Creative Listening & Creative Agents | A Final Reflection On Community Practice

This question has been sitting with me throughout my time as the Creative Listener in the Neighbourhood Creative Agents programme. Not in theory, but in practice, in conversations, in looks, in sensed emotions, moments that don't neatly fit into traditional approaches to community arts evaluation.

I came to this role as a contemporary community textile artist and qualified psychotherapist (I only mention the last skill, as I relied on its principles of listening, questioning, non-judgementalism, and person-centredness), based in Amber Valley, Derbyshire, with experience in delivering participatory projects and working alongside more typical museum-led models. My approach to arts evaluation had already begun to shift in earlier work, where I found that the community's responses didn't fit easily into more traditional models and required something more open and flexible (sketches and doodles ensued.) At that point, I hadn't heard the term 'creative listening'; I'm not sure it existed. That language came later, from here. I wasn't (and probably still remain) entirely sure what it is, not as a defined practice or set of deliverables. However, I now understand it as an emerging field, shaped in part by the limits of those structures, the human-rooted creative imagination of the listener, and the willingness of the engaged parties to consider holistically rather than empirically.

Hence, the question I asked at the top of the blog remains throughout the adventure.

I started quietly, watching and listening, making initial sketch responses. Later, I held conversations and conducted interviews with the Creative Agents. It was important to me that I remained attentive to what was unfolding before trying to shape or interpret it. From this vantage point, I realised my evaluation interest was not in the project's effect on the community, but solely in the agents' experience. My focus ignored measuring outputs or capturing outcomes, and instead rested on the experience of 'being' a Creative Agent, how each person held the feedback of their community, navigated uncertainty, decision making, and responsibility within their place.

What began to emerge was not a fixed method, and I'm not sure it can even be described as a 'way of working,' but instead a set of commitments to see the agents, their spaces and moments. None of these entities could be predicted or controlled, merely recognised, acknowledged, interpreted and responded to as best as I could.

This post brings together a series of reflections written over time and represents the clearest understanding I can reach at this point.

Understanding The Role Of A Creative Listener

At the outset, I recognised that the work of a Creative Listener was not explicitly defined within my terms of reference. It felt essential that, before I could respond to the Creative Agents with any clarity or responsibility, I needed to understand what this position required and how to carry it out to a professional and considered standard. I recognise that this matter is secondary to the evaluation's expected outcomes; however, it forms an essential part of the context in which they were arrived at.

I could sense the importance of the position and its potential, but I did not yet have a clear way of working. That uncertainty stayed and unsettled me.

I began by looking more broadly at how community projects are evaluated, trying to find a language and framework that made sense of what I was stepping into. You can read more about that early thinking here: How To Evaluate Community Projects As A Contemporary Community Textile Artist – 2025 Nature Connections | Derbyshire.

As part of this I attended the Nature Connectedness conference at the Museum of Making, which considered community project evaluation, albeit in the Nature sector. What struck me was that, while there was clear interest from national organisations in the idea of a Creative Listener, there was no shared or clearly defined understanding of what this actually looked like in practice. It felt present, even in demand, but still in an early, developing stage. The lack of visible definition and responsibility of the work generated feelings of uncertainty and discomfort.

Alongside, I looked for cultural reference points that could help frame my thinking. I turned to Stephen Willats, whose work had recently been reshown locally, as well as to Ursula K. Le Guin's Carrier Bag Theory and the 2025 Reith Lectures on community. I was trying to build an approach grounded in the situation while still maintaining structure, drawing on participation, narrative, and community practice.

Even with those intentions, I still needed something tangible to work with.

My response was to look for a framework that could offer some clarity. I returned to Stephen Willats. His structured approaches to mapping relationships, using questions, diagrams, and visual systems born of early computation, gave me something I could begin to test in my own practice. It felt rigorous and considered. It felt like it had edges.

Willats' handbook Artwork As Social Model: A Manual Of Questions And Propositions (2012), developed from his work engaging creatively with communities, became a key point of reference. I chose to adopt this as a working manual, using its questions and propositions to guide my approach and bring structure to what I was observing and recording.

This became my first attempt to understand creative listening through a defined structure, applying and testing an existing model to see whether it could support what I was witnessing in the Creative Agents' work. You can read more about this here: Collaborative Evaluation: Stephen Willats & Community Art.

