Artistic Method in Research as a Flexible Architecture for Theory-Building

Abstract

This paper lays out some working tenets for an artistic method of research, one that arguably predates the scientific method and yields multiple strategies for the improvisatory address of researchable ideas and problems. Four overlapping domains of arts-based knowledge, creative practice, and teaching will be outlined along with derivative research methodologies that can be alternately framed as critical-activist, synthetic, analytic, and/or improvisatory. In this writing, the author lays out the basic framework for an Arts-Based Research Primer (2013), an introductory research textbook that aims to reveal how the arts lend themselves to blended spaces of naturalistic inquiry, aiding artists and scientists alike in their conduct of research.