Postscript: Tentative Inscriptions of Becoming

The concept will start to deviate under the force. Let it. Then, reconnect it to other concepts, drawn from other systems, until a whole new system of connection starts to form. Then, take another example. See what happens. Follow the new growth. You end up with many buds. Incipient systems. Leave them that way.

—Massumi (2002, p. 19)

Dear Reader

I offer this paper as a work of “found” scholarship. Found in the sense that this paper has been culled from a larger body of work that explores the renewal of artist-teachers through aesthetic experiential play (Hofsess, 2013). As this inquiry was co-constructed through letters and postcards, here I employ the concept of the postscript to choreograph movements that slip in and out of this body, offering tidbits, snippets, and glimpses. In this way, I conceptualize the postscript as an expression of the Deleuzoguattarian AND … within the structure of a written letter. For the postscript is additive, an offering, a bit more. It holds relevance in rhizomatic ways—to the reader, the writer, or the written. In “finding” these postscripts, I end up with many “incipient systems” (Massumi, 2002, p. 19); and I will leave them that way—for these are the tentative inscriptions of becoming (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980/1987).

Postscript

To play is to be prickly and sensitive and intensified when spaces go dark with the richness of discomfort and unknowing. In this darkness, play can bloom with rhizomatic expression (Deleuze & Guatarri, 1980/1987) in all our practices: art, pedagogy, research.

It is Saturday morning, one of the first I will share with these nine artist-teachers. There is some talk of thesis projects; there is some talk of what will follow graduation as we settle in the room. When class begins, I open the space to questions. With all seriousness, Malik asks: How long do we have access to you? With all seriousness, I respond: For life—you have access to me for life.

I think of Malik often and wonder: Will he ever choose to write? What question would reach him? While the peppermint tea I have brewed steeps into coldness at the edge of my old wooden desk, I sit and write:

September 2012

In the movement of falling leaves outside my office window, I am reminded of the many ways we too let go through aesthetic experiential play during our class. For some, it was a release from the uncomfortable hold of perfection; for others, it was deep-rooted pedagogies—how we were taught or taught to teach. I hope to understand our experiences of letting go more deeply.

And so, I release these questions to you:

What did aesthetic experiential play invite you to give up, relinquish, surrender? What new openings did this create?

Further, since our class ended, what challenges have you experienced in nurturing these openings? What challenges have you experienced in continuing to let go?

Yours,

Brooke

p.s. I just began a new visual verbal journal …

The first response arrives. Ellen opens her letter, saying: There is a time to let go and a time to hold on. In reading her sentence, I release a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.

I catch myself cringing at the careless way I had poked holes for stitching in my journal, as I turn the page the next day. My thoughts shift to Judy—to how she confessed to ripping the ugly pages out of her book; to how very easy it is to succumb to perfectionism. I wish it wasn’t so. … I wish I wasn’t so …

Finally I am home and able to scour the mailbox for something more than glossy ads and thin paper bills. I feel a cotton envelope under my fingertips, and move to the couch, where I can curl up into Claire’s unfolded letter. She begins:

Aesthetic experiential play invited me to give up perfection. … This play also helped me to relinquish control—I had to let go of what was comfortable …

Dear Brooke,

Through aesthetic experiential play, I have relinquished control … control of how art “should...