁹⁸

After this disappointing but illuminating result, my supervisors suggested that I moved the enquiry to MA level, as it was felt there may be more understanding of psychoanalytical approaches with MA students. It was decided at this stage that I should resubmit for an ethical clearance, which would hold to ‘interviews only’ and disband the idea of workshops, reading groups, etc. Together with my Director of Studies we proposed posting a notice to the second year students to invite them to a small discussion group, informally based around the ideas of ‘working through obstruction in art practice’. We would show some film clips, engage in discussion, drink coffee etc. The purpose of the workshop was to find second year fine art students who would be interested in taking part in more focused group discussions in the summer term, on the topic of obstruction and creative action. The one MA student who turned up to this was, indeed, very interested in finding out more about psychoanalysis and obstruction.

In July 2010, after obtaining the amended ethical clearance to undertake interviews only, my Director of Studies gave a lunchtime talk at WCA on

‘Psychoanalytical Perspectives in Research’¹⁹⁹, looking at his work on psychoanalysis and arts-based research, which was appearing in a forthcoming publication. In this setting there was an opportunity for me

198 Steven Furlonger. Interview by author, London, UK, January 27, 2010.

199 ‘Understanding and Negotiating Obstruction in Fine Art Practice’, Wimbledon College of Art, London, March 11, 2010.

104 to talk about my PhD research from a psychoanalytical and Aeolian perspective dealing with obstruction in fine art practice, involving interviews with artists and art students. Four MA students turned up from UOAL, three of whom were prepared to be interviewed. At this stage of analysis, it was felt by both my supervisors that it would be informative if we also expanded the research to include teachers in art colleges;

moreover, this would throw greater insight into obstructions within art colleges and ask the questions from the other side of the fence, for example, how teachers dealt with obstructions with their students I e-mailed six teachers all teaching within the University of the Arts London, all of whom were open to being interviewed. The response from established artists was also very positive, with only one or two artists declining to be interviewed without stipulating any reason.

I then formulated three sets of questions (Appendix F) which would throw light on the artist’s experience of obstructions and poiesis in studio practice; these questions were tailored slightly to acknowledge the individual experiences of students, established artists and tutors in art colleges.

In accordance with the regulations of the University of Surrey Ethical Guidance, prior to being interviewed the students signed a consent form and were also given an information sheet, which clarified the aims and objectives of this research project. (Appendix G).

105 In summary, the interview between Caro and Lawson shows Caro’s particular ‘tenets of approach’ in studio practice and mirrors some of the guiding principles of this thesis. In the first extract from the interview, Caro confirms his relationship to the object as a dialogue with 'the other’

and the necessity in his creative process of this ‘dialogue’ between the artist and his object and the artist adherence to ‘ideas around not knowing’ as intrinsic to the creative process; that is, he has no idea about the destination of the object. Caro also confirms his resistance to the

‘outer interpretations’ coming from the art world itself around his art, refusing to adhere to the political interpretations around his art.

From the interviews with Caro/Lawson, the example of the ‘call’ to poiesis in the conversation held between Shelley/Byron and the subsequent development of the ‘methodology of the conversation’ through the discussion with my supervisor, we can see how the validity of this methodology came into being and how it can be an efficacious way to bring forth a ‘new’ body of research together with its intrinsic value in the creative process.

I think Kearney, signifies a different moment in our creative understanding that appears to manifest in our relationship to ‘the Other’

and can be accessed through the ‘methodology of the conversation.’

Kearney shows us how the imagination can keep developing and the intrinsic importance of ‘the Other’ in the creative process.

106 From the outset, there were clear differences of approach to the interviews between the groups of interviewees. An overview of this is that the students tended to be the most tentative and very much aware of college life when thinking about being interviewed, whilst the teachers were focused and articulate when thinking about undertaking the interviews and the established artists had an overall tendency to begin to present their studio practice through an ‘individuated’ narrative and journey. The only obstacle encountered was most clearly seen at student level with a lack of students wanting to undergo being interviewed. There was no hindrance at a tutor level of enquiry; in fact the opposite as there was an engaged, informative response. With established artists, again there was an eighty per cent acceptance, with one artist declining and another not bothering to reply to the invitation. The following analysis of the conversations held with artists will uncover the different levels of engagement and encounter with obstructions in the service of poiesis at all levels of creative endeavour in artistic life.

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