暗网吃瓜

Lisa Pounders has always had an interest in art and poetry, and has long been inspired by the work of Joseph Campbell鈥攅ven painting his directive, 鈥淔ollow your own bliss鈥� above a window in her art studio years ago. Her story is not unlike that of others who have attended 暗网吃瓜: when she enrolled in the M.A. Depth Psychology and Creativity with Emphasis in the Arts and Humanities, she felt she was responding to a 鈥渕ysterious sense of calling鈥� that many other students and alumni have also reported. Her own sense of summons had to do with the sense that creativity and what she initially learned about C. G. Jung鈥檚 ideas about the unconscious were intrinsically linked. Making the connection explicit (especially through a Master鈥檚 degree in Creativity) seemed a powerful way to move her own life forward.

Discovering that Campbell鈥檚 library was housed at Pacifica was one of the 鈥渢hreads鈥� that also led her to her decision. Now pursuing her聽Ph.D. in the Jungian and Archetypal Studies聽specialization聽at Pacifica, Pounders has a much better understanding of the relationship between art and depth psychology. One aspect lies in Jung鈥檚 idea of聽individuation, a process by which there is an inner drive toward a calling or a sense that there鈥檚 something bigger at work in our lives鈥攏ot 鈥渇ate,鈥� Pounders insists, but 鈥渨ays to develop and to enrich your life, and perhaps to enrich other people鈥檚 lives.鈥� That initial quote from Campbell, 鈥淔ollow your own bliss,鈥� was her personal call to art, Pounders reveals, and from there she was led to Pacifica.

As she began her exploration of depth psychology at Pacifica, Pounders found herself excited about Jung鈥檚 idea that the unconscious is inherently creative. The drive toward development has a force for making and for聽image-making, as well, a tenet Jung discovered on his own when he started working on his Red Book in the years after his fallout with Sigmund Freud. Once Jung found himself on his own, he turned to the process of what he called 鈥渁ctive imagination鈥� to drop down into the unconscious to have dialogues with inner images and characters that revealed themselves to him. He used both writing and painting or drawing in the process of聽active imagination. The resulting illustrations now highly publicized in聽The Red Book聽came from a state that might be described as dreaming in a semi-conscious state. Jung described the process that contributed to聽The Red Book聽as his 鈥渃onfrontation with the unconscious,鈥� and many of his theories can be traced back to their origins during those years when he was so engaged in that confrontation that ultimately resulted in the Red Book.

The way that Jung engaged with images as聽living images聽was, in part, a catalyst for Pounders to write an article entitled 鈥淭ransformation Through Art: Exploring Jung鈥檚 View of Art and the Relevance of Charlotte Salomon鈥檚 鈥楲ife? or Theater?鈥� 鈥澛�, recently published in the聽International Jungian of Jungian Studies. Though Charlotte Salomon, a German Jewish woman, tragically perished at Auschwitz in 1943 when she was barely 26, she first created an opus called 鈥淟ife? or Theater?鈥濃�攚hich has gained wide acclaim.

This work is the concluding page of Charlotte Salomon’s principal work Life? or Theatre? The final gouache harks back to the text that begins the work describing Salomon sitting beside the sea painting. A tune enters her mind and she starts to hum it. As she hums, she realizes the tune matches what she is painting鈥�Salomon completed the work at the Hotel “Belle Aurore”, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in summer 1942 (the proprietor later recalled her humming while she worked).

The format for 鈥淟ife? or Theater?鈥� is unusual. Though it exists in book form, it originated from a manuscript with 769 paintings, written text, and unique transparent overlays that contain directions for music. Charlotte Salomon referred to the work in German as a聽singspiel聽or song-play, a form of opera虏, and imagined people looking at the paintings, reading the text, and humming the music as they moved through the work. The multi-media work was fictional, yet also based on her life鈥攔esulting in a complex, semi-autobiographical work of someone going through World War II who ultimately was murdered in the Holocaust. Somehow, Salomon鈥檚 work survived.

Part of the opus involved Salomon working through a 鈥減lague of suicides鈥� in her family, Pounders told me, including the deaths of Salomon鈥檚 aunt, mother, and other close family members by their own hands鲁. It seems clear that art can serve as vehicle to help us work through trauma, and Salomon鈥檚 work on 鈥淟ife? or Theater?鈥� may indeed be key to Salomon not following through on that same impulse to suicide that possessed so many of the women in her family.

Pounders first came across Salomon鈥檚 work in 1997, long before she came to Pacifica, after stumbling on an article in Time magazine about an exhibit of Salomon鈥檚 images in the United States, as well as a biography about Salomon by Mary Felstiner[4]. At the time, Pounders suggested the book,聽To Paint her Life: Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi Era聽(1997) for the book club she was involved in. She also happened upon a bound copy of 鈥淟ife? or Theater?鈥� (entitled Charlotte (1981)) in a used book store. While that version lacked the music overlays, it was the closest representation Pounders had seen of the original work in book form.

