OPEN STUDIO 2011 at Mission St. Industrial Studios,

 

Majio 2581 Mission Str. off Swift, October 1,2,15 & 16, 11-5:00

Contemplating archetypes of place and home in TRANSFORMATIONAL PAINTING Circles over the last few months, in addition to the new studio space, has changed my relationship to OPEN STUDIO this year. A different approach to the story of the artwork is required. Beside the rapture, enchantment and seduction of art, for all of us, it is the story. On the eve of stupendous changes in the collective, it is good to go out and look to the art, music, poetry and theater to help articulate and clarify our personal stories.

Let’s backtrack a moment, for place has a powerful impact on everything. There was a dramatic shift was from my upstairs garden studio in April with loquat trees, sounds of backyard pre-school and view of the rising and setting sun and moon to being wedged between three carpenters and a blacksmith on Mission Street. It also is been different from offering OPEN STUDIO at my home in the Tannery with spacious hall space.

It was quite an adjustment for those in Painting Circle too, to go from song birds and children’s voices to power tools. We at last settled in when Free Cycle supplied the carpeting to enable us to sit and work on the floor again. I love the crafts person and artist community here and the 30 foot ceiling. Most of us have begun to incorporate the sounds of the industry of construction into our routine. In fact in these tenuous times I am grateful that on some front life it is moving along with normalcy. Things are being remodeled, designed and made to function in the physical world. Surprisingly often, in the short time space in which groups paint in the studio it is blissfully quiet.

Lila Klapman’s sculpture and new paintings fill the front studio, initiating everyone who passes through on their way back into our painting space. Her exquisite bronze figures capture the human body in time, while her new pieces are rougher and more shamanic, demand more participation from the viewer. Upstairs there is an additional loft area with a peak of the ocean for an encaustic work space.

It has been interesting to pick out the common thread of the paintings that want to be shown in this year’s OPEN STUDIO. There are the constant archetypal figures and animals: raven, red nine-striped armadillo (common in all of your dreams, right?) snakes and red fox-coyote-wolf figure. Some of the paintings are spanking new, others are older and some are on the until-now-too-personal-to-show list. In dream work we say that dreams have a long shelf life, meaning they stay pertinent for decades. In this kind of painting, it is also true. I have beat a couple of paintings back into storage several times only to find them smiling at me from the walls. It seems the subtitle of ANAVAMI STUDIO in this year’s OPEN STUDIO is TRANSFORMATION, whether you want it or not. Participating paintings:                              

                             

                                                                        

The Hierophant, represents the inner guide, student/teacher, who accesses information for herself. Her totem, the swan, is an ancient symbol which bridges new realms and new powers. Swan totem carries energy of the child: mystic and dreamer, who uses beauty medicine as power

Raven with Doors: Raven, the trickster, harbinger of messages from other realms represents the experience of a change in consciousness, the mythic personification of synchronicity. She is the instinct within all of us to consolidate an axis between ego and Self. To do this requires some deflating of ego. The trickster is the archetype of where consumption of the ego, union of opposites and transformation of meaninglessness into meaningfulness can occur.

 

King and Queen as Partners: how is it that partnership is so unusual for this couple, could it be that they are a part of a greater domination model. Here they are in cahoots, in a secret alliance governed by electric inspiration of the heavens and perhaps the impetus to start a royal family.

                                                       Majio
                         

Creative Process: ARCHETYPES & SHAMANISM

STORE FRONT SHOW on  533 SEABRIGHT Ave. in SANTA CRUZ

Creative Process & SHAMANISM

Shaman, acrylic on canvas

The SHAMANIC impulse is experienced in our daily life, from praying, investing objects and places with power to many other kinds of creative activity which interact with the unseen world. The visual arts can offer connection to the essential parts of ourselves that want wholeness, integration and meaning beyond cultural norms and beliefs. We use storytelling and image-making to obtain guidance, information, and to update or re-negotiate our belief system. Just as animal figures in children’s stories and fairytales offer dialogue with the instinctual, TRANSFORMATIONAL PAINTING brings to consciousness the edge of awareness to challenge our growth.

 

These SHAMANISTIC paintings come from a world that is more real than everyday life because it reveals truth and creates meaning and understanding beyond the limits of the rational. Participating with the SHAMANIC archetype in the collective unconscious allows us to re-contextualize problems, trauma, and possibly societal madness. It deepens healing to remember that individual experiences of trauma simultaneously reflect the greater challenge resonating throughout the collective field. This kind of realization allows one to move beyond the moment of crisis by experiencing it in a greater context.

ARCHETYPE

All great myths and stories are about the ARCHETYPES and how they function. We experience ARCHETYPES in movies and novels. We experience them also in our own lives in conflicts, love and religious experiences, in fact, in all the experiences of our lives.

At the base of all existence are energy clusters of ARCHETYPES of innate character, energy and function arranged around Self... the central ARCHETYPE. Surrounding the Self in pairs of opposites are the other primary or basic archetypes of the Feminine, the Masculine, the Adversary, the Heroic, Death-Rebirth and the Journey.

An ARCHETYPE is an innate pattern within the psyche and within all life. We see the ARCHETYPES play themselves out, mostly automatically in our lives. 
In wars and conflicts there is an enemy and a victor. Male and female embody opposites to each other. People go through a developmental journey process all their lives yet also fall into crises, death-rebirths, and new directions. And at times of real clarity and growth we choose to integrate and transform our lives, as is the nature of the Self.

                 Strephon Kaplan Williams Jungian-Senoi Dreamwork Manual

From Warrior to Magician

Magician, acrylic on canvas

In this painting, the MAGICIAN is reaching out for the tools of the trade, as the sword hangs suspended in air. The archetype of the Hero as Warrior is being spontaneous updated here and in the collective. Throughout history, medicine men, wizards, shaman, witch doctors, brujos, scientists, doctors, and inventors, have been connected to the archetypal pattern of the Magician.

Popular Culture is often on the edge of conscious change. The tradition of the mythical Warrior’s heroic journey is being challenged, as well as the paradigm which holds it in place. 

Whereas the Warrior uses physical strength and power-over, the MAGICIAN understands the mysteries of nature accessed by inner truth. You may have noticed how wizards, witches, inventors, scientists and shamans are appearing everywhere, in movies, video games and literature, with the stance of the Hero.

Unlike the Warrior, who struggles to overcome great challenges, the MAGICIAN believes in infinite potential and possibility. Rather than struggling against the current, she flows with it.

Fool of the West

Almost all cultures and traditions have a FOOL as jester, sacred clown, truth-teller, blundering innocent or trickster. The FOOL is seen as key to community’s survival both physically and spiritually. All indigenous tribes utilize the FOOL archetype to bring balance and perspective. The Greeks, Romans, Chinese cultures and royal courts in Europe utilized the FOOL’S participation to insert doubt, misgivings and possible challenge into what was considered off limits.

The FOOL is often an orphan, this one reminds me of the old red-haired cartoon character, Little Orphan Annie and her dog Sandy. Perhaps she expresses a FOOL who is asking for an update. In the comic strip her savior is Daddy Warbucks, the idealized capitalist who made his money in munitions. Annie as FOOL wanders vagabond-like through a corrupt world, fearless, generous, compassionate and optimistic.

The FOOL archetype in this painting is dressed as spirit of the West. If she is heading off a cliff, as the traditional Tarot FOOL is, it is into the Pacific Ocean, edge of the Western world. She reflects the health of the FOOL archetype as an American; innocent, lofty, yet often inflated. A Californian Fool, her hat symbolizes how her thinking takes precedent over the order the celestial bodies. Her cowering dog a figure of loyalty and instinct is imprinted with a squalid tenement building, as much of our resources are tied up in poverty. He is not the robust companion that we need. She carries a dowsing rod rather than the staff which infers connection to the unseen order and so aligns herself with the Magician. 

EMPRESS: Doorway Through Masculine Rule to Balanced Partnership  

  

EMPRESS/Queen is the archetype of the feminine in a position of power. In this painting she is the entrance into the liminal, the space in-between which we enter as we leave old ways of being behind which do not serve the collective, and yet have not found the new. 

There comes a time, when the one who has been in charge, the Emperor/King archetype must step aside to let a new force lead. The problems that have been created cannot be solved only with masculine energy only, but require feminine principles for a balanced perspective. 

The positive of the feminine in power is generative, creative and caring for community with sustainability. The EMPRESS is archetypally Earth Mother, the Anima, the Feminine Principle, Demeter, Kuan Yin and the Goddess of Fertility. She is ruled by Venus, the planet of love, creativity, fertility, art, harmony, beauty and grace. She reminds us that there is always enough, if we address the systems and policies of distribution.

TRANSFORMATIONAL PAINTING

I had no idea where these paintings might go even though each began with a theme; an approach which artists have used throughout time. The emphasis of TRANSFORMATION PAINTING is on the journey, not the destination, on the process rather than the product, because it is an engagement with the psyche, which brings forth information and personal realizations. TRANSFORMATION PAINTING has the potential for those involved in the creation or viewing to be transform.

This process feeds all creative activity, no experience in the arts is necessary. It is supportive to work in PAINTING CIRCLES, which are small and take place in a safe environment to build confidence and trust in one’s authentic self. Since it is not about the product, there is little technical instruction, allowing for a playful, meditative and experimental approach to create the journey that is needed at the time.

This kind of painting taps into the ARCHETYPAL REALMS and is fundamentally SHAMANISTIC, as is dream work. In neither case is there traditional reference or training involved because SHAMAN is used in the archetypal.