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Creative Process & SHAMANISM
Creative Process & SHAMANISM
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| 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.
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
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| Magician, acrylic on canvas |
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/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.
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.