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Posts from the ‘archetypes’ Category

Mar 31

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Adaptation

Statue at Mt. Madonna: The Hindu god
Ganesh, known as the remover of obstacles.

Last weekend, I drove south to Mt. Madonna, a retreat center located on top of a mountain populated by redwoods and wildflowers. I’d come to take down my exhibit, “Pieced Reflections,” and to help my friend, Stacey Vetter, install hers.

When I hung my art, I knew that Jon Kabat-Zinn, the great teacher of mindfulness meditation, would be teaching a workshop beginning that evening. I enjoyed imagining him walking by my work and taking it in. A special bonus was selling work to two of his students from Texas and Colorado.

A variety of teachers come to Mt. Madonna from all over the country. A workshop scheduled while Stacey’s exhibit is up is, “The Second Half of Life,” led by Angeles Arrien, cultural anthropologist and author of the Four Fold Way. Intrigued by the title I picked up a postcard about it and read these words:

“In every culture, in every age, there is a turning point in life. At this threshold begins the greatest adventure; the second half of life. When you find courage to change at midlife, a miracle happens and you are opened, softened, strengthened, and deepened; prepared to create your legacy-an imprint of your dream for our world that can only come true in the second half of life.”

Trumpet Vine in the Mt. Madonna garden

I was inspired by the words: “create your legacy-your dream for the world.” In this youth obsessed culture, it is positively counter-cultural to believe that our greatest adventure still lays ahead.

I’ve set off on my first adventure with the ‘year of watercolor’ project. My challenge to create a watercolor each day for a year has become a practice similar to meditation; a time when bits of undigested feelings and thought rise to the surface.

Cyclamens 3/19/12, Hannah Hunter, 5″ x 7,” watercolor

I’ve stared down the demons of comparison, attachment and judgment with what I hope is a corresponding firm but loving kindness.

Painting every day allows me to see how thoroughly events of the previous day influence the way I take hold of the brush, the amount of paint on the bristles, the control, or lack there of, with which color streams onto paper. I’ve determined that I will return to paint each day, even if the watercolor from the day before looks like a smeary mess. I don’t need to share them, but they remind me that a lotus can only grow out of the mud.

Feb 6

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Inscribing a Circle

I’ve been drawing circles since I was four, but my fascination with them as an art form dates back to to the 80′s in front of an ashram in Oakland, CA, where, just outside the door, I saw a most astonishing drawing done in a rich array of vibrant colors all contained in a circle.

Ritual rangoli done in powdered pigments

These circles, called rangolis, were done for religious or healing ceremonies. As an artist, I ached to be able to do something like this and after some investigation, came upon the mandala (the Sanskrit word for circle), an art form with a long history across many cultures. Like the rangoli, it is art created created for ritual purposes in a circular form and these days, also employed in art therapy.

New Years Mandala, ©2008, Hannah Hunter, Collage

So, while I’ve been painting, collaging, and inscribing these geometric discs for years, nothing could have prepared me for the excitement about the circle that recently burst upon the art scene in the form of Damian Hirst’s spots.

I started poking around and pretty soon I discovered that I could make a distinction between a circle and a spot. It’s strictly my interpretation, but the way I see it is that the spot is just that: a rounded mark or splotch made by foreign matter. It seems to have arrived in a rather casual manner.

Spots tossed on a watercolor in the studio, photo by Amelia McSweeny

The circle on the other hand is a closed line, something inscribed in which all the points on the line lie at the same distance from the center. It seems intentional, elegant, something that shows up in nature, but also something that 3 and 4-year olds begin drawing as they enter into the world of representation. The circle is one of the early building blocks.

Rose Colored Egg, ©1998, Hannah Hunter, Colored pencil

I looked up on my studio wall, where all three current pieces are iterations of the circle, so I tried to dig a bit deeper to see what was so fascinating– and, what keeps me returning to them as a form decade after decade.

Rice Bowl, ©2012, Hannah Hunter, Collage

I’m reminded of something that another blogger, Gwyneth Leech, said in a recent post, “Spots Before My Eyes…:”"…there is the infinite variety of things, then there is an infinite variation of one thing.” A circle suggests eternity (think of a ring), something bigger than myself, time layered upon itself, the pleasure in creating a multitude of variations on a theme.

Zodiac Season, ©2010, Hannah Hunter, Collage

The idea that each circle can both be the same yet different; it’s own infinite, elegant universe is  powerful. A 3-year taps into these infinite possibilities without fear or the preconceived notions of adults. When I began this post I thought that I’d be arguing for the integrity of the circle, but now that I’ve experienced spots and dots á la Hirst (and, for a great post on spots, see Joanne Mattera’s  “Connecting the Dots), I’m looking to get rid of some of my trepidation and preconceived notions, and hopefully, adopt some of the spot philosophy too.

I know that many of you have had fun in the studio with circles, spots and dots–if you have any stories or images you’d like to share I’d love to hear from you.

Mar 19

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Open the Doors to Healing

©2011, H. Hunter, Desert Renewal, SoulCollage®

The title of last week’s SoulCollage® workshop at the UC Davis Cancer Center was “Renewal; Exploring the the way archetypes can help us to find renewal in the midst of our daily lives.” Without knowing it, I was practically begging several archetypes to enter my own life.

I showed up promptly at nine filled with the news of Japan; its cumulative disasters of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear uncertainty. I walked up to the door and it was locked.
I wanted to wilt like a flower and go home. (But what had I experienced so far? An insurmountable barrier?) Instead, I called Plant Operation and Management.
As if by magic, a white truck drove right up the sidewalk toward me and a smiling women in a navy overall got out and opened up the building. “Did you get the call?” I asked her. “No, but I saw you standing there,” she replied. My world was restored.
In order to get the group together quickly, I asked for help; putting participants to work unwrapping fresh pairs of scissors, cutting boards and x-acto knives.  Even though I felt tongue tied by world events, I needed to keep going and talk about finding linkages in the heady and ineffable subject matter of archetypes. (Could you get a better set up for a trickster archetype to stick out its foot?)
We introduced ourselves by selecting an image that signified renewal. When one person showed a photograph of a red maple against what looked to be a Japanese garden, I commented how much that reminded me of her hometown, San Francisco, a place of renewal for her.
Unexpectedly, the whole group began to laugh. “Hannah–can you see–those are the red rock walls of a canyon!” The gods were definitely playing with me today: A locked door, mistaking a canyon for the Japanese Tea Garden.
©2011, A. McSweeny, Cat Love, SoulCollage®

The women were game to explore the notion of how archetypes might play out in their lives to bring renewal. As they searched the table for compelling images, quiet took over the room,which deepened to an engaged silence as the work progressed. 

We arranged the finished cards in a circle and walked clockwise around the table, readying ourselves for sharing. One woman commented that, “I can’t believe it–all those pictures, just laid out on the table in no particular order–and out of that chaos, come these perfect cards that carry so much meaning.”  

It is my prayer that amongst the chaos of disaster in Japan, the people continue to recover pieces of their lives, bring them together and that healing becomes the order of the land.