THE BETHEL COLLEGE COLLEGIAN
6 FEATURES
Cultivating Slow Practices Amidst Busy Times BETHANY POWLS Editor-in-Chief
In 1986, Carlo Petrini of Bra, Italy, began the Slow Food movement, an organization now devoted to the
practice of time and care in traditional cooking. Like Petrini, many others have become bewitched by the idea of slower, more careful practice during a fast paced time, particularly in response to the demands of education, career
Rachel Geyer, sophomore from Kalona, Iowa, is a member of Buller’s class and enjoys embroidering as a way to implement slow practice into her life. Photo by Bethany Powls
goals, media and now a pandemic. Locally, slowness is being evaluated from an artistic perspective with one of the newest class additions to the Bethel College art department. Rachel Epp Buller, associate professor of visual arts and design, introduced “Slow Art for Fast Times” to the curriculum for Spring of 2021. The course views art and art history through a contemporary lens, as the literature and projects discussed explore slow practices. “I have been asking the students to try out some of these ideas, and/or think about how they can incorporate some aspect of slow into their own lives. We did some brainstorming in class over what are areas of college life that they find stressful and how can ‘slow’ be incorporated into that to change it. Whether that has to do with changing times, or if it’s more about slow as an idea or as a methodology in changing your approach, you’re still changing the way you’re doing something,” Buller said. While the course is still in the opening stages, students are currently working with theoretical approaches to slow practice, and have been studying aspects of art and art history alongside that. “I’ll be asking them to try out some of these methods as we get a little farther into the class. Right now, we’re laying the groundwork for all of the ideas… and I guess I’m trying to establish some buy-in, so they can see how this could apply to them. We read an article last week about slow travel, which meant thinking about how you can make the journey part of the destination. Whether you’re taking a train trip or you’re intentionally setting
aside a longer period of time, it was all about how you’re going to get there. Students have expressed some interest in this, or have had experience with this in the past,” Buller said. Much of the content and study for this class began with Buller’s own experience in applying slow practice to her art. “I’m coming from a sort of slowness in making, whether that means things like embroidery that take a long time or just the idea of duration. You might have a daily practice that you do every day for a long period of time,” Buller said. However, the methods of slowness incorporated in the class can be practiced across all disciplines. “I’ve been most interested in how artists are using that, but also I think it’s a great stepping stone to incorporating slowness into your life to be healthier. And the whole slow movement is so interdisciplinary… it started with food, but we’ve been reading about slow scholarship, things like meditation. There’s an effort in music called tempo giusto where musicians are thinking about what it means to play at a slower pace. So there are quite a few areas that are exploring this idea to sort of help people become healthier, but also begin to see things in a different way,” Buller said. Students in the class have responded positively to the
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2021 content and have felt inspired to pursue slow practices in their own life, even as college students. “There are a couple of people in class who are living off-campus together and they said they just tried out Hello Fresh for a couple of weeks… I think they were interested in trying out cooking rather than just going with prepackaged foods. There was another student who talked about deciding that his body felt really bad when he was eating fast food all the time, and he has basically quit fast food. Making an intentional choice to change the way you’re doing something can have a really big impact on the ways you feel,” Buller said. While Buller initially planned on incorporating projects like embroidery in the class, during the month of February, students will be talking about slowness as an ethic of care. Their first hands-on project will involve intentionally performing acts of care for themselves and for another person each day as a sort of “social engagement.” “The pandemic has given us an opportunity to radically rethink the way we do all sorts of things… it’s sort of been a new way to imagine being in the world,” Buller said. As the semester fills spare hours with classes, practices and homework, slowness can be incorporated piece by piece. “The more you can incorporate little breaks, sort of the healthier you can be. And the goal is not to be slow all the time, but if you can incorporate periods of slowness, then that actually makes like the fast times better, or more productive and slow helps you generate more ideas, be more creative, or just give you a period of rest,” Buller said.
FEATURES 7
Kelly Habeggar, senior from Hesston, is a member of Buller’s class. As part of the weekly assignment, she takes time out of her week to journal reflectively on texts read in class. Photo courtesy of Kelly Habegger
Reccomended Readings from Slow Art for Fast Times:
In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore
Slow Art by Arden Reed
Slow Food Nation by Alice Waters
The Slow Professor by Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber
