Donna Frost

Facilitation of the development of professional artistry 223 7 While working towards this first milestone we started, in some ways, where we were, in terms of exploring our current understandings and ideals, and in identifying moments in our practice that were congruent with these ideals. At the same time, we paid attention to where we wanted to be and how we could help each other to get there. Once we had each come to name particular aspects of our practice as professional artistry and to understand, in a holistic sense, some of what that meant, we could no longer ‘not understand it’. We had reached the first milestone. Embodying critical and creative critique Facilitating the development of professional artistry involves recognising the more ephemeral aspects of practice, being able to give language to those things that are ‘hard to describe’, and helping practitioners and each other to learn to do the same. The term ‘understanding’ is used here, as elsewhere in this chapter, to mean a deep seated and holistic understanding, not merely cognitive knowing or being willing to participate in a creative way of working. It is coming to a particular insight in a way which means it does not then slip away again, and embodying a particular way of doing, being and becoming. For example, although all of the CCCI members made use of creative expression, from the very beginning of the study, to help with the expression of ineffable ideas and to make the more invisible aspects of practice visible, there came a moment for each of us when we realised that this way of approaching and understanding our work and indeed our world had become part of our way of being, doing and becoming. We had come to view, or understand, our work and lives as creative processes, the ‘ineffable’ as a fundamental quality of these processes, and being able to express aspects of the ineffable as fundamental to coming to understand our practice and indeed our worlds. One of the most significant changes in my professional life, since being part of this project, is the idea of my work being creative. Not only my work is creative. I am creative. I didn’t previously describe myself like that, not at home and I never really thought about it at work. But I see it every where now. I am able to do my job [taps table with finger to emphasize each word] because of my creativity. People can’t describe it so they don’t think about it or they think it isn’t there. […] I notice the ‘special somethings’ now and am alert to what they might be. (Margaret-NPI- 20130817 Con-pp 3 - 4 ).