The painted fieldnote: A method for contending with teaching, research, and place

This practitioner reflection examines how painting in plein-air—meaning outdoors from life—inspired multimodal fieldnotes that became the node between research, teaching, and place. This work was conducted during a 4-year, community-engaged art education study where the community art classroom was employed to develop participatory arts-based research methods by inviting participants to reflect on changes in Pointe-Saint-Charles, a post-industrial neighborhood in Montréal’s Sud Ouest. I began painting individually using an iPad, easel, and small mint-tins, which forced close looking while capturing deeper affectual, experiential, material, and spatial insights that transcended the written word. I share three ways painted fieldnotes provided insights into the neighborhood. The first is socio-spatial insights that revealed the deeper changes in infrastructure and their cultural meanings. The second is painting as theory generation through meditative, ongoing engagement throughout my research. The third is painting as a multimodal public discourse, where the act of painting stoked reflection and engagement from the public, students, and colleagues. I also share how these fieldnotes changed my approach to my own teaching and how I teach pre-service teachers by inviting closer engagement between personal practice and teaching. This paper argues that the painted fieldnote offers a valuable, multimodal method for thinking, noticing, and teaching through place.