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Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a structured, discussion-based method for looking closely at visual art. It uses open-ended questions to help participants observe carefully, articulate what they see, support interpretations with visual evidence, listen to others, and reconsider their initial assumptions.

 

Rather than telling viewers what an artwork means, the viewer is asked three core questions:

 

What’s going on in this picture?

What do you see that makes you say that?

What more can we find?

 

Because of the nature of Stoehr’s art, we add another question which takes VTS to a new level.

 

What assumptions or biases did you bring to what you saw?

 

 

Why VTS matters

 

VTS develops critical thinking skills through careful observation, evidence-based reasoning, tolerance of uncertainty, perspective-taking and self-awareness.

 

VTS makes the process of interpretation visible. Participants discover that two people can look at the same image, notice different things, and construct different stories from what they see. They are encouraged to distinguish between what they actually observe and what they infer from those observations.

 

That makes VTS particularly relevant to Stoehr’s art. The same habits involved in looking at ambiguous art—careful observation, tolerance of uncertainty, evidence-based interpretation, awareness of assumptions, and consideration of alternative perspectives - can be applied to encounters with other individuals.

 

For Stoehr’s work, we take VTS even further: Look. Interpret. Explain what you see. Listen to what others see. Then look again.

 

That last step is especially important to The Faces We Carry. Stoehr’s ambiguous portraits could make VTS not simply an exercise in looking at art, but an exercise in recognizing how quickly we construct a story about another person before knowing their story.