Testing Methods | From Willats' Questionnaires To Representation

For the first few sessions I attended within the Creative Agents programme, I deliberately held back. I sat in on meetings, listened carefully, and used graphic recording, sketching in my sketch book to capture what I was hearing and sensing. These responses not only attempted to record technical or factual aspects, but also the emotions, sensations, and atmospheres present within the space.

Over time, these sensings became the focus of my work. I found myself wanting to recognise what was not immediately visible, what might not be reported through a formal report or graph. This was not about replacing those forms of evaluation, but about adding something different to the process, a way of acknowledging the relational and often unseen aspects of community practice.

I wanted to take my time, to understand, and to meet the agents where they were and for who they were, rather than moving too quickly to define or interpret.

I have always believed that if you are going to work with a model, you should take the time to properly understand it before you begin to mould it into something more aligned. I approached Willats' work in the same way I had approached the Creative Agents, taking time to sit with it, understand it, meet him, attend Nottingham's Archives to view his pieces, and not rush to adapt it too quickly. So, I committed to that.

Willats famously developed a questionnaire-based method to understand the communities he worked with, drawing out people's interests, concerns, possessions, motivations, and ways of seeing the world. I was drawn to this as a potential way of working with the Creative Agents, as it offered a structure that might help reveal and shape them if I turned the mirror back on them, away from looking at the people they served. I thought maybe by designing a booklet of questionnaires in Willats' style, I could help discover, for myself and for the agents themselves, their 'stuff' that was bubbling just out of reach in connection with the programme. (I became fascinated by uncovering whether they were indeed working in a purely community-led way, or were letting their own agendas and outcomes creep in to skew responses.)

However, in practice, I found that Willats' language and structures were complex and not always accessible within this context. I needed to rework them. I adapted the questionnaires to make them more open, more accessible, and more focused on feelings and the intangible, creating space for the agents to recognise and articulate aspects of their own experience, and allowing me to better understand what was emerging. I wasn't sure the agents understood what I was seeing in them or whether my conclusions were correct; I thought this vehicle might help shed some light.

Using this adapted approach, I began testing how a structured model of creative listening might fit within the Creative Agents context. But the more I tried to make it fit, the more I felt a tension I could not ignore.

I first noticed it when I trialled aspects of the approach with Bonnie. Something felt slightly misaligned, although I could not yet name it; the live and responsive nature of the work made it difficult to hold onto a fixed structure. It became clear that while the model offered clarity, it was not fully accommodating the complexity and fluidity of what the Creative Agents were experiencing. It didn't work. Attempt 1 Incorrect.

At this point, I shifted my focus.

I returned to Willats (after all, he was seen as the guru of this work), this time focusing less on structured questioning and more on his use of visual language and representation, putting my sketchbook findings through his community, evaluating 'machine' (machine seems an appropriate word as Willats was fascinated by the processing methods of the first computers.)

I was particularly drawn to Willats' use of the 'Tennis Supergirl' figure as a way of embodying identity, agency and experience in his related Nottinghamshire 'Resource' booklet. Decoding his symbols, words and imagery and lending them to this Derbyshire project seemed a fitting second attempt at an accurate creative listener response.

I developed my own version, the Derbyshire Supergirl, to represent the Creative Agents and the journeys I had been witnessing. It felt like a possible way to bring together what I had been observing, sensing and trying to understand into a form that could be shared.

However, when I presented this, it did not work as I had expected, leaving me feeling sad, as I had believed this might be the right response. Attempt 2 Incorrect.

There was a clear reaction from the respondents that the idea of 'super' or heroic representation did not sit comfortably. It suggested something elevated or exceptional, whereas what I was told at this feedback session was that the Creative Agents were much more grounded, relational, and open. The strength of the work was not in being extraordinary, but in the fact that anyone could be a Creative Agent.

This moment was important. It showed me that even when working with established methodologies, translating them into a different context requires careful attention. What holds in one setting does not necessarily transfer directly into another.

Working Without Resolution | Fear, Failure & The Pressure To Respond

Alongside this uncertainty, there was also a growing awareness of time. The programme had a structure, a timeline, and an expectation that something would be formed and shared. That pressure began to build, bringing with it a sense that a response needed to be clear, understandable and professionally resolved.

But the reality of the process did not align with that expectation.

Ideas did not settle. Approaches did not fully resolve. A growing recognition emerged that a clear or finished outcome might not be reached within the time available. With that came deeper discomfort emerging from the possibility of not getting it right.

