Artist Statement

Why creativity matters

Jung wrote that creativity is an instinct, not an optional gift granted to a lucky few. If you don’t find a way to be creative in life, that instinct becomes repressed and frustrated. You feel its loss as a deflation, the spirit leaking out of your sense of self. You feel empty, disengaged, and unfulfilled. (Moore, 2009, p. 2)

Why I blog about my creative practice

My Artist Diary started after my home burned in a firestorm. I share my artist diary in a public format with the intention of inspiring others to value creative work and invest in art as a process of uncovering their own hidden talents. Please signup for the monthly eNews  if you would like to follow this blog.

A diary is something personal and important to the individual as a record of their life experiences and development. A diary is an intimate and authentic form of self-expression that many people can relate to as valuable. I believe valuing art leads to more awareness and can inspire people to live and achieve their big dreams. I have dreams like inner peace and living in a healthy beautiful world.

Why art is a catalyst for Self-awareness

Awareness of how images relate to human behavior is connected to self-awareness, a critical step in the manifestation of dreams and finding inspiration. With self-awareness, it is possible to identify and find the motivation to change self-destructive and even planet-endangering habits like polluting and violence. Art is a mirror that reflects our inner worlds and can be a direct manifestation of the subconscious.

I say personal art practice is an opportunity to grow conscious awareness beyond expectations. My perspective comes from decades of personal creative practice, a BFA with an emphasis in painting, and an MA in Humanities with an emphasis in depth psychology. They say great art is highly nutritious. As what you eat nourishes your body, so what you imagine nourishes your psyche. Jung (2012) said, “There is no difference in principle between organic and psychic growth.”

I believe a creative life is a full and active life (both positive and negative vibes). Sometimes we get stuck in emotions, beliefs, and ideas that can zap energy and distort perceptions or reality. It is practical to learn the arts just like you would learn to provide yourself with tools for making healthy food, friendships, environments, and jobs. Finding inspiration to make art can be more challenging than finding inspiration to make a good meal.

I am inspired to make art by other artists like Andrea Zittel, James Turrell, and Kiki Smith. I am also inspired to make art through social and environmental justice issues. Turning inward for inspiration, there are three techniques I use. These are; Active Imagination, Dream Tending, and Mix Method / Art Practice Research.

Art-Based Research

Art-based research is information presented so that an experiential understanding is possible, because some truths, only art itself can embody. My art is primarily visual, and by presenting iconic images together I create a narrative somewhat like an abstract comic, as seen with the rainbow icon in the collection in Figure 1. You can view art on My Artist Diary by searching a keyword like, rainbow.

Many research practices use narrative to communicate the truth of social life in stories. Leavy (2008) said narratives “may be our own stories, those of others, or those that blur ‘the real’ and ‘the imaginary’ but are no less truthful in communicating human experience” (p. 39).

Figure 1. Collection of rainbow images by Mitra Cline.

I share aspects of my personal and creative life in this public blog, so I was thrilled to find a history of feminist scholars and theologians that use autobiographic information in their work. The feminist scholars share my desire for social evolution in the form of spiritual awareness or, in Jungian terms, Self-awareness. I define feminism as “the radical practice of co-humanity of women and men” (Gross, 1998, p. 3). I agree with this logic:

Our specific situations as women in a patriarchal society affected our interests, our concerns, and the results of our scholarship… Eventually, we also came to see that not only gender but also race, class, culture, sexual orientation, and the like, had their impact on scholarship. Therefore, we are likely ever again to be naive enough to believe that the scholars experience does not affect her scholarship. (Gross, 1998, p. 3)

Discerning what personal disclosure is relevant to a scholarly argument or work of art is important, and I am getting better at it. A relevant example of the creative scholarship is Woodman, an author, and Jungian analyst. She described the feminine as the earth itself, soulful living energy pulsing in our material world. She shared her personal life experience to explain how connecting to feminine energy helped her overcome an addiction to anorexia, changes in her marriage, and a diagnosis of fatal cancer (Reid, 2010).

For my final art project in graduate school, I became inspired to find out what my peers thought empowered women are like today. I created a survey online with questions based on the story of Inanna. I received 56 responses. The two unanimous results were that 98.4% would sacrifice material wealth, and 82.7% value love most. I was happy because, when asked who supported them most, many wrote “Myself” in the comments. It was exactly what I had self-consciously edited out of the answer options (Cline, 2016).

I selected historical goddesses, seen in Figure 2, to learn more by looking closely at master artworks. Only a sculpture can embody the contemporary empowered woman that my peers described. Clay is magical, and making art with it is pleasurable. As the goddess form emerged from the clay in my art project, I felt as if my own body was changing. In the process, I became curious about what she was holding in her hands, and her hands changed.

