Archetypal Identities, Symbolism [+Dolls]

‘think’ with your instincts

Doll made of ivory, Roman era

2nd and 3rd centuries A.D

Dolls have been a part of humankind since prehistoric times. Used to depict religious figures or used as playthings, early dolls were probably made from raw materials such as clay, fur, or wood.

Webster's New World Dictionarydescribes a doll as - "a child's toy, puppet, marionette, etc. made to resemble a human being."

Historical Context

Background on Dolls

• As far back as we can go in time, dolls have been a part of human imagination. Sometimes votive figures, sometimes toys or collectibles, they survived fashion trends through the ages, pleasing all those who cherished and still cherish them.

• In fact, dolls were born long before they were given the french name of «poupée» (doll), which probably comes from the latin words «puppa» or «pupa» that mean «tétines, sein» (nipples, breast). Although it is difficult to define the doll's origin, a few ancient objects coming of Antiquity tell us that dolls were part of Greeks and Romans lives at this era.

• Most of the time, these small rudimentary shaped wooden or clay figures were religious objects. Some were even laid down with mummies in burial place. In Greece, for instance, jointed dolls were found in temples dedicated to goddesses Demeter and Persephone . Such dolls were also found in Egyptian's temples.

•Dolls have featured in modern art and fine art photography, notably in surrealist works.

Materials

• Following the era of the ancient dolls, Europe became a major hub for doll production. These dolls were primarily made of wood. Primitive wooden stump dolls from 16th and 17th century England number less than 30 today. The Grodnertal area of Germany produced many peg wooden dolls, a type of doll that has very simple peg joints and resembles a clothespin.

• An alternative to wood was developed in the 1800s. Composition is a collective term for mixtures of pulped wood or paper that

were used to make doll heads and bodies. These mixtures were molded under pressure, creating a durable doll that could be mass produced. Manufacturers closely guarded the recipes for their mixtures, sometimes using strange ingredients like ash or eggshells. Papier-mache, a type of composition, was one of the most popular mixtures.

• In addition to wooden dolls, wax dolls were popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. Munich was a major manufacturing center for wax dolls, but some of the most distinctive wax dolls were created in England between 1850 and 1930. Wax modelers would model a doll head in wax or clay, and then use plaster to create a mold from the head. Then they would pour melted wax into the cast. The wax for the head would be very thin, no more than 3 mm. One of the first dolls that portrayed a baby was made in England from wax at the beginning of the 19th century.

• http://ctdollartists.com/history.htm

Venus de Willendorf

Venus of Willendorf c. 24,000-22,000 BCE Oolitic limestone 43/8 inches (11.1 cm) high (Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna)

When first discovered the Venus of Willendorf was thought to date to approximately 15,000 to 10,000 BCE, or more or less to the same period as the cave paintings at Lascaux in France. In the 1970s the date was revised back to 25,000-20,000 BCE, and then in the 1980s it was revised again to c. 30,000-25,000 BCE. A study published in 1990 of the stratigraphic sequence of the nine superimposed archaeological layers comprising the Willendorf deposit, however, now indicates a date for the Venus of Willendorf of around 24,000-22,000 BCE.

An example of the feminine archetype from 24,000-22,000 BCE

Ancient DollsAn ancient ivory, jointed doll

Archeological evidence places dolls as foremost candidate for oldest known toy, having been found in Egyptian tombs which date to as early as 2000 BC. In Egypt, as well as Greece and Rome, it was common to find them in the graves of children. Most were made of wood, although pottery dolls were buried with children from wealthier families. Dolls with movable limbs and removable clothing date back to 200 BCE.

Looking for the Psychological Roots of the Artform

http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/endicott_redux/2007/03/index.html

Saying more than Playing with Dolls

Bruce Nabegeyo, Two Brothers – Kinga and Burrar, 2007, natural ochres on Arches paper

admiration desire exhilaration impatience relief

adoration despair expectation indifference remorse

amazement desperation fascination indignation resentment

ambition determination fear infatuation respect

anger disappointment frustration jealousy revenge

anticipation disbelief greed joy serenity

anxiety disgust grief loneliness shame

awe disillusionment guilt lust shock

bewilderment eagerness hatred mischief sorrow

boredom embarrassment hope panic suspicion

compassion enthusiasm hopelessness pity sympathy

contempt envy horror pride terror

curiosity exaltation humiliation rage love

defiance exasperation hysteria regret  confusion

sadness

Emotional AnaloguesAnalogues comes from Analogy … meaning a similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar

Examine the words listed in the table of emotional traits.

