Where Does Familiarity Live?
- Brian A. Kavanaugh
- Jan 16
- 2 min read
Facilitation is not about accelerating understanding.
It is about holding space long enough for understanding to find its own body.
In many support settings, understanding is treated as something that must appear quickly and visibly - often through words. We ask for explanation. We look for reflection. We wait for language to confirm that something meaningful has occurred.
But familiarity does not always announce itself that way.
If familiarity is still finding a place to live, language can evict it prematurely.
Learning does not begin in abstraction. It begins at the point of contact.
Where contact is made is where learning resides.
Artists don’t just learn about materials.
They build agreements with them.
Clay teaches pressure.
Paper teaches resistance.
Wire teaches tension.
The body listens first.
Before an artist can explain what they are doing, their hands are already negotiating weight, drag, balance, and response. These negotiations happen beneath language. They accumulate through repetition. They settle into muscle memory, posture, timing, and confidence.
Some knowledge forms where language never needed to go.
This matters in supported studio environments, where well-intentioned facilitation can unintentionally rush the process by asking for clarity too soon. When verbal explanation is treated as proof of understanding, we risk overlooking the intelligence already present in the body.
This post is not an argument against language. It is an argument for sequence.
Experience first.
Familiarity next.
Language - if needed - later.
When facilitation protects time, repetition, and contact, artists are allowed to build a relationship with materials that evolves on its own terms. Not every insight needs to be named. Not every decision needs to be justified. Some forms of knowing are real precisely because they were lived, not explained.
Our role is not to extract meaning.
It is to protect the conditions where meaning can settle.
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