This is an expansion, a reemphasis, of the original post i wrote up on “containers” back in 2015. It’s offered to complement recent thinking around Systems Scribing, which explores the intersection of scribing and systems thinking, particularly when considering “systems being”. This is when we start to consider systems not only as cognitive exercises, but as essential matters of the heart, with felt understanding of the interconnectedness of all things. This has possibly never been more needed on the planet than it is now.
To note, this thinking is based on the work of William Isaacs as well as the Circle of Seven, including: Barbara Cecil, Glennifer Gillespie, and Beth Jandernoa.
In it, i write: As visual practitioners, as artists, we aim with care and responsibility to reach people, to expand the boundaries of the assumed known. Any reach requires steadiness, and to ensure a stable core, we rely on support for our essential, creative selves.
Around the diamond, the iceberg, and presencing —supporting these states of being and diagnostic methods— are what I’ve already referred to in this book as containers: holding spaces for places, people, and states of the heart.
The weakness or strength of a container determines the likelihood for detrimental or successful conversation, for harmful or loving relations, for destructive or productive environments, for ill- or well-being.
In a way, just as ice forms from and melts back into a pond, containers provide energetic ground for life and death, for growth and decay. We serve as containers for others, and they for us. The stronger a container, the stronger the trust, the stronger the safety, the more that can be nourished, tended, grown, realized.
Here’s an example. As my grandmother Margaret Bird was aging, at a point when she could only go outside with a walker and physical assistance, we would occasionally lunch at a local diner in New York City. She would ask me things about my life, about school, about my friends, about my studies, and she would marvel at the complexity of the world in which I lived. (This was 1984, so we can only imagine what she would say about our world today!)
What I recall most poignantly is the way she paid attention, seeming to hang on every word, and the way she made me feel safe and loved—loved no matter what I said, no matter what I had to share. I never felt judged. No matter what she thought about the details of my escapades, she listened closely, looked me in the eye, and continued to pursue an understanding of my life.
She provided a container, a space where I could see myself more clearly and grow as direct result of how she was holding me.
In my work as a scribe, I try to reinforce the container for the group. When a group heats up and fractures, the container needs to strengthen, to better support what wants to come to light. I don’t do this by adding a specific line or word to a page, but by enhancing my quality of listening and building the group’s trust in my very being. I turn around, and see the group, feel it, open my heart to the individuals, try to put myself in their seats, find human-to-human compassion, soften, expand.
Sometimes the container in the room is so strong that the scribe might be enveloped in its power. Our ability to “show up” increases because the room is holding us, in a way, as my grandmother held me so well, years ago. In this case, I notice the strength, thank the heaven and earth for the quality of the group, and draw with pure joy.
When my grandmother, somewhat hard of hearing and surely with many of her own personal concerns, was able to show up for me so completely, I was completely able to show up for her too. I could be more vulnerable because I felt safe. She brought out the purest part of me by how gracefully she held me in her own heart.
Love, as a base note, is the ore, and order, of the container.
What a session! What a year. What a decade. What a partnership.
On the eve of the 2019 winter solstice (for the northern hemisphere) Otto Scharmer interviewed me regarding Generative Scribing and the Power of Social Arts. It was the last episode of the year for Dialogues on Transforming Society & Self, a series of monthly interactive online talks. “With a variety of guests, stories and breakout sessions, these dialogues provide a space for coming together and sensing into inspiring examples of societal renewal.” Find a recap of our episode here, as well as previous interviews, on the Presencing Institute website.
After Otto and I conversed for about 20 minutes, we guided the community through a resonance process, attending our collective awareness to a series of “footprint” images created over the last decade of our work together. Find the slides in the gallery below. The resonance process was followed by virtual break out spaces, and then some group reflections at the very end of the 75-minute session.
Of note was how the power in my home completely shut down for about 5 minutes through the image “pulsing”. It was as if the energy of the entire group, and the focus on the images, was high enough to cause an outage! That is probably not the real explanation. But as the team scrambled on the back end to find out what happened, and as i desperately tried to reconnect, Otto picked up the presentation and there seemed to be minimal disruption. A few slides which would have been in that gap are added below. The resonance process started with the u.lab images and ended with increased time on the final synthesized image, which we refer to as “Solstice”.
Recording of the Session
Images Shared
chalk on board
acrylic on paper
iPad
Chat Questions with Responses and Resources
Jerry Michalski: Kelvy, did you at one time see a graphic facilitator in action, or did you start taking visual notes spontaneously?