These are by no means exhaustive so please add your own

Shade in boxes from the table to indicate your dominant emotional traits

Each of these emotions will have a visual analogue specific to your experience; eg Joy may be represented as bright, vibrant yellow, Anger as heavy dark grey. This can be taken further to include the style, direction, pressure etc of the mark that you use to represent the emotion.

Without drawing representational ‘pictures’ of the emotions, represent 3 of the dominant ones you have chosen as analogies for your won dominant traits.

Explore these in as many different ways as possible to create a vocabulary of analogous marks

http://www.getguerilla.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18 http://natureofpersonality.com/archetypes.html

Archetypes

The Wise Fool

Take the Jungian Personality Test ~ http://similarminds.com/cgi-bin/newmb.pl Jungian psychology regards human development as a journey or quest in which the soul goes in search of itself. Self-realization, also referred to as self-actualization or individuation, refers to the idea of wholeness in which the personality is integrated and in which the various aspects of personality work together toward a common goal, rather than working at cross-purposes.

Embracing the various aspects of the self into a totality involves an inner journey that many people never begin, much less complete. But every person, and every fictional character, is presented with many opportunities to embark on that journey.Of what does this Quest consist? In literature, the romantic narrative pattern involves a Quest that begins with a perilous journey, usually initiated by a trial or conflict, and which initiation involves both a departure and entry occasioning the advent of the Hero (Frye). A series of preliminary adventures occur as the Hero matures and progresses in his Quest. These adventures lead to a crucial struggle between the Hero and his Foe, in which one or both must die or in which the Hero descends into the underworld. His death or descent is followed by his exaltation-possibly even resurrection-and return.

The archetypal journey of analytical psychology parallels the Quest of romance literature. The first step in the journey of wholeness begins with a confrontation of the real self, as opposed to the persona, the mask we show the world. This confrontation initially involves a meeting with the primary archetype, the Shadow. After confronting one’s own image in whatever mirror reflects it, and seeing what one has built so many resistances to seeing, a person discovers that the mirror is a door (much as in Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass) behind which lurk mermaids, wood-nymphs, and even sirens-the anima for the male, and the animus for the female. These must be incorporated before the journey can progress. This quest of the person culminates with a meeting of the Self, sometimes represented by the archetype of the Divine Couple. Individuals who never complete the Quest may over-identify with an earlier archetype, leading to an over-development of that archetype’s qualities to the detriment of the others-what Jung called neuroses or “complexes.”

INITIATION: THE SHADOW ARCHETYPEThe Shadow archetype is the elemental, foundational archetype representing all that is instinctual-the latent dispositions common to all men. Images portraying the Shadow often involve the wilderness, the woods (full of dragons, ogres, and thieves), or the sea as a watery wilderness. Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus all met God in the wilderness, which meetings served as their initiations into the mystery of self-realization.The Shadow is most easily observed in others because we project our Shadow selves.

ADVENT OF THE HERO: ANIMA AND ANIMUS ARCHETYPESJung theorized four stages of the soul image’s evolution that are shared, more or less, by both anima and animus: the wholly physical, even wild, figure such as Tarzan or Eve; the personality who possesses initiative and the capacity for planned action (a poet or philosopher, or an action-oriented figure like a warrior, hunter, etc. like Faust’s Helen); the soul-image who becomes “word,” sometimes represented by a clergyman, teacher, or a great statesman or, if the anima, one like the Virgin Mary, who raises eros to the heights of spiritual devotion; and, finally, “a mediator of the religious experience whereby life acquires new meaning,” exemplified by someone like Gandhi (if animus) or the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon (if anima) (Jung, Symbols, 207).

THE GREAT MOTHER AND THE WISE OLD MAN ARCHETYPESMen meet the Wise Old Man archetype, while women meet the Great Mother. The opposite-sex archetypes of anima and animus have given way to same-sex archetypes, with whom the individual must make an alliance. These powerful archetypes are symbols of the power and wisdom that lie deep within our own psyches. If the archetype’s qualities are embraced, they become part of a person’s consciousness and increase wisdom.

