ABPE

Continuing the ABPE protocol, in this watercolor at the same site, I continue to explore a mixed media approach. In this visual narrative you see how the arts act as a language translator and make possible the information exchange necessary to communicate the place-based stories of this landscape.

* All artwork and photos on this page copyright L.A. Woolery.

Engaged in the ABPE methods, in this simple pencil drawing depicting the ledge above the tributary, little shows of my phenomenological exploration of place.

Art-Based Perceptual Ecology (ABPE)

research methodologies

Dr. Lee Ann Woolery is a transdisciplinary researcher, scholar, educator, and a practicing artist of over 30 years. With a focus on divergent ways of knowing, she was the originator of Art-Based Perceptual Ecology (ABPE), a transdisciplinary research approach to studying changes in ecological systems.

The phrase, ecological perception, recognizes the body is the location of the connection between self and the landscape (J. Gibson). Further, it recognizes perception is the process of making meaning out of sensation, it is the interplay of an active sensing organism and it's environment. In the ABPE name, ecology commands the same strength as perceptual. The study of ecology gives you a way to think about what your senses apprehend (M. Thomashow).

When we add the term art-based to the ABPE name it is recognized that the art making provides frames of reference and context to the sensory experience (L.A. Woolery). Tying together the whole process of Art-Based Perceptual Ecology methods, in the research process, my body becomes the instrument and the data (product) created in the ABPE practice is the graphic record of the intelligence of my body in relationship to place, an embodiment of the knowledge held within this one landscape. Thus, in the practice of ABPE, I am creating a connection with place, which opens me to the vernacular of place. (Woolery, L.A., 1995)

Read about Art-Based Perceptual Ecology in my article "Knowing the language of place through the arts" located on the Johns Hopkins University website or send your request for this article to me with your contact information in the contact form HERE.

For more information about Art-Based Perceptual Ecology research methods find multiple research articles on this website HERE.

In my next image, I focus on form and shape, color and line; primary design elements found in nature. In this oil pastel painting, you begin to see how ABPE offers a language that codifies my embodied experience.