Process Book

Thumbnail Index

 Here are the first 160 images from Album 1, in a numbered grid that could relate to an index. The numbering is weird and goes vertically, I'm still trying to figure that out.

Readings - Collage and Family Stories

Here are a few things for my readings:

These are conclusions from two psychology articles about family narratives, and two handouts from Tim Harney about collage/art in general. Don't worry about the full articles, these conclusions are enough, I don't want to take them super seriously but there are some points that I want to talk about.

"In this article, I described research demonstrating the prevalence and importance of family narratives. Stories we create with others through socially shared interpretations and evaluations of our personal past constitute our very being. This process begins early in development and continues throughout the life span. Memory of our past is not relegated to a dusty archive, but lives in the moment, in a constantly evolving dialectic between our self and others in the telling and retelling of who we are through what we remember. Research has shown how this process is modulated by individual, gendered and cultural models of self expressed in everyday family reminiscing. Importantly, just as our individual stories are shaped by cultural and historical models of selves and lives, individuals come to shape their culture and their historical moment by the stories they tell. Autobiographical narratives are not just about the individual, but are very much about the historical time and place within which lives are lived and interpreted. Clearly, as Smith (2004) notes in the quote that began this article: ‘A life without stories is no life at all.’ "

(full article source)

"As we have reviewed here, co-constructed narratives of personal and familial experiences are critical in the construction of self and the understanding that self is continuous in time. Moreover, language is the decisive tool in this process; without language, a sense of self through time would not be possible. Whereas infants clearly recall specific episodes (seeBauerr, 2002, for a review), it is only as children begin to share their memories with others through language that children come to the realization that their memories are representations and that they have a unique perspective on their past. outside of language, past events can be referred to, but individuals’ memories of those events, and especially their evaluations of those events, cannot be compared. The process of reminiscing, of conversationally sharing experienced events as well as the associated thoughts and emotions, is essential for the development of children’s understanding that their memories are uniquely their own, and it is this understanding that allows for the idea that the self, as an experiencing entity, is continuous in time. Without a subjective perspective, the notion that I am the same I as yesterday would be dif cult to construct.

When we turn to the intergenerational self, the role of language is even clearer. There is simply no possible access to the experiences of others outside of language. There is no possible way that a child can know about his or her mother’s childhood except through the stories the mother tells to the child. as the protagonist of Anita Diamont’s novel, The Red Tent, states when asked how she would tell her life story, “I would have begun with the story of the generation that raised me, which is the only place to begin. If you want to understand any woman you must first ask her about her mother and then listen carefully. ... The more a daughter knows the details of her mother’s life ... the stronger the daughter” (1997, p. 2).

What is remarkable is that these family stories become part of our own personal self-definition. how we take on the stories of others, and use them to create our own sense of self, is an astonishing phenomenon still in need of a great deal of explication. Children who know their family history, who have shared in these stories, develop a sense of self embedded in a larger familial and intergenerational context, and this sense of self provides strength and security. It is through language that we share our memories with others, and it is through language that we understand that we are a unique entity, a self with a personal and familial history through time. "

(full article source)

Creative/design Brief Templates

Here are two links about filling out a creative brief, or design brief. They help you get to the main idea and focus that you are aiming for when marketing something.

https://www.smartsheet.com/free-creative-brief-templates

https://designschool.canva.com/blog/effective-design-brief/

Thumbnail Index (so far)

I've started scanning pages of my albums, and arranging each photo into a grid, in order of the pages and photos on the pages for now. I've added tags with the album number:page number:photo number and then tags of who is in the photo as well as what else appears in the photo that I took note of. I think this will allow me to rearrange the photos in a lot of different ways, search through in different ways, and probably give me further ideas.

The second image is just the grid of a bunch of the photos, a step along the way. I just thought it looked cool

Independent Study / Family Interviews

I will be doing an independent study next semester to fulfill a creative writing credit in order to get my creative writing minor. I talked to Erin Dionne about it and about how I could make the independent study relate to my seminar work. I told her about how I plan to interview family members for stories and memories, and she thought that would perfectly for the independent study and with seminar. She suggested that the work might be partially autobiographical, as well as recording what my family members say, and how those things overlap. She thought this could be both visual and in the writing. I have to come up with a course description so here is what I’ve written so far:

"For my independent study I intend to combine the work I have been doing in Senior Seminar with creative writing. I am examining things that get passed down in families, both genetics/ancestry as well as stories/memories and where those aspects overlap. I will be interviewing and talking to my family members to gather stories and memories to work with. I plan on using the independent study as a place to organize and expand upon those stories. Ideally, they will turn into something more than just records of stories and memories, I think they can be tied in really well with my visual work and research for seminar, and I think the overlapping of the two class explorations will parallel the overlapping that I’m exploring in the work as well."

