Reflection is the breathing room where the loose data of exploratory tasting and the daring leaps of experimentation get integrated and interpreted. It’s the dimension where, without it, the process of developing your tastes can stop at the punctual, often…
Taste Experimentation is where you put your observations into practice. You test your tastes, experiment with things that you are not totally sure of, maybe feel slightly out of your comfort zone. This is a necessary phase of the process…
Observation also plays a critical role in taste formation. This concept is powerfully illustrated in Jane Tompkins’ groundbreaking work, A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned. Tompkins recounts how she developed an appreciation for 19th-century American literature by emulating…
A Whole New Level of Understanding. One of the most important things I learned in my early twenties is the idea of “personal taste”. It is the concept of developing a taste for things and ideas that truly speak to…
