Chapter 6

Soulmaking,Appropriation,and Improvisation
 SOULMAKING
Soulmaking (artmaking) is an alternative venue for knowing
ourselves and looking into the depths and real meaning of what
we are doing for our everyday life (Narciso, 2012). It is a form of
crafting stories or transforming brief moments into images or
symbols. It is connecting with people, understanding culture, and
embodying tolerance and peace.
 Soulmaking is an exploration and application of the
imagination in an active way. I making art, an artist or
artisan or even the ordinary person utilizes imagination
to survive and live. We utilize imagination or an
inspiration to connect with the soul. Imagination is an
important tool in developing an artwork.
We all have an imagination
 Anyone can be involved in soulmaking when he seeks to
experience the exciting and moving journey of art making.
Anybody who is deprived of art during his earlier life, those who
are young at heart and are willing to look at and explore
imagining in another age, those badly treated individuals in life,
those who are exhausted and burned-out, those who want to fill
the gap between life and death, those who would like to build
communities and empower people and would like to make a
difference can do and be involved in soul-making.
 The individual, regardless of skill, art form,
or field, can be involved in soulmaking with
interest in a certain art activity, production,
managing art, or the academic or art educators.
It does not require a professional artist or
artisan to be involved.
 Soulmaking has no time
reference; it occurs
anytime. Soulmaking takes
place when one engages in
real time and life, dreaming
or imagining in the middle
of a household chore,
traveling, or any other
work.
 Soulmaking occurs where there is engagement
among the person, time and space. Any place can
be a profound space for soulmaking.
Artists and artisans create a space of
individuality and identity. People define their space
literally or physically but it is a fact that
soulmaking can happen anywhere.
Categories of Soulmaking
 Crafting Images
Crafting images is just like weaving, quilting, or
doing crochet; it is not creating works out own
personal experiences, our personal encounters and
events that triggered our reflection, recall, and
judgment.
 Crafting Stories

The moment we write, engrave, and inscribe our own

thoughts, ideas, commentaries, criticisms, and positive
and negative emotions, we are crafting stories. Stories can
be presented in any form-image, words, objects, and
musical composition.
Crafting Instruments
 
An instrument maker is a bridge
toward the unknown because
the instrument procedures
sounds that transcend our
feelings, emotions, and
sensation in another realm
(Narciso, 2016).
 Crafting Movements
Our life is full of movements; it is filled with various beats. Life
is full of flowing images accompanied by flowing narratives.
Everything we do in life is a performance; we perform life. At times
we need to pause to capture the movements of our energy and the
world.
 Crafting Techniques
Anything can be crafted by using different evocative
descriptions of experiences and explorations, like photograph
studies, puppets and masks, construction, and notepad studies.
A FRAMEWORK FOR GENIUS
Leonardo da Vinci
1. Curiosita (Curiosity):
An insatiably curious approach to life and
an unrelenting quest for continuous and
constant learning.

2. Dimonstrazione (Experiential):
A commitment and dedication to test
knowledge through experience, persistence, and
a willingness to learn from mistakes.
3. Sensazione (Sensory):
The continual refinement of the senses, especially
sight, as the means to enliven experience.
4. Sfumato (Transfiguration):
A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and
uncertainty.
5. Arte/Scienza (Balancing Art & Science):
The development of the balance between science
and art logic and imagination. "Wholebrain" thinking.
6. Corporalita (Balancing Mind and
Body):
The cultivation of grace,
ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.

7. Concession (System Thinking):

A recognition of and appreciation for
the interconnectedness of all things and
phenomena.
APPROPRIATION
 Appropriation
It is refers to borrowing images that are recognizable from different
sources and using these borrowed images to make a new art form.
 To appropriate does not mean stealing or plagiarizing.
It is not owning a particular work but just using the
artwork in the artist's new context. Appropriation artist do
not prohibit the viewers to bring the original message and
intention of the original artwork; rather, they establish
them in the new context.
 Artwork can be appropriated in two ways. First, artist can
appropriate artistic content, which includes artistic elements,
such as motifs, styles, genres, and similar elements, and
complete artworks. Lastly, appropriation of art can also be
done by individual who adopt items that they consider to be
artwork, specifically tangible creations of one culture.
 Appropriation is different from copying or forgery. Appropriation
allows the viewer to recognize the origin of the borrowed images and
objects, as well as the original context. The aim of the artist is to
recontextualize the borrowed object or image through different steps,
such as enlargement or repetition of that image, framing, or translation
across mediums. On the other hand, forgery or copying tries to deceive
the viewers into thinking that they are looking at an original work of art.
A Study of a Young Woman
“Vermeer’s Studio”
1665-1667
“The Son of Man”
1964
“The Son of Selfie”
2017
Message of the Artist:
Each artwork is like time machine; it can person in the
present to the future. Here in this picture the artist substantially
represents the current trend during his time, which is taking a
selfie using currently trendy device, the iPhone.
The artist would also like to express his recognition of the idea
of the original Artist of “The son of Man” which involves
stimulating the natural curiosity of a person to seek what is
beyond the object in front while the shadow was used to cast a
mysterious personality of the current generation.
Cultural Appropriation
Now that we have already define the term “appropriation”
let us take a look at the term “culture’’. According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, cultures refers to specific type or
form of intellectual development. It also means the custom,
practices, perspective, and even creation shared by group of
people.
Types of culture appropriation
1. Object Appropriation
2. Content Appropriation
a. Style Appropriation
b. Motif Appropriation
3. Subject Appropriation