Since the last post I have been encouraged at varsity to learn the basics in classical painting. Watch this space. I have felt somewhat out of my depth and out on a limb as I am only at varsity for input once a week at the most so I am so thankful for the internet. Not as good as being in a learning environment every day with fellow students and tutors at hand but at least at a touch of a keyboard I am able to access fantastic information and you tube clips on techniques and documentaries on artists of all eras and movements. And my bedtime reading is a colossal book on the history of art...
For my ceramics, I am still working in my sketchbook and on the 3D cardboard house prototype creating a 'story', my story, part of my myth, in images which I will eventually translate into porcelain. Lots more drawing into these pages to be done
As mentioned before, Estelle and I are working with active imagination on exploring the idea of the house symbolising the psyche
'As developed by Carl Jung between 1913 and 1916, active imagination is a meditation technique wherein the contents of one's unconscious are translated into images, narrative or personified as separate entities. It can serve as a bridge between the conscious 'ego' and the unconscious and includes working with dreams and the creative self via imagination or fantasy. Jung linked Active Imagination with the processes of alchemy in that both strive for oneness and inter-relatedness from a set of fragmented and dissociated parts.
Key to the process of active imagination is the goal of exerting as little influence as possible on mental images as they unfold. For example, if a person were recording a spoken visualization of a scene or object from a dream, Jung's approach would ask the practitioner to observe the scene, watch for changes, and report them, rather than to consciously fill the scene with one's desired changes. One would then respond genuinely to these changes, and report any further changes in the scene. This approach is meant to ensure that the unconscious contents express themselves without overbearing influence from the conscious mind. At the same time, however, Jung was insistent that some form of participation in active imagination was essential: 'You yourself must enter into the process with your personal reactions...as if the drama being enacted before your eyes were real'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination'
Estelle records what I say during the session and I start translating these images into the 3D prototype. Early days. (Here I am crouched on the floor looking through the front door of my cardboard house looking into the entrance hall. Gosh sometimes I wonder about my sanity. A modern day Alice through the looking glass)...
but it makes for exciting stuff...
And here is not such a good pic of one of the pairs of my Hermes (the Greek god of transition and boundaries who guides people into the world of dreams and back) winged porcelain shoes. Need to get a picture where the wings are visible