THE SELFThe ultimate pattern of wholeness for the person is the Self, which includes spirit, soul, and body.

http://eve3.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/once-upon-a-time-the-quest-2/

Jungian Psychology ~ Carl Jung’s Ideas on the Archetype

another ARCHETYPAL FEMALE IN MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION: THE ANIMA AND THE MOTHER

Joseph Campbell

• A fundamental belief of Campbell's was that all spirituality is a search for the same basic, unknown force from which everything came, within which everything currently exists, and into which everything will eventually return. This elemental force is ultimately “unknowable” because it exists before words and knowledge. Although this basic driving force cannot be expressed in words, spiritual rituals and stories refer to the force through the use of "metaphors" - these metaphors being the various stories, deities, and objects of spirituality we see in the world. For example, the Genesis myth in the Bible ought not be taken as a literal description of actual events, but rather its poetic, metaphorical meaning should be examined for clues concerning the fundamental truths of the world and our existence.

• Accordingly, Campbell believed the religions of the world to be the various, culturally influenced “masks” of the same fundamental, transcendent truths. All religions, including Christianity and Buddhism, can bring one to an elevated awareness above and beyond a dualistic conception of reality, or idea of “pairs of opposites,” such as being and non-being, or right and wrong. Indeed, he quotes in the preface of The Hero with a Thousand Faces: "Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names."

• Heroes were important to Campbell because, to him, they conveyed universal truths about one's personal self-discovery and self-transcendence, one's role in society, and the relationship between the two.

List 3 personal Heros

1.

2.

3.

Identify the traits you

associate with each of them

1.

2.

3.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

Fears also offer Insight

• The confrontation with the shadow usually feels so restrictive because it is made up of all the contents that we own but have repressed. Most of us repress some of the qualities we don’t allow into the persona, the self we show the world.

• We may be able to consciously choose when to use that hot temper and when not to; when to cuss and when to withhold the curse. But most of our shadow contents are repressed; these become part of our hidden dark side, hidden and dark because we keep it out of the light.

• The shadow lies in the unconscious, but it is part of the psychic content closest to the ego and the conscious world because it has once been, or could have been, conscious. However, it becomes a threat to the person when we shut it away, forget it, and refuse to recognize it. Like a child chained in a cage, it becomes more and more defiant, grows bigger and bigger, and eventually demands a life of its own. Think of stories like Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Heart of Darkness, Moby Dick; these are just a few examples of stories about how the shadow is has a life of its own. If denied, it eventually becomes a self-willed autocrat over which we have no self-control.

• The task of the person on the quest of individuation is to stop identifying with the persona and to consciously assimilate the shadow. One has arrived when she has an ego strong enough to acknowledge both the persona and the shadow without identifying with either. This is easier said than done, because we identify with our strengths, with what comes easily.

• The shadow embodies all that is repressed, pushed aside, locked up, forgotten-not only the seven deadly sins, but also the introvert’s extraversion, the intuitive’s sensing side, the thinker’s feeling function, and the emotional person’s thinking side. The shadow contains what we left behind in childhood, our wishes, and our dreams. Sometimes, like Peter Pan, we need someone to help us by lovingly re-attaching our shadow.

• Perhaps you will recognize your shadow contents in the movies you avidly watch again and again, in your most favorite movies, books, or short stories, or in the art you hang on your walls. Have you ever gone through a phase of watching a movie over and over again? Take a look at the characters who are of the same gender as you: they may reveal hidden aspects of your shadow. Likewise, fascinating figures of the opposite sex may well reveal aspects of your anima or animus that long to be assimilated and used fully in your whole, individuated personality.

• The best way to know how to switch is simply to say, “All right, all this does not mean anything to me any more. Where in my past life is an activity that I feel I could still enjoy? An activity out of which I could still get a kick?”

The Shadow: http://eve3.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/once-upon-a-time-shadow-3/

List 3 things you fear most

1.

2.

3.

Identify a colour to

symbolise each one

1.

2.

3.