Figure 2. On left is historical goddesses and, on right, my clay goddess (Cline, 2016).

The goddess made two modern signs, peace with the left hand and a salute to live long and prosper (Stieber, 2015) with the right. Looking at the finished image, I notice she is in front of a doorway like a gatekeeper, and accompanied by two sets of twin animal guardians. Her wings outstretched, she also forms a cross. Everything is soft and vulnerable in naked clay. I shared the art with my survey participants by making a short film of the process. I included these words from the survey; “Nature Supports It. Divine Support It. It is Love. Live Long and Prosper in Peace” (Cline, 2016). All who see her receive this blessing, perhaps me most of all. The video, Feminine Values, and complete survey results are publically available on my blog (https://mitracline.com/2016/08/08/what-are-empowered-women-like-now/).

I make digital art in my creative process so I can share my work with people all over the world freely. However, engaging directly with original art is vital. Selecting clay for the goddess is important because it makes her one of a kind and not reproducible. A more poetic expression of this concept of original value is, “A single rose can be my garden . . . a single friend, my world” (Buscaglia, 2001-2016, para. 1)

Benjamin (1969) says, “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art” (p. 221). What happens when the aura of art is no longer felt? “The instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics” (Benjamin, p. 224). As a professional artist I must be able to discern between what is art and what is politics, research helps me define authenticity.

In my business, Foreverbird Studio, visual style is about more than pretty pictures; it is about listening, community engagement, conservation, and wild imagination. My clients understand how collaboration in risk-free exploratory environments fosters creativity (Farrell, 2003); they value following an authentic path and understand infinite potential. Working together, we overcome obstacles that limit adaptability so the business can keep up with the pace of evolving styles and technology. Not all business people lack interest, money, or time for contemplating the soul of art. It is possible to use art and creativity responsibly while also meeting traditional goals like increasing sales and reducing expenses.

For me, play is an infectious embodiment of priceless life energy that creates community and results in meaningful connection. In Creative Influence, I talk about playful art that I made inspired by artists from the Civil Rights Movement. Resisting exploitation, artists influence others to speak their truth. The artist authentic voice is needed, because if we allow the market value of art to “define and control our gifts, the less gifted we will become, as individuals and as a society” (Hyde, 2007, p. 205).

Original Odyssey Card

While at Pacifica Graduate Institute, I invented and produced a card game that will be discussed in Original Odyssey. Games are a method I use to introduce creative concepts into a traditionally logical business world. Like great art, games require creativity, collaboration, and contribution. In addition, more widely accepted qualitative science has linked playing games to improved mental health, making logical people more willing to be playful (McGonigal, 2011). Sometimes I run into people who do not agree with my values, but I am OK with failure. I learn from my mistakes, and I am inspired to work hard to achieve collective greatness, as I witness it in history and know it is achievable. One aspect of my character is that I can play a long game.

In conclusion, there are three major new methods I learned in graduate school that I now use in my art practice: active imagination, dream tending, art-based research. With scholarly and artistic knowledge I am able to cope, interpret, and navigate, the unfolding unknown in life. Creativity is a vital part of my life because it communicates essential truths between the people I love that cannot be expressed in any other way.

If you are interested in learning more about the soul-spirit connection and the role of art in psychology, please listen to my presentation: Floating, Falling, Balancing, Flying, and Landing.

Dream Tending

A known expert on dream tending, Aizenstat (2012) said, “Living images, particularly those who carry the intelligence of the ancestors, are at the core of our personal maturation” (p. 55). Wanting to mature, with the wisdom of living dream images, I focus my attention on one image at a time. I need help managing my chaotic dreams, and a goddess with wings appears in active-imagination to solve this problem. She is my imaginary personal assistant, a playful fairy named Tink. She carries a skeleton key and has access to everything in the universe. She lives a big tree house with an infinity pool.

Discovering how living images amplify the power of art came about in an unexpected way. It began with a nightmare. In Red Mask, I explain how collaborating with two other women, a goddess trifecta called Mystic Sisters, gave me the permission to listen to imaginary voices. My commitment to shared goals helps me to work in spite of crippling self-doubt and defeatist apathy. I now see my artwork is alive and it compounds in value as a collaboration.

Mystic Sisters at Burning Man 2015

Real people I know frequently appear in my dreams, and I remember their words the most. Watkins (1998) said we must differentiate between our relationships with real people and dream images that look like them. I am careful not to project my thoughts and feelings onto other people. The skill to differentiate self and other requires a fluid definition of reality.

