Jung Journal | 2019
To Our Readers
Abstract
In this Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche you will enjoy an entire issue devoted to the visual arts. Never have we curated such a wonderful collection of art and reflections on the artistic process. This issue includes artists’ visual creations, reflections on art and psyche, progressive psychoanalytic thoughts on art, ekphrastic poetry, an interview with a writer/photographer, a portrait of an artist, reviews, and the art emergent in clinical work. Pulling together this special issue was an enormous undertaking that at first seemed daunting but, as with all things aligned with psyche and the spirit, took on a life of its own. Last fall, we invited submissions of art and papers related to art. Nearly thirty artists responded enthusiastically, offering art and personal reflections on their work, and a series of related and supporting papers emerged at just the right time to create the montage that is now the issue you hold in your hands. When given an open door, psyche emerges and the unconscious is revealed in the most thrilling of ways. To begin, it is fitting to highlight the issue cover: Bill Traylor’s Dancing Man, Woman, and Dog (ca 1939–1942). Traylor has been an inspiration to me since I first learned of his work. During my first forays into making art, I came across a 2013New York Times review of his work: “Taylor was a natural stylist and a born storyteller who pushed images of the life around him toward abstraction with no loss of vivacity. At once modern and archaic, his art offers proof of Jung’s collective unconscious but also of an indelible individual talent” (Smith 2013). A large image of Traylor’s Woman with Bird (ca. 1940–1942), appearing in the Smith review, captured my imagination for so many reasons. I saw in this African American woman a reflection of my own feminine soul. With little facial detail, she can be “any-woman,” which gives her a haunting and almost mystical quality. Her left hand is balancing a bird near her face. Anyone who has seen my art knows that my use of bird imagery represents my fascination with symbols of the feminine and the spirit, a kind of angelic presence. I handily cut out the large image from the front page of the art section and did what many creative people do: made her over in my own image. I redressed her, gave her a resplendent parrot to carry high above her head, and provided a new background for the woman. This framed piece now lives in my clinical office with the new title: Bill Traylor Woman with Bird 1940/2013.