Welcome by Tom Singer

Cannonballing into Tar by Matthias Leutrum

Art and Psyche in the City by Ami Ronnberg

The Poetry Portal by Ellen Liberatori

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ARAS has always approached image holistically - image/symbol/culture/archetype as one. This 360° circumambulation of an image is what makes ARAS unique among the now plentiful image sites on the web. This is at the very heart of how we have become who we are. Now, in addition to preserving and functioning as an archive of the past, ARAS is thinking ahead and planning what we believe to be most important in the next stages of our development.
 
Jungians are not necessarily known for Strategic Five Year Plans. Our development as a psychological approach and as a tradition has been more about an unfolding that follows the deeper undercurrents of unconscious processes. But, as with every vital organization looking to its future in the 21st Century, ARAS has embraced the task of actively focusing on what will best help to further grow the archive itself, what will most enhance our online presence, and what will extend our unique perspective into better dialogue with the broader world. We will continue to treasure the holistic approach to symbolic material at the heart of who we are as we begin to articulate our directions for the future. As the parameters of our Five Year Strategic Plan take shape, we will be keeping you abreast of our plans for the future.
 
Tom Singer, M.D.
Co-Editor of ARAS Connections

In July 2012, the second very successful international Art and Psyche conference was held in New York City. It was organized by the Art and Psyche Working Group and ARAS was one of its sponsors. We are happy to announce that we will continue to publish the papers from this conference in ARAS Connections. We hope you have enjoyed reading the articles from the first conference, held in San Francisco in 2008, which focused exclusively on the visual image as guide and inspiration for bridging the arts and depth psychology together. This time, as we in the Working Group reflected on the tremendous range of creativity in New York City, we decided to include all the creative arts and named the conference Art and Psyche in the City. The city itself became involved as participants were guided through its wonderful sites and museums, which of course included ARAS for a welcoming cocktail party. Another collaborative event took place at ARAS a couple of weeks ago when the artist Matthias Leutrum gave his presentation from the conference at a joint Friends of ARAS and Art and Psyche event. And the work on the next conference has already begun...
 
We hope that you will enjoy reading the papers as we publish them in the coming issues of ARAS Connections.
 
Ami Ronnberg
Co-Editor of ARAS Connections

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Roofing Tar Painting by Matthias Leutrum

Matthias Leutrum first presented the material that you are about to read and see at the Art and Psyche in the City conference in July 2012. It was so well received that we asked Matthias to reprise his talk for a joint Friends of ARAS/Art and Psyche event in September 2013; the event coincides with the publishing of this presentation in ARAS Connections. Again the audience was enthusiastic in response. The combination of thoughtfully crafted word and image telling a compelling story of transormation created an atmosphere of interest and excitement.
 
It would seem that Matthias very well conveys a deeply alchemical and transformative process that is moving and inspiring. We are reminded of James Hillman's famous dictum: "Stick to the image!" In true Jungian fashion, he circumambulates the theme of the human cannon ball starting with a spark of consciousness that ignites a highly creative curiosity; he forges ahead with exploration of movement, color, texture, materials and research without knowing the outcome. This willingness to enter into a relationship with the unconscious has been profoundly fruitful with the images that have been made manifest from his psychic process. Learning of his interaction with tar, paint, scraping, drawing and dripping is fascinating and offers a wonderful glimpse into the process of emergence that connects animate and inanimate in what Jung calls the psychoid. His images are enlivening and call the viewer into relationship with them--with Matthias as the artist--yes--but with the images as entities unto themselves. This must be the connection of art and nature. We humans live within a material world that surrounds us and if we look, we realize that this world is alive; it is the unus mundus.
 
We are delighted that the work of Matthias Leutrum is the first in a series of presentations from the Art and Psyche in the City conference to be published in ARAS Connections.
 
Linda Carter and Melinda Haas
For the Art and Psyche Working Group
 
Biography
 
Matthias Leutrum was born in 1966 in Germany, completed his studies at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and moved to New York. He has a studio in Manhatten and in Leveret, MA. Matthias is the Artist in Residence at the Children’s Storefront, an independent and tuition-free school in Harlem, and at the Harlem School of the Arts.
 
