Page from How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum by Keri Smith…
This book started with a list that I wrote one night when I couldn’t sleep. These ideas are an accumulation of things that I have learned from various teacher and artists over the years. They all spewed out at once.
How to Be an Explorer of the World:
1. Always be looking. (Notice the ground beneath your feet.)
2. Consider everything alive and animate.
3. Everything is interesting. Look closer.
4. Alter your course often.
5. Observe for long durations (and short ones).
6. Notice the stories going on around you.
7. Make patterns. Make connections.
8. Document your findings (field notes) in a variety of ways.
9. Incorporate indeterminacy.
10. Observe movement.
11. Create a personal dialogue with your environment. Talk to it.
12. Trace things to their origins.
13. Use all of the senses in your investigations.
