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A Matter of Gratitude by Elena Urizar

Elena Urizar
visual practitioner
30 de agosto de 2019

Why I joined the IFVP Board of Directors

“It was a matter of gratitude”

Jumping on to the visual world made me feel like Alice going through the looking glass. It was 2011 when I discovered the practice thanks to a friend that saw “Image Think” in action and came to me with the triggering question “Wouldn’t you be able to do this?”

By that time I was a UX manager in charge of facing the “blank page” of new projects and also my mission was to be a dialogue enabler to facilitate the common understanding of clients, designers and developers, which was quite challenging because, definitely, they didn’t have the same goals and priorities. This experience was one of the ingredients of the magic potion that allowed me to answer “Yes” to the question. Another background I brought is journalism also as a frantic reader and eventually as a writer. The two ingredients that I naturally brought to the formula are “the listening” and “the drawing”, I am a big listener anytime anywhere and as far as I remember I have always drawn, I think I never loosed the faith that kids have on the use of drawings for communications.

Then Brandy Agerbeck’s “The Graphic Facilitator’s Guide” came to me as the magic recipe for putting all together, everything so sharply explained with the witty advice of the Master, practice, practice, practice.

On 2014 I walked the “Camino de Santiago”, also known as the “The Way of the Stars”, 800 km. of reflection walking up and down the hills to arrive on to the apostle shrine on Easter Sunday. Then came Euviz Berlin and as the final touch to consolidate the understanding of the visual practice as a profession, meeting fabulous people that shared with enormous generosity their knowledge.

Since then I have tried to attend all the conferences, just missed one, and live with my Neuland “magic wands” in my hands capturing the wisdom of talented people and helping people understand each other. Also I have the amazing opportunity of spreading the word of the power of visualization being invited to participate as a speaker on events, as a visual voice on publications and bring closer to the capability of visual representation to everyone training with the effective Bikablo methodology.

So for me being part of the IFVP Board of Directors is a humble way to try to give back at least a little of how much I have received.