The Sufis explained this water-like quality by speaking of the science of imagination as also being the “science of mirrors, of all mirroring surfaces and of the forms that appear in them.” Images appear in the mirror though they are not part of the mirror itself. (Watkins, 1998, p. 135)

Thanks to dream tending I have new appreciation for art that can communicate clearly to me. Mystical experiences of alternate realities, like in dreams or art, can foster curiosity about the world and make the unknown interesting, not scary. Campbell (2002) said:

Let us accept the suggestion and recognize, then, that what is intended by art, metaphysics, magical hocus-pocus, and mystical religion, is not the knowledge of anything, not truth, not goodness, or beauty, but an evocation of a sense of the absolutely unknowable. (p. 151)

Now I am getting to my heart, an irresistible attraction to what is beyond my understanding, the magical. I believe new perspectives create new realities, or visa Vera, making the previously impossible, possible. This concept of a potential for a miracle appears in my work as a dark portal, a threshold for crossing between worlds. Until Pacifica Graduate Institute, I consciously made positive images in my art practice because I did not see any value in looking at unwanted things.

Trusting my authentic creative rhythm, embracing what seems ugly, is extremely valuable because it honors the role of the shadow in creative cycles. My art practice connects my body-soul-spirit. Jung (2009) put it another way when he said, “The way of life writhes like the serpent from right to left and from left to right, from thinking to pleasure and from pleasure to thinking. One cannot live with forethinking alone, or with pleasure alone. You need both”
(p. 247).

I am not the only female artist who works with dreams in the creative practice. In particular, the artists interviewed in Ariadne’s (2006) book, Women Dreaming–Into–Art, are role models and inspire me to keep on creating even if I do not think I know what I am making. Their work is stunning and is so much more than technique. Ariadne said, “Acting as inner change agents, these artists both model and facilitate for others processes, which ultimately promote self-reliance and confidence” (Locations 226-228).

Active Imagination

How do we grow beyond limiting experience? To know what is possible, we must look to the humanities. In particular, we must seek out the great works of others. One example of great creative work is The Red Book by Jung (2009) that contains illustrated stories and is the creative source material for what became active imagination therapy. About this therapy, Hillman (1983) said, “radical activation of imagination was Jung’s method of Know Thyself” (p. 56).

In depth psychology, Self is a term for the all-encompassing organizing central psychic pattern. Self is more powerful than ego, the smaller part of the psyche identified as an individual personality. If a person cannot connect to Self then they are likely to feel estranged from vital life energy (Jung, 2012). Jung’s active imagination method allows the ego to connect and communicate with the Self. This is important because it is the source of vital life energy.

Close reading is one form of active imagination. In a group setting, a close reading of words illuminates how each person’s unique life experience effects their understanding of reality. Another active imagination form is stick to the image, and it means returning to one reference for ideas (Chodorow, 1997). While at Pacifica Graduate Institute, my centering image was Inanna, queen of heaven and earth.

By looking closely at the ancient story of Inanna I discovered new information about my female body-mind-soul. Most importantly, I learned that the task of the heroine is, “to heal the internal split that tells us to override the feelings, intuition, and dream images that inform us of the truth of life” (Murdock, 2013, p. 11). In Sci-Fi Heroine, I show how Murdock’s model of the heroine’s journey syncs up with the award-winning film Gravity (Cuarón, Heyman, & Cuarón, 2013). I illustrate the plot points in the heroine’s psychological process with still images from the film.

I am engaged with art that creates feelings of equity, interdependence, unity, passion and love. The lover archetype complements the heroine’s task of unification and the artist’s passion. While at first, it seems these are all positive each archetype contains the negative side too. It is suffering or trauma that sparks psychological development. “The actual process of individuation—the conscious coming-to-terms with one’s own inner center (psychic nucleus) or Self—generally begins with a wounding of the personality and the suffering that accompanies it” (Jung, 2012, p. 169). Experiencing new things, triggered by unwanted real or fictional events, is how potential behavior patterns become specific and manifest.

In my life, witnessing the death of a friend gave me the courage to make a challenging decision in life and attend graduate school. In my first quarter of school, still in grief and experiencing the opposing emotions of my loss and his freedom for suffering deeply, I found American Morning Paintings. They commemorate the death of George Washington, a founder of our free nation. The paintings feature a goddess crying at his grave; she represents liberty, and in her grief she embodies the imperfection of humanity (Schorsch, 1979). The grieving goddess is an alchemical symbol. Jung used the term alchemical symbol to describe images that could enable transformation, unlike the basic symbol that only points to the unknown (Rowland, 2012). Thanks to the grieving goddess, I now understand how image and behavior unite and intertwine to create meaningful transformation in an individual life.

Contact: mitra@foreverbird.com | 805.455.6004 | mitracline.com

References

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