Slow Looking & Visible Thinking

“As adults, we don’t spend too long in observation. We tend to want to jump straight in to interpreting and what we think. It’s actually quite useful for us to take a step back, and just dwell in observation for a little bit, because those details that we notice will help fuel our curiosity.” ~ Claire Bown 

Busy, busy, busy! Even when we’re at leisure, on vacation, in a museum, we just go, go, go, barely taking a moment to focus on what’s around us, let alone to explore, absorb, or reflect upon it all. 

But what if we allowed ourselves some time? What if we slowed down our observations, even just a little? Better yet: what if we actively invited exploration and conversation about what we’re seeing?

Claire Bown teaches techniques to help people connect more with art. Her guide How to Look at Art (Slowly) is as rich a compendium of curiosity practices as I’ve ever found. Claire’s professional focus is museums, but she’d be the first to tell you: the skills she shares are useful anywhere…

“By engaging in ‘visible thinking’ you are encouraging discussion with others, so others can hear your thinking. You’re asking lots of questions — which we know is a great curiosity practice — but you’re also listening very intently to what other people have to say.”

Choose to be Curious · Ep. #191: Slow Looking & Visible Thinking, with Claire Bown

Listen to Choose to be Curious #191: Slow Looking & Visible Thinking, with Claire Bown

Learn more about Claire Bown, founder and principal at Thinking Museum. Check out The Art Engager Podcast.

Find her wonderful guide here: How to Look at Art (Slowly).

You’ve heard me talk about the Right Question Institute’s Question Formulation Technique (QFT) before: Ep. #80 The Right Question Institute with Andrew Minigan, and Ep . #181: The Right Questions for Legal Empowerment, with Naomi Campbell. 

I’m definitely going to check out the Smithsonian Institution’s EdX course: Teaching Critical Thinking through Art with the National Gallery of Art. 

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Purple Light” by Marble Run,, via Blue Dot Sessions.

You can subscribe to Choose to be Curious on iTunes and Stitcher.

Check out the Choose to be Curious shop!

Be Curious. Allow Your Heart & Your Mind to Open.

“In wanting to connect people to the history and to the people that lived in this time, it goes to, ‘Be curious. Allow your heart and your mind to open for a moment.’ I hope I’ve created a safe space in which to do so.” ~ Amina Luqman-Dawson

The well-deserved accolades pour in — Newberry Medal, Coretta Scott King Award, Cyblis Award, and more — but what caught my eye about Amina Luqman-Dawson’s wonderful book Freewater was her deft deployment of curiosity. 

Whether as a springboard for her own writing and research, as an invitation to her readers, or the force that enables her characters’ growth and literal freedom, curiosity is everywhere in this rich, evocative story of children escaping enslavement and finding their power. 

“Curiosity,” she says, “is a wonderful place to begin.”

That basic sense of curiosity and of connection is where understanding begins, where empathy begins. 

The sad thing is that if you don’t have it, if you’re afraid of it long enough, then other things fill in. You latch on to other things that allow you to take in a sense of inhumanity, disconnection and hostility to the history. 

Curiosity lets you weave yourself through the hardship.

Choose to be Curious · Ep. #190: Be Curious. Allow Your Heart & Your Mind to Open, with Amina Luqman-Dawson

Listen to Choose to be Curious #190: “Be Curious. Allow Your Heart & Your Mind to Open” with Amina Luqman-Dawson

Don’t just take my word for it, check out Amina Luqman-Dawson and Freewater yourself. You won’t be sorry.

Learn more about the Newberry Medal, Coretta Scott King Awards, and the Cyblis Award.

A shout-out to Arlington Public Library, championins of stories, information and ideas, for helping to connect me to this particular story.

This isn’t the first time I’ve waxed rhapsodic about The Phantom Tollbooth. 

Amina Luqman-Dawson Photo Credit: Zachariah Dawson

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Home, Home at Last” by Warmbody, via Blue Dot Sessions.

You can subscribe to Choose to be Curious on iTunes and Stitcher.

Check out the Choose to be Curious shop!