| In
This Issue |
 |
|
Welcome
by Tom Singer
Following Seeker: Landscape, Music, Myth and
Transformation
by Deborah O'Grady
The Mirror of Art:
Reflections on Transference and the Gaze of the Picture by
Joy Schaverien
We
Value Your Ideas
Receive
This Newsletter for Free
Buy Books and Help Support
ARAS!
|
Welcome |
|
|
 As
we have all become aware in the past decade, digitization and the
Internet have revolutionized the way in which we communicate and
transmit information, especially information in a visual form. The
opportunities for creative projects related to symbolic imagery are
enormous and ARAS Online wants to realize its potential to present this
kind of material to a growing audience. A new "architecture" of ARAS
Online envisions a series of "spaces" that will present special topics
and projects. Our goal is to continue to make ARAS a useful instrument
for the study of archetypal material from all ages and cultures,
including increasing our focus on symbolic imagery relevant to
contemporary concerns of the individual and society.
The capacity for cross-cultural perspectives is exponentially increased
with worldwide internet access and we want to tap into that potential
by beginning to explore ways of encouraging our users to contribute
material to ARAS Online. We will be announcing new projects in the near
future that ask you - our audience - to contribute material in
specified formats. And "cross cultural" not only refers to bringing
material from different parts of the world into dialogue with one
another but also from different intellectual and psychological
perspectives and traditions.
Our featured articles in this edition illustrate these new directions.
Deborah O'Grady's stunning paper introduces a brand new way of
presenting material on ARAS Connections in that it combines the
traditional form of a written article with videos interspersed. Because
this format may be new to many, there is a brief primer on how to
"read" the article at its beginning. And Joy Schevarian's paper takes
the study of symbolic imagery into the inner world of individuals, who
use art as a way to give expression to their psyches. Of course, the
tradition of art therapy is steeped in the use of symbolic imagery as a
way of communication and this will be the first of many articles from
this tradition.
Tom Singer, M.D.
Co-Chair of ARAS Online for National ARAS
|
We
Value Your Ideas |
|
|
As
our newsletter grows to cover both the ARAS archive and the broad world
of
art and psyche, we're eager to have your suggestions and thoughts on
how to improve it. Please click here
to email us or send your comments to info@aras.org.
We look forward to your input and will reply to every message.
|
Receive
This Newsletter for Free |
|
| If
you're not already a subscriber and would like to receive subsequent
issues of this newsletter by email at no cost, click here
or e-mail us at newsletter@aras.org.
Please invite friends and colleagues who may be interested to join as
well. Thanks! |
|
|
| Following
Seeker: Landscape, Music, Myth and Transformation |
|
by
Deborah O'Grady
An image from Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio.
|
Editorial note: The following article by the photographer and artist
Deborah
O'Grady describes her personal and actual journey in search of imagery
to
accompany the oratorio, Enemy Slayer. This is a new
experiment for ARAS
Connections and perhaps a new experience for you as well. It mixes
written
text with videos of image and sound. You are invited to move back and
forth
from one to the other as they move through the "text".
While watching the video portion, be sure to press the button that
allows the image to fill the entire screen. 
Make sure to increase the volume on your computer so that the sound
of the oratorio expands with your vision.
Return to the text after each of the videos by hitting Esc to exit full
screen mode and then the Back button. The sequencing of word
and image is clearly indicated in the text. Enjoy!
|
An
excerpt from Following Seeker: Landscape, Music, Myth and
Transformation, by
Deborah O'Grady:
This is the story of the creation of an
oratorio, a European musical form that most often depicts religious
subjects. In 2006, I was asked to join a team that would create a new
kind of oratorio drawn from an indigenous American myth rather than a
traditional biblical source.
Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio
tells a contemporary story with an
archetypal root. Created for the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra's 60th
Anniversary Season, the work's conceptual source lies within the Navajo
sacred tradition, telling the story of Seeker, a young Iraq war veteran
returning to his home on the reservation. Welcomed as a hero, Seeker
soon finds himself losing grip, when the traumas of his wartime
experience return to haunt him. As his thoughts turn to despair and
suicide, the voices of the elders intervene, urging him to return to
the Pollen Path, to the way of hozho, beauty and harmony.
The libretto is by Dr. Laura Tohe, Diné poet and professor of English
at Arizona State University. The musical score is by Mark Grey, a
California composer. In creating the story line for Enemy Slayer, Laura
and Mark consulted frequently with a group of Diné elders in order to
ensure that the story we told would not offend the gods or the people
in any way. Our task was to very consciously create a bridge between
the Diné and Anglo cultures of Arizona and beyond, in a work that would
appeal to a broad multi-cultural audience.
Read the entire
paper. |
The
Mirror of Art: Reflections on Transference and the Gaze of the Picture |
|
An
excerpt from The Mirror of Art: Reflections on Transference
and the Gaze of the Picture by Joy Schaverien
The Hero
|
Cognition, language, myth and art: none of
them is a mere mirror simply reflecting images of inward or outward
data; they are not indifferent media, but rather true sources of light,
the prerequisite of vision, and the well-springs of all formation.
(Cassirer 1955a, p. 93)
This presentation (given at the Art and Psyche conference in San
Francisco, 2008) is about art and its formative nature. To be clear
about the title, I am not suggesting that art is a mirror in the sense
of a cold or flat reflection. Rather, within analysis, art reveals and
so reflects the multi-layered contents of the psyche and presents them
for the gaze. It is the irreducible, non-discursive role of pictures
that is psychologically transformative and so, within analysis, art
offers a very particular means of mediation. The making of art may lead
to confrontation with shadow elements of the unconscious, revealing
mythical or archetypal images as well as their underlying psychological
states. Thus Contemporary Developmental and Classical Jungian
approaches to understanding individuation converge in "the field of
vision."
Read the entire
paper. |
Buy Books and
Help Support ARAS! |
|
When you buy books - or any items - at Amazon.com, ARAS receives about
six
percent of the sale cost. This is an easy way to support ARAS. Use this
link to shop at Amazon.com
One book you can get at Amazon is our collection of archetypal images
about the body:
An
Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism: The Body
"Images of the body reveal how our
unconscious inhabits the world. This book unveils the many forms of the
sacredness of the cultural body that we already are. A profound
experience of our global selves!" - Marion Woodman, author
of Addiction to Perfection.
|
|