At one point, the idea of presenting the work as it was, unresolved, felt closer to the truth. I had a whole heap of scissor-hacked, printed, reworked, annotated, A4 sheets of paper that held my workings and attempts, below my desk. The carrier bag bin, filled with discarded materials, began to stand out as a possible response. It held the effort, the thinking and the attempts that had not yet formed into something complete. But was I brave enough to show a bag of paper rubbish?

I wasn't.

The carrier bag bin was not shown.

There was hesitation. Questions surfaced around how this might be perceived, what it might suggest about professionalism, and whether it would be recognised as a valid form of evaluation. There was also a more personal concern: how this might be viewed by my own creative community. That concern was not unfamiliar. The Creative Agents had expressed similar worries about how they would be seen by the communities where they live and work. In conversation with one agent, we spoke directly about the possibility of not arriving at a 'palatable' outcome and what that might mean for how the work was understood.

In response, I gave myself more time. Work extended beyond what had been contracted. I recognise that I did this, and I was told that some of the Creative Agents had done the same. This is not something I feel ashamed of, but it is something I recognise as part of a wider pattern within the creative arts, where care, commitment and uncertainty can lead to overextension.

The decision was made not to present the unresolved work, revealing just how strong the pressure is to produce something that appears complete and acceptable.

It was at this point that something shifted. The distance between observer and participant began to close. The uncertainty, questioning and lack of clarity were not just being witnessed in the Creative Agents; they were being experienced in parallel.

This was not separate from their journey. It was part of it.

That same pressure was clearly present within the Creative Agents. The need to shape something into a form that could be proudly shared, even when the process was still unfolding. The concern about how work might be received if it did not appear complete within the defined time and budget.

That realisation became the final response of my work.

What would it mean to allow uncertainty to be visible within creative listening and evaluation? What would it mean to acknowledge that not all community work reaches resolution within the structures and timeframes that surround it?

Working With What Is Given In Community Practice

My own process had mirrored that of the Creative Agents.

Instead of forcing a model to fit, the grip on it began to loosen. Not as a rejection, but as a recognition that this listening required something more responsive, something that could work with what was already present rather than impose a structure onto it.

The Creative Agents were being asked to work with what the community and the project gave them. Within this community practice, that often meant staying with material that felt unclear, unsettled or overlooked. It required looking again and not dismissing what did not immediately make sense.

That became the position I returned to. It felt both uncertain and necessary.

Rather than searching for a new solution, attention shifted back to what had already been made and set aside, the discarded printed sheets of Derbyshire Supergirl work that had once felt like the right response, but had been left behind.

Within this shift, the act of creative listening and evaluation moved away from trying to resolve and towards recognising value in what had already been given.

The Vessel | Holding Meaning Through Creative Listening & Evaluation

This is where Ursula K Le Guin's Carrier Bag Theory returned central to my thinking.

Rather than celebrating the heroic act, Le Guin asks us to consider the container. The thing that holds, gathers and carries. This shifted how I understood the Creative Agents. They were not there to produce neat answers or resolved outcomes, but to carry what they encountered. To hold fragments, uncertainty and meaning without forcing resolution.

This shift became the foundation for my final response, Attempt 3.

The piece I have made is a small handheld vessel, woven from the discarded printed sheets of Derbyshire Supergirl. It has a distinctly feminine shape, two openings, and it asks to be held carefully in the palm. It is a container or some sort, but not balanced, perfect or bold.

I did not want the final response to push itself forward too loudly. Instead, it carries something of what I had seen in the Creative Agents, not simply their energy or courage, although those are certainly present, but the quieter labour of holding thoughts, fragments, uncertainties and possibilities with care; working with what the community gives you in all its confusion, imperfect and joy.

Making the vessel required me to learn new techniques. I began working with paper cordage and small-scale basketry methods, developing an approach through trial and testing, as I could not find an existing reference for working in this way with these materials. The process was slow and at times uncertain, requiring repeated attempts before the form began to hold.

This felt closely aligned with what I had witnessed in the Creative Agents. They were not working from fixed methods, but responding to what their communities and projects required of them. That often meant learning new approaches, adapting skills, and working without a clear template. In this way, the making of the vessel became another point of connection, not only in what was made, but in how it was made.

I saw each Creative Agent holding this small, precious vessel, made from what others might have considered rubbish, gently cupped in their hands. It became an embodiment of their place within their community, something I had been unable to fully articulate through words, questionnaires, sketches or collage.

