Dialogue Paintings

I have been thinking a great deal lately about the power of dialogue. As I transition into a new school, I have found myself engaged in numerous conversations with members of the school community. I have participated in meetings with various teams and conducted “Seek to Understand” conversations with nearly every staff member. These dialogues have been critical to my understanding of the school and to my ability to become an effective leader within it.

This experience, combined with a renewed focus on my own artistic production, has led me to reflect on my Dialogue series, which I completed as part of my art-informed self-study research.

As a component of my dissertation, I produced four separate series of mixed-media paintings. My inquiry utilized art—my primary way of knowing—as a means of reflecting on and making meaning from the leadership actions I took as a high school principal. The four series were titled Dialogue, Reflection, Literature Review, and Living Theory.

The Dialogue series consists of 20-inch circular mixed-media paintings constructed from wood, canvas, and other materials. The works incorporate “chunks” of dialogue drawn from both the leadership-action and critical-reflection phases of the inquiry. Texture became a central visual element in the series, with washes of color layered over contrasting materials and surfaces.

The paintings also incorporate text drawn directly from transcripts of dialogues that occurred during the inquiry. The rope stretched across each surface was inspired by diagrams I used during the coding process to trace and represent the interactions among participants. Each work is titled according to the corresponding section of transcripts produced during the inquiry.

Looking back at this series now, I am struck by the connection between the ideas represented in the paintings and my current experience as a leader. Dialogue is not simply a way of gathering information. It is a way of knowing. Through conversation, listening, questioning, and reflection, we begin to understand the experiences, perspectives, and relationships that shape an organization. My current transition into a new school has reminded me that meaningful leadership begins not with having all the answers, but with creating the conditions to genuinely understand.