Pounders first began to discern a connection between the work of Salomon and the work of Jung while at Pacifica, in a class in the Engaged Humanities program on creativity and activism. She couldn鈥檛 stop thinking about how Charlotte Salomon had asserted her own existence through her work on 鈥淟ife? or Theater?鈥� in the face of Nazi oppression, something that occurred to Pounders as a profound act of activism when she really thought about it. Jung鈥檚聽Red Book聽was introduced as another multi-media work, and a method by which Jung worked through his own inner turmoil. While Charlotte Salomon created her book in 1940, and Jung worked on his from 1913 until around 1930, both individuals were working through wars: Jung beginning his just before the first world war, and Salomon commencing hers during World War II.

Patterns and synchronicities tend to draw us in, often bring wisdom, understanding, and healing, and art can work on us in unexplained ways, even without our conscious knowing. Pounders notes that art can work us by way of symbols, and Jung was a big proponent of the idea that symbols (and corresponding archetypes) worked as portals to the unconscious. While some symbols can point to something known, many remain mysterious. Archetypes, as patterns that inform our lives, are recognizable in art and also in non-visual places that stem from creativity itself. They speak to us in both conscious and unconscious ways.

Part of the power of Charlotte Salomon鈥檚 work鈥攁nd Jung鈥檚聽Red Book, too鈥攚as the use of images, words and even music to try to express what鈥檚 happening inside for one鈥檚 self, and also to communicate to other people, Pounders suggests. There is a 鈥渢hird kind of thing鈥� between you and your unconscious that also allows it to 鈥済et out there鈥� where others can also connect to it. When working with art, we鈥檙e always working with pieces of ourselves, she asserts. In fact, Pounders, herself, can identify times in her own life when she was trying to paint more than a simple narrative; attempting to capture something beyond. She maintains a notebook of her own in which she creates mandalas and other art that doesn鈥檛 necessarily have a narrative to it, but through which she works with unconscious contents.

Hearing this prompts a memory for me of reading about how some mid-Plains Indians have practiced the creation of objects that represented their dreams so that they could bring the dream into form and convey the immediacy of the sacred into the world, expressing the power of the dream itself through the object they had made[5].Those individuals likely didn鈥檛 care if they were 鈥榓rtists鈥� or not, I realized: more probably, they only cared to allow the dream to speak through them via the object they created. Art is sacred; art is speaking; art does have its own voice and its way of getting out into the world

Jung had the same experience, Pounders relates. Sometimes practitioners of Jungian or depth psychology try too hard to analyze the images that emerge from dreams or elsewhere in the unconscious. Jung believed in allowing the images coming forward to him to have their own autonomy. While in the process of engaging the dream through drawing or painting, he literally asked, 鈥淲hat is it that I鈥檓 doing?鈥� and the answer came through a female voice, 鈥淚t is art.鈥� Today we can see that forms have their own energy and potential. Though Jung was very focused on the scientific aspects of psychology, art has its own way of expressing itself and dialoguing with us. It also has its way of connecting us culturally as well as personally.

Charlotte Salomon, self-portrait (1940). Institution: Collection Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam. Photo 漏 Charlotte Salomon Foundation (Public Domain)[6]

I remember someone writing once that artists are on the forefront of the revolution, painting or creating imagery around what is coming in the future. If we鈥檙e willing to make space for that creative function, it results in waves that can also change the culture鈥攋ust as it did with Salomon and, of course, with Jung as well.

There is an element of synchronicity and endurance around Salomon鈥檚 work. At a time when things seemed rather hopeless, and restrictions were growing for Jewish citizens in Germany, Charlotte Salomon was able to get into an art school and start painting, Pounders reminds me. Though eventually Salomon had to drop out as the situation became more critical, Salomon鈥檚 work was a way to express the importance of her life, and indeed, it rippled out on a multitude of levels. It revolved around the feminine voice, racial issues, and also creativity, Pounders insists, and those aspects of her work still speak to us today. Pounders鈥� future research will center on the connection to Jung鈥檚聽Red Book聽and the role of the feminine in the work of both Jung and Charlotte Salomon. I personally look forward to learning more.

The M.A. Depth Psychology and Creativity with Emphasis in the Arts and Humanities is now accepting applications.

 

[1] 鈥淭ransformation Through Art: Exploring Jung鈥檚 View of Art and the Relevance of Charlotte Salomon鈥檚 Life or Theater?鈥澛燽y Lisa A. Pounders,聽International Jungian of Jungian Studies, February 2016

摆2闭听is a German music form resembling “operetta” in some respects, although actors鈥� parts are often spoken over, rather than sung with the music. Music provides the backdrop for the play-form which is most often comical in nature, tragedy being a less-frequent motif. Note that Salomon鈥檚 spelling, “Singespiel”, is off by an 鈥榚鈥�, but whether this was intentional of not is unclear.

[3] See the history of suicides in the family of Charlotte Salomon.

[4]聽Biography by Mary Lowenthal Felstiner,聽To Paint Her Life. Harper Collins, 1994

摆5闭听(厂别别听The Dream Seekers: Native American Visionary Traditions of the Great Plains鈥擫ee Irwin

[6] Jewish Women’s Archive.