Bringing Pieces of Myself Home to Myself

Abstract

Abstract This article draws from my dissertation, particularly the final part of the four-movement framework I created to cultivate a relationship with the unknown. I share the textile installation The Grey and Green (Dis)Comfort of Home and two sets of poetic vignettes, articulating how this research-creation directed me to a personally transformative inquiry into loss that became my doctoral study. This article presents a methodological framework for advancing concepts through art making and philosophizing in tandem. Each movement encompasses an exploration of a concept, an accompanying art practice, an experience that emerges, and a resultant learning. In this movement, the concept of home is accompanied by the practice of yarn bombing a chair, which inspired considerations of my position and orientation, and led to lessons about the importance of arrivals and threshold-crossing. In making crossings into the unknown and arriving home, I bring pieces of myself home to myself.