I started in 1995 by joining a team of MG Taylor knowledgeworkers, to support a DesignShop for NASA wind tunnels. Scribing was one facilitative role in support of “releasing group genius”. I had met Matt and Gail when they came to visit Chris Allen in San Francisco, CA. I was working for Chris, who had a company called Consensus (focused on groupware) as his office administrator. I’d also been working on a collaborative art project with architect friends from college. When Matt and Gail were visiting out west, they saw the artworks and thought I’d be a good fit in the highly-collaborative sessions they were running. You can read more here about Matt and Gail’s work here, and a graphic talk by Andrew Park (inventor of those RSA Animate videos) on their processes.
I was also very involved in theater in high school, which is another kind of social, collaborative art. Many streams probably fed into the eventual practice of scribing.
Jerry Michalski: Were you scribing before arriving at MG Taylor, or did you learn it there?
I learned it there! And it took a loooong time. Everyone thought I could start right away, but it took me about two years to get comfortable drawing in front of people. Also, I am a slow learner.
tori craig : Kelvy, how do you sort out what’s happening among the group vs. your own interpretation/mindset?
Scribing is a balancing act between intuitive and cognitive abilities. Perhaps it’s like running constant mini “U”s… where we observe, sense, presence, and then have a quick check in internally on what is “in here” and what is “out there” and discern if there is alignment between the two (which are also really the same, but split out for the purposes of drawing.) Then a very quick shift into crystallizing the content into the drawing. Good question – and i will give it more thought and come back. People ask this all the time…
Nancy White : “A gift to offer, not a gift to have.”
I really like this quote. I think it sums up the approach.
Lily Martens: Kelvy what other art forms do you see that we can use to do this? Do you experiment with that as well?
Gosh – i would say all. I write a lot, journalling, personally and also for almost every professional situation i’m in. It’s a helpful tool for reflection, also requires discipline to do (like all art forms I suppose!)
barbara: For those with no artistic skills, how could we personally use scribing? I like the visual models but could not possibly produce one.
You can use scribing in any context to help people see. The difference between scribing and other visual art forms is that it is social – the content comes from a context of a group of people, rather than representing only one person’s views (though it’s common to scribe for one presenter of content, there is still an audience that participates in the overall context of the speaking…). Therefore, I’d say try in a safe environment first, perhaps with family or friends who are trying to think something through, and experiment where you can.
April Doner: Re: People with no artistic skills… just wanted to share one resource I love from a friend in the disabilities justice movement (scribing is a massive tool for accessibility in that field)… https://inclusion.com/product/hints-for-graphic-facilitators/
See also this program page for capacity development offerings from a trusted ecosystem of practitioners. There are a number of in person and offline opportunities to learn at very beginning stages.
Jerry Michalski: good book on drawing simply: Dan Roam, Back of the Napkin
Yes! I very much admire Dam Roam and all his books. Other great resources: David Sibbet, Dave Gray, Mike Rohde, and Brandy Agerbeck. And this book is really a massive and thorough compilation: The World of Visual Facilitation. And please please please remember this practice is as much—or more—about listening and sense making than it is drawing beautiful pictures. You can draw in a very basic way and still get the essence of what is being said, and help a group see, as long as you have the inner skills that combine with the skills of the hand.
Maria Grette: I paint “from the future”. Paintings emerge from a meditative source and sometimes manifest in life up to years later. Is this related to scribing?
Yup! I can relate…
Hermann Funk: I see scribing as a valuable tool for prototyping, or am I wrong?
You are most definitely right. Especially system mapping, where you can clearly define places, stakeholders, processes of iteration over time…
Jerry Michalski: apropos other kinds of mapping, here’s ABCD in context: https://bra.in/2vmxPJ and Kelvy, in context: https://bra.in/8qa7AE
For the master of visual modeling, spend some time in Bryan Coffman’s website. He was one of my key early mentors in the field, and remains top of the charts for thinking and practicing scribing, especially in a strategic context.
Robert Wanalo: will the slides be available after this? 🙂
See above!
Nancy White: frozen Kelvy?
The computer in my home completely – yes, completely, went out! My computer went dark, internet down – all in an instant. While i scrambled to rejoin through my phone, the power came back on, but Otto had pick it all up and kept the process going, with barely a hiccup. Here is to team spirit!
Marilee Adams: If we consider an image like an answer, a visual answer, that makes me wonder from what questions/inquiries might a particular image/answer have emerged?
I love this question and need to sit with it.
Nancy White: The Ochre is a story that stays and stays with me
Emily Abramovich: Agree with April. I’m curious to know more about the physical process.
Oh wow – there is so much to share here. Scribing is quite physical. I’m not sure how to answer in a concise way. Maybe look at the program page to see the various pics and set up? I have been advocating lately that a great scribe can work on any surface in any condition: from room-surrounding white (dry erase) boards that wrap up to 40′ to a patch of sand on a beach – even to a Post-It note.
Jana, Deerfield OH WE, The World: why just these colors? why not purple or deep blue? Deb: How do you decide what colors to use? (Or is it just dependent on what you have available at the time?)