I have also gone through a couple of websites that give tips on the types of questions to ask when talking to family members about family histories in order to create genealogies. I don't plan on taking this question for question because I want mine to be a little more informal but they will provide some good places to start from. I plan on voice recording the talks so that I can make sure I have everything word for word. I think that will be important for my work in the future.

What I've done so far, and possible future steps

On advising day when I spoke with John Colan about how seminar is going, and I mentioned that I felt a little stuck, he suggested making a list of everything I've looked at and done so far this semester, because it might guide me a little in what I want to do more of, or new directions to go in. I continue to index the photo albums and I'm planning to (hopefully) have a more fleshed out/designed index from at least a couple of the albums for Wednesday. But here is my list of things I've done and explored so far, and how I felt about them. (in no particular order)

Family Photo Albums - Looking through and indexing the family photo albums that seemed most relevant to me(because they contained family members I know/knew personally.) The indexing has sucked away some of the magic of these albums for me even though it does force me to look at them super carefully. I think it is going to be a good outcome when I finally get through it but it's a long dry process for now. I want to begin going through the albums with my family members to get more stories, memories, etc. from them. Make them fun again.

Reading about/looking at data visualizations - This was because I initially wanted to make some sort of data visualization that could show both data and stories/memories. I haven't abandoned this idea yet but I need more material for it.

Psychology Articles about Intergenerational Narratives - This was really interesting for me, I found out a lot of really interesting information about why telling family stories and history is actually important to kids' growth and development and how they function as adults as a result of it. I think one of these articles will be my reading for the class.

Articles about surprising implications of genetics/DNA - I did some reading and research about how phobias may be based on DNA because of trauma that has been passed down in genetic codes, rather than actual stories. Another article was about how traumatic memories can be passed to infants through smell from their mothers, even if the infants did not experience the trauma firsthand. I also learned about certain traits that are at least partially heritable including stress reactions, imagination, social closeness, and intro/extroversion.

DNA Test - I got a DNA test, just to have more data about my own genetics. I didn't find out anything too crazy or interesting but it was still a cool thing to do.

Pedigree charts/other charts that organize ancestry - I made a pedigree chart and made my own adjustments to it so that it was better organized for my own family. I plan to expand this to further back generations as well. It may serve as a sort of index eventually.

Collages about things important to my parents - For the hallway show I made collages about cultural sources that were important to my parents. This isn't directly related to my other work but it was an interesting process and allowed me to actually make something, which felt good.

Next, I plan to start going through the albums with my family members and gather more story/memory information. I will expand the ancestry chart, possibly making notations about interesting/confusing things that have happened along the way to make it look that way. Think about the whole families as collages thing, (what would this mean for my work? do more actual collages, write about it? etc.) Actually read some of the books John has given me that relate to what I'm doing since I still haven't done that. Look more at Maya Lin's work/writings. I think I want to figure out a way to incorporate some of the research I've done about why family history is important. So it won't just be people learning about my family and myself, they'll be able to draw parallels with their own families; and maybe learn things about families/ancestry in general.

I received my DNA test results

This is a screen grab from the "highlights" of my reports. I received 70 different reports about my ancestry, wellness, traits, and carrier status.

Family Narratives Lab

Here is the link to the Family Narratives Lab I was talking about -
There are a lot of different articles on it discussing the intergenerational stories I talked about.

http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/fivush/lab/FivushLabWebsite/

Another Pedigree Chart

Here is another version of the pedigree chart that I made by hand, trying to make it make more sense.

Pedigree Chart

I made a pedigree chart for my class "The Family" at Endicott and I thought it would be a good thing to post in here, because it contains every person in my family going back to my grandparents' generation.

9/28/16 Update -

Thesis tweet: "My thesis explores what gets passed down in families, both genetics/ancestry as well as stories/memories and where those aspects overlap. " (137 characters)

Family album index so far:

What I've been working on so far

Since I haven't posted yet in the blog I just wanted to make a post that highlights what I've been researching and working on so far. I've been reading articles written by Dr. Robyn Fivush who does a lot of work with studying how storytelling in families helps to create a stronger family, and stronger individuals as well. I have also been looking at different kinds of family trees, including pedigree charts, genograms, and bow tie charts. I have attached some examples of these kinds of charts. I am working on indexing my photo albums and I'll have a post soon that shows my progress.