 
 
I have divided this presentation into three parts. To begin, I will introduce the human cannonball theme and some of my paintings that are based upon it. In the second part I will give a condensed history of the human cannonball act and talk about how that history connects to my current understanding of the subject. And to conclude, we’ll take a look at how the cannonball theme has evolved in my most recent work.
 
Four years ago I came across this image in the arts section of the New York Times and was immediately stopped in my tracks. I had never been a big circus kid growing up and this photo was my very first introduction to the whole phenomenon of human cannonballs. What struck me immediately was the spectacle of these two figures being propelled into space at the same time as they were suspended in the frozen frame of the photograph. This contradictory tension carried a wealth of visual possibilities. And with every-one of those possibilities came questions.


New York Times Article
 
I began addressing some of these questions by working on a painting drawn directly from the source image.
 
I remember the process as being slow going and tentative as I tried to sort out the visual problems presented by the image, the 2 dimensionality of my canvas versus the 3 dimensionality of the actual event. Meanwhile I was also trying to mentally get inside and under the skin of the performers. I tried to develop a physical understanding in my own body of what was happening to them during their act. How did they experience and process the forces of propulsion, flight and free fall?
 
Read Cannonballing into Tar in its entirety.

 

 

At this writing, summer's afternoons have come and gone too quickly it seems, and for many of us it was a busy summer. I so enjoyed your poems from our last Portal image, Cliffwalk at Pourville and share them here with everyone! I hope you'll find similar delight in their read, and in the many subtle word images and metaphors used to convey the splash of romantic color, energy, and the livening of the senses—so much triggered by the sea.
 
We have a very special "Invite to Write" this newsletter, inspired by the Ekphrazein Poetry Event held at ARAS on September 20th. We have chosen the Egyptian image of sunrise painted on the wall of the sacrophagus hall - the House of Gold - of Ramses VI and invite you all to see this amazing Sun, Shems as it is called in Egypt. With the harvest sun's rays warming the change of the season, we invite your poems, thoughts, and creativity. Please send them by November 15th.
 
As mentioned above, ARAS held its first poetry event on September 20th, which was curated by Chantal Lee and Giada Shaver as part of their volunteer work at ARAS. Twelve poets/writers read and recited poems inspired from twelve different images depicting the Sun from various times and cultures. Together these images formed an archetypal theme, at the same time illustrating the unique approach of ARAS. The event was a brilliant success, complete with a guitar interlude performed by Ugene Romashov. Columbia University professor, Rachel Eisendrath discussed the Ekphrasis poetry form and its early appearance in literature. I have included the program from the evening here and hope it piques your interest and enlivens the Poetry Portal and illuminates what is happening in the local community.
 
I also want to gaze on two images, listen and read their sister poems which were part of Friday's event. The first, Parachute by Todd Anderson, presents an innovative display of the Ekphrasis form, as he takes us on an epic journey, and mixes media, with spoken word, and of course, great lines of poetry. Make sure you click on the video that frames the image/poem.
 
The second poem to share is, without anyone else, nonsense, this knowing, by Rebecca Brown, who takes an amazing image, The Apocalypse and brings it to life through the verse of depth and the question, "what next?" I love her crafting of the monosyllable word throughout and the magic of making the birds come alive in the poem.
 
Additional poems from the event can be read here.
 
- Ellen Liberatori
 

Parachute by Isca Greenfield Sanders

There's been a time when I wished to see the world alone from above
to be a part of something I didn't deserve
to see the world
as God might have seen it as he left it behind
And if you saw me
looking straight at the sun
would you go blind
except for my silhouette
on your iris
yes it would be fine for you to see me everywhere
to see my shape in all things
because this is surely the way the breeze
whispers your touch across all the short hairs of my body
every time i look at the ocean
every time
 
Fuck let me just float forever in a sea of light and dissolve the ozone like an alkaseltzer so
when i burn alive it feels like passing in my sleep
 
and the sun in its trombone choir
won't it just tear up your insides with that music
I've been on top of a mountain and gotten bored
and the things that mattered to me then only matter now in that i haven't been able to articulate the
things that have replaced them
Just like Rhys said after he walked across the rockies
Being with people in nature
is greater than being with people
is greater than being in nature
 
and this is what I think
as the toe of my boot touches
the golden strand where the
ocean sun horizon tie together.
I think about this because I think
this is something you would have liked to see,
and that is why I like it,
it has nothing to do with me