Well…… color is so critical in my mind, as it’s a subtle influencer and can say a great deal in relative silence. It’s a powerful medium. The colors i use with the Presencing Institute are distinct, as we chose the pallet at one point in time for the website, and then used more broadly in our design and communications. This translated over into my scribing for u.lab and key ecosystem gatherings. That is probably why they feel so uniform in the drawings above. There are a number of us in PI working on various products, independently, and color palette has helped with our consistency.
And, there is so much more on this. See the end of this post for some color coding info in relation to that one drawing. I will try to get permission to share a chapter I recently co-authored with Holger Nils Pohl called Using Color, in a recently published book: The World of Visual Facilitation.
barbara: I sense a groupthink that perhaps is blinding people to the actual difficulty of the current situation
I appreciate this comment. As i think you were experiencing in our process, the self-selected social field—as we had on the call—can sometimes create a series of “follows”, where there can be a snowballing effect of agreement, and a difficult condition in which to bring in an “oppose”. (See above relevant reference to William Isaac’s book on dialogue.) This happens in scribing too, where one mark can follow another, and we stop listening to the discord that ALSO has necessary information in it, as balance. It’s key to listen for the full range of inputs, regardless of proportion. It offers correction. As has your comment.
It’s easy for a scribe to get caught up in polite downloading Otto’s Conversation Field Level 1, because it’s a more comfortable place to be in, especially when immersed in the real-time pressure of live drawing. But it’s critical to be able to hold a steady container and support a social field shift into Level 2: Debate, which is where discord comes in. If you can’t handle this, and then also listen for shifts to Level 3: Dialogue, and the Level 4: Collective Creativity…. then you as a scribe, or facilitator, you will not really help balance out the stuck reinforcing feedback loop a group is experience.
I guess it boils down the overall maturity and strength of the container of the group itself…. (which would have been the 250 people on our call), and time together, to allow for field shifts that can enfold difference.
Sherrill Knezel: Another question that surfaced…what can we or are we willing to let go of in order to serve the social field?
Ego.
trishbroersma: Tips for planning visual space with a new topic or new group?
Hm. A LOT goes into planning. Perhaps read this post as a start to get the scope? I’m not sure, though, if this is what you meant by the question…
angele: are you also continuing your painting in the studio?
Well…. not really. I have a small studio that is ready and waiting. It’s one of my 2020 intents, to start up again – combined with an intent to travel less for work and stay more local.
sylvie: Maybe this is unrelated but would Kelvy want to share where her name comes from?
Ha! “Kelvy” comes from McKelvy, which was the maiden name of my grandmother, Margaret McKelvy Bird. It’s obviously then from her parents, Robert and Florence McKelvy.
Elizabeth Carney: Hoping the images can be shared? Susanne Maria Weber: Can we please have prints of those wonderful images?
You can see the images above, and click on them for a higher resolution version you can print.
Veronika: Are there any resources how to start learning gernerative scribing?
Each year the Presencing Institute offers u.lab, a free, online-offline program through MITx. Launched in Sept and running through Dec, it’s a self-directed learning experience, punctuated by monthly live broadcasts where the community comes together. It’s also part of a wider-scale Societal Transformation Lab that you can read about here.
Find below the final scribed image from each live session, as well as key content overviews. Hope you find this gallery useful. Enjoy!
For all pictures on this page… please share as you’d like, respecting the creative commons information here and linking back to this page. Also please consider donating to the Presencing Institute, which would not exist without individual donations, grants, and program revenues.
Visual Reviews, using iPadPro with Procreate app, Photoshop, and a Bird font.
How would you complete the sentence “What’s really interesting about this graphic recording is…”?
… that the final picture reflects a highly integrated synthesis of four days’ worth of live content.
Is there a story about how you arrived at the visuals, style, or technique used in this graphic recording?
There is a certain freedom of expression that comes with the experience of working with familiar materials over time, in this case dry erase marker on a large, flat surface. Approaching this wall as an experiment with layered iteration, I gave myself full permission to add, subtract, expand, and relocate content as it made sense to the overall picture, even at the expense of completely eliminating information.
What’s the most interesting or effective or powerful technique that you used in this graphic recording (maybe it’s the one that you used the most, but maybe it’s one that you only used for a few details, but it really makes the connections come alive)—and why did you choose it?
The unique quality of this 14-foot image is that it represents a four full cycles of build, overnight pause, and reduction – where only the most essential content carried forward into the final picture. The drawing process itself mirrored the prototyping process in the room, offering an iterated and refined version of content each day. Though many phrases and sections met erasure throughout the program, the overall depth of the final integration demonstrates the power of this medium to reflect requisite change in idea maturation.
