Becoming a Reflective Practitioner, 6th Edition

CHAPTER 13Narrative Art and Storyboard

Christopher Johns and Otter Rose

Georgia O’Keefe wrote¹ ‘I could say things with colors and shapes that I had no words for’, suggesting that words can limit our ability to express ourselves. Thus the reflective practitioner may discover using art enables reflection, what we term as Narrative art – the constructing of narrative through art forms. Loori (2005, p. 84) writes – ‘through our art we bring into existence something that previously did not exist’. What we bring into existence are our stories of everyday practice and what we have learnt from them, rich fuel for others to reflect on and learn through. As such, narrative art is active, open to interpretation, full of meaning both shown and told, dynamic in dialogue with others. Art forms fuel both the artist’s and their audience’s imagination.

Using narrative art forms such as drawing, painting and photography as modes of reflection shape and illuminate the narrative. It is a creative approach that stimulates insights.

To accompany the performance narrative ‘Smoking kills’ (Johns and Rose‐Johns 2017), the publisher Wiley Blackwell set up a companion website to enable readers to view the powerpoint images we used in performing the narrative. These images are photographs of groynes taken along Lowestoft beach to represent lungs ravaged by lung cancer, images of lung cancer and their doom messages from cigarette packets, images of anti‐smoking media downloaded from the internet such ...