Franklin Sayre

I’m the Makerspace Librarian at Thompson Rivers University and also Co-Chair the Librarians’ Department. These days I am particularly interested in creating active learning spaces that foster belonging and encouraging sustainability and critical thinking about technology and information.

2 minute read

Weeknotes are where I share what I am doing without worrying too much about them being perfect. They are a way of thinking-in-public. They are written quickly and generally without editing.

A short week so I’m posting a late and short WeekNotes.

It’s already October and my sabbatical is now half over. I decided a couple weeks ago that October would be when I switched from research to practice. Practice, attention, and materials are themes that keep coming up in my research.

Practice as attention. Attention as care.

When I’m sewing I can see how practice, attention, and care are related. How care develops through practice and attention and feeds back into them. Not just sewing, but working with fabric as a material. Making cyanotypes. Taking apart old bags.

The same with plants. Picking them, drying them, using them for cyanotypes is also a process of learning about them and how to see them.

So I need to switch over to practices. To focus my attention. To learn how to care. To learn how to turn that into something that can be put back into my pedagogy and the design of spaces and services.

Each day I’m going to spend some time:

  • Making things. Mainly I will be sewing, but there will be some weaving, coding, and 3D printing as well. Making is both the topic and core practice of this research-creation project; it is how I will learn, test ideas, and create examplars.
  • Writing: Since I am not a designer or an artist my main outcome is the reflections on the process of research and creation. Writing is the bridge that connects research, making, and my own pedagogical practice.
  • Reading: Reading is the easiest and therefore most dangerous practice, because I keep using it as an excuse to avoid the first two. I need to put serious limits in place to prevent myself from continuously expanding the scope of what I am reading.
  • Meditation: I’ve meditated for almost a decade now, sometimes seriously (I’ve done a 10 day silent retreat) and sometimes going months without sitting. Another reoccurring theme in this project is embodiment, and while I am not sure what role meditation might play in terms of methodology or process, it is a practice with which I am familiar.
  • Walking. I’m not formally using a “walking methodology” (i think) but place is a key theme and like meditation it is an embodied practice that I already do and can therefore leverage.

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