What are the standout features about the featured graphic recording that you would point out to a stranger who walked up and asked about it? Like, is it interesting because you used different shades of two colors to indicate a transition? Did you use a lot of cartoon elements this time? Etc.
The “secret sauce” of this image is the hand mixed dry-erase inks used to evoke potential (gold), grounding (olive), and source/spirit (blue grey). I start with an Neuland inks and squeeze them into Montana marker shells, meant for acrylic paint. This process is not recommended for those who are in any way apprehensive of drips and fumes! It’s not an everyday application, and can yield quite a mess if one is not confident with a very, very inky marker. But the combination also yields extraordinary serendipity in application, and very rich color.
Was there something about this graphic recording that was especially challenging (and that is somehow visibly reflected in the work itself)? How did you overcome that challenge in the graphic recording itself. (The talk was in English, but none of the audience spoke English, so you had to devise a system of pictographs on the spot and couldn’t include any words, and that’s why the GR looks the way it does.)
The challenge of this piece was the limit of space over four days, combined with a live broadcast to a global audience on the first day, requiring a full-scale drawing from the start. The program also needed a great deal of wall space for the presentations and participant work, leaving me tight in regards to real-estate. I know this seems like a crazy way to figure it out, but it helps with average budgeting: ~ 1” per minute (assuming a 4’ height), ~ 30” width per 30 minutes, ~ 8’ for 90 minutes, etc. The ~14 hours of scribing in this design would have called for ~75 linear feet. But I had 14 feet, bringing my ratio of room/time WAY down and forcing a ratio of synthesis/time way up.
Essentially I had to collapse the breadth into layers. In order to have impact, I wanted to go large and aim for depth. Embracing a daily, iterative approach seemed the only possible solution. This involved drawing, erasing, drawing, erasing, etc. each day – to represent four full cycles of work. I thoroughly documented each round, to not lose context and previous drawing.
Did you decide on or plan any elements in advance? Were there elements that came out of a flash of inspiration or that were improvised? In either case, what made them special?
I planned nothing about this in advance, even to address the wall space issue; it was not an easy solution to figure out, how to balance integrity with erasure.
The most exciting aspect to this piece was that the entire drawing ended up representing an unexpectedly coherent map of the topics in the room – not topics that were on the agenda at the onset of the program, as a more linear approach would have yielded, but instead related themes that unfolded through conversation, reflection, and learning in the room.
No key resulting sections could have existed without the others, and the relatedness of the content was particularly high: lenses for change (upper left), mind-matter split (base of the iceberg), questions of growth and scale (middle top), foundation of source and planet (bottom band), u.lab as an awakening organ of perception (upper right), and an unfolding heart-oriented future (right.)
The bird comes home to nest. Finally—after some 25 years of traveling around the globe to draw during conferences, meetings, and all kinds of formal and informal gatherings—I have a unique opportunity to exhibit a range of work here in my current town, Somerville MA. Curating highlights from my archives, the ~20 drawings, digital prints, and and video recordings will present a unique window into the art and practice of scribing.
The exhibit will be on view at the Gallery at Washington Street, 321 Washington Street Somerville, MA 02143 on Saturdays 12-4pm, or by appointment 857-928-8088.
In conjunction, local “Studio Session” workshops will offer basic frameworks and tools to those interested in learning more:
The Art of Scribing – Sunday, October 6 from 9am-12pm Learn about the “art of scribing”—a practice that visually represents ideas while people talk—and its role in transforming conversation and decision-making. Participants will explore the profession, learn 4 Levels of Scribing, and experiment with scribing conversation.
Levels of Listening – Saturday, October 12 from 9am-12pm Listening is a cornerstone of all facilitative work. This session will include a review of “Levels of Listening” (by Otto Scharmer), and apply the levels directly to scribing. Participants will practice conversing and drawing with different levels: factual, relational, and generative.
Systems Scribing – Sunday, October 13 from 9am-12pm
Here we dive into the basics of systems scribing and present a framework based on systems thinking, systems being, and systems living (as informed by this article and collaboration with Jessica Riehl). Participants will learn specific methods and techniques for recognizing basic feedback loops in conversation and for 2D modeling.
Who should participate?
These sessions are open to anyone who is interested in the “live” visual practice of scribing, with no previous experience required. Drawing will be our primary form of expression, and conversation the primary form of shared reflection. Ages 12 and older welcome. No childcare provided on site.
The gallery is a 3-minute walk from Union Square (heading towards Harvard Square on Washington Street, gallery on right), or a 20-minute walk from Harvard Square (heading on Kirkland street until it turns into Washington Street, gallery on left). It’s also near or on the following bus routes: 87, 83, 86, 91. Parking available behind the gallery, to the right of the Bornstein Rug & Floor Coverings Company.
For example: On view, a reproduction of my first intentional “systems scribing” from the World Economic Forum – Davos 2012:
