Donna Frost

Facilitation of the development of professional artistry 225 7 In other words, we had gained insight into the ways in which cognitive and creative understanding work together to enable holistic understanding and testing out of ideas. We came to value, as individuals and as a group, the importance of working through the whole process: for example, expressing in words what has just been expressed visually or otherwise, engaging in cognitive and creative critique and creating room for contestation. Within the NP group in particular we learnt to recognise how both congruency and dissonance ‘felt’ in our bodies and spirits, so that we could come to a well-supported position, paying attention to how the explicit and (previously) implicit come together to form a complete picture. This milestone, combined with the first, made previous experiences more readily ‘available’ or useful for learning. Being alert to a ‘feelingof good fit’, or paying attention to something ‘feeling not quite right’ began to come more naturally. Using creative methods to reflect on past experiences helped bring the less tangible aspects of past practice scenarios into our consciousness and into visibility. We were able to consider these experiences with different understandings: an acceptance of the potential for artistry in our practice coupled with the knowledge and experience of how to uncover it. Reflection with a difference, Now I look with different eyes. Is there more to see? I feel like a different me. I was still learning then. I am still learning now. Yes. Learning. Feeling. Learning what I felt and what it meant. ‘Competence development’ – that’s not what I mean Spirit, heart, unseen things. Learning to perceive (FP-NPI-Mtg 7 -Rec 3 , 4 of 4 ) Embodying critical and creative critique: helpful strategies Coming to value and understand our practice in a holistic sense and becoming aware of the ways the visible and invisible work together and can be used to unpick and reconstruct meaning, were supported by a number of facilitative strategies. These are grouped here in three clusters. Providing a supportive structure and safe space in which people can experiment with newways of being and understanding,