What feels important is that this piece was not the intended outcome. At one stage, a self-reflective questionnaire felt like the right response, then the Derbyshire Supergirl. There was spirit in the agents. Humour, sass, courage and a kind of everyday power. (Some of that still feels true in the vessel.) But through testing, first with Bonnie and then again at the exhibition, it became clear that this was not the whole truth.

Derbyshire Supergirl risked elevating the figure of the agent to something heroic or exceptional, when what had become most meaningful was something more open, more ordinary, and, in many ways, more radical. The point was not that only certain people could do this work, but that anyone can become a Creative Agent when they notice, listen, respond and begin to act within the life of their own community.

What this process revealed was not only something about the agents, but about evaluation through practice. The first response is not always the right one. Testing is not a sideline; it is part of the work itself. There was disappointment in that 'failure.' There was grief in that. There was also fear, the fear of not getting it right and having to begin again.

Alongside this sat another tension, the expectation to arrive at a resolved outcome within a defined timeframe. To produce something coherent, legible and professionally acceptable. But community work does not adhere to fixed timelines, and understanding does not always arrive when expected.

At one point, the bin itself felt like the most truthful response. The discarded sheets, the attempts, the work that had not yet been resolved. Part of me still believes that would have been an honest ending.

But that is not what I showed.

There was a decision, shaped by how the work might be perceived, by questions of professional standing, and by how difficult it can feel to allow something unresolved, or even failing, to be visible.

The vessel sits within that tension.

It does not resolve everything. It does not claim to have found a final answer. Instead, it holds what was encountered. The uncertainty, the fragments, the attempts, and the care required to stay with them.

In that sense, the vessel is not just a response to the Creative Agents. It reflects the position they were working within. To hold, to carry, and to continue, even when resolution is not yet possible.

This shift continues through my work on baskets and the Carrier Bag Theory: What Creative Listening Becomes | Photocopy Paper, Bags, Flax, Baskets & Participatory Practice

You can also read my return to Stephen Willats and community practice here: Creative Listening, Community Practice & Stephen Willats

What This Means For Creative Agents, Listening & Community Practice

If I step back and look at the Make/Shift Creative Agents Programme as a whole, what stays with me is not a single method or outcome, but the experience of people working carefully with what they encountered in their communities.

As I worked through this process, it became clear that not everything I tried accurately showed what I was seeing. More traditional approaches to evaluation, with their focus on structure, outcomes and clarity, began to fall away. They couldn't fully capture the nuance of what was happening or how people were navigating uncertainty within their roles.

I also found that trying to define creative listening too early didn't hold. Each time I attempted to fix it into something stable or name it too clearly, it reduced something that needed to remain open and responsive.

There were moments where the forms of response I tested didn't sit comfortably. Some approaches felt too shaped, too resolved, or too far removed from the people and situations they were trying to reflect. In these moments, I had to let them go, even when they felt considered or complete (or I felt personally attached to them.)

Letting go became part of the process. It allowed something else to emerge that stayed closer to what was actually happening, rather than trying to contain it too quickly.

I saw agents working with material that was not straightforward. Information that was partial, sometimes unsettling, sometimes difficult to interpret, and often the kind of thing others might overlook or dismiss as irrelevant.

But this was the community's true response.

And the agents stayed with it.

My work as a creative listener within this community evaluation process was to respond to that. Not to tidy it up too quickly. Not to correct it. Not to turn it into something more acceptable or easier to report. But to witness it, to stay with it, and to find a form of communication that could carry something of that experience. Ursula K Le Guin's Carrier Bag Theory frames this.

The Creative Agents were not there to produce neat outcomes. They were carriers. They gathered, held and moved fragments, contradictions, stories and responses through their communities.

The labour of the work lay in that act of holding, an often unseen but essential part of socially engaged practice and creative evaluation.

My final piece now makes sense to me in those terms.

It is not a solution. It is a container.

What would it look like to fully support Creative Agents in working in this way?

To allow space for community practice that does not resolve neatly within a set timeframe or budget.

To recognise the labour of holding, not just producing.

To value creative listening as a legitimate form of evaluation, even when it does not lead to something immediately complete or easily measured.

If Creative Agents are asked to carry what emerges from their communities in an unstructured and wholly community-led fashion, and my role was to respond through creative listening, then the question becomes whether we are willing to recognise that work as valid, even when it does not resolve neatly or meet expected outcomes.

This is not a finished method, but an emergent approach or ideology to creative listening and community evaluation, shaped through practice rather than defined in advance.

It is a way of staying with what resists easy resolution, and finding forms that can carry and recognise it.