Take the Inkblot Test

http://uk.tickle.com/test/inkblot.html

Dr Geri Olsen

Associate professor in the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University, where she will soon assume the role of Department Chair. Geri teaches and leads workshops in the area of creativity and expressive arts. Geri points out that Dolls have been a part of human existence for 25,000 years. From fertility rituals to child’s play, dolls have a central role in portraying the story and values of a culture. The power of the doll is expanded as we move back in time and explore dolls with a cross-cultural perspective. In that search, the importance of dolls in healing, rites of passage, and empowerment become evident. This understanding of the historical and psychological role of dolls has created a revisioning of the influence of the doll. Dolls are used often in sand tray work, hospital programs, and in educational programs for abusive parents, but very little is written about the deeply evocative experience of making a doll. What power does the doll that we create have in revealing the images and narrative of a person’s inner life? How could the doll capture and reflect a glimpse of the psyche? In Geri’s work with students and therapists, dolls are created as mirrors of the self, as figures in a personal myth, and as allies, elders, healers and guides on the path to authenticity and health. The doll narrates a deeply personal story from an adventure to the interior. Geri has integrated the doll process into her work for 25 years and is the coordinator of a Doll Project that has included over 600 K-12 students. Here is a link to a paper she wrote titled : Dolls Protection, Healing, Power and Play which appeared in the journal Somatics. I’ve also put up some photos of dolls she and her students have made here .

Contemporary Dolls

Marina Bychkova

http://www.enchanteddoll.com/

http://www.enchanteddoll.com/school.html#nog o

Lawrence Ahvakana is an Inupiaq artist who draws on traditional forms, spiritual ideas, and inua imagery to make contemporary mythic art. Ahvakana was raised in northern Alaska in a childhood deeply steeped in the traditions of his Inupiaq culture. He studied art at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, and the Cooper Union School of Art in New York. His carvings, paintings, and multi-media art have been exhibited in museums and galleries all across the United States. "Through my work," he says, Greenland_woman_by_lawrence_ahvakana_1 "I can express/create my ideas of tradition, those feelings of being part of a society that's thousands of years old, with contemporary artist influences like Alan Houser, Fritz Sholder, Charles Lollama, Paul Klee, Kandinsky and others. I continually gain insight, direction, and psychic or emotional strength through the stories of how the Inupiat defined their total subsistence lifestyle with the shamanism, ceremony, and the natural cycles of Arctic living."

Lawrence Ahvakana

Mirka Mora

and her dolls

http://www.moragalleries.com.au/2004/mirka.html

A.Alvarez Jester

www.shashahigby.com/shashawork.htmSha Sha Higby

Harriet Dempsey Jones

archetypes

Lanah Heron

Identify the archetype operating here

Can you identify this archetype?

Camilla Jones

Can you create an archetypal story for this one?

Joanne Kim

Judy Watson …

“... seeing the country through my grandmother's eyes learningabout bush foods going back to the city and making work …”Judy Watson 1991

In 1990 Judy Watson was able to fulfil her life-long dream of researching her Aboriginal heritage by travelling to her grand-mother's country of north-west Queensland. A direct descendant of the Waanyi clan, Watson was born in 1959 at Mundubbera in the coastal hinterland of Queensland. She grew up in Brisbane and attended the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education, Toowoomba, where she gained a Diploma of Creative Arts in 1979. After moving to Hobart in 1980 she graduated from the University of Tasmania in 1982.

Subsequently Watson lectured at the Townsville College of TAFE and tutored at the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education.

In exploring her background, Watson encountered many isolated Aboriginal artists, and she has assisted them in gaining access to art facilities. She has had numerous appointments throughout Australia as an artist-in-residence, some of which have involved establishing lithography workshops and courses. As winner of the 1995 Moët & Chandon Fellowship, Watson travelled to France in 1996; she later exhibited in Paris. She was also included in the 1997 Australian exhibit at the Venice Biennale.

Watson's Aboriginal heritage is reflected in her depictions of the bone coffins which she encountered on visits to her grandmother's country. Her prints have an ethereal quality: mystical figures, caught in a

spindrift; their form is unclear; a swirling, spiritual mirage.

Red rockfrom Crossroads: Millennium Portfolio of Australian Aboriginal Artists1998 Brisbanelithograph, printed in colour on paperGordon Darling Fund 1999

http://www.nga.gov.au/landscapes/Wat.htm

http://www.tolarnogalleries.com/judy-watson/

http://www.qag.qld.gov.au/collection/indigenous_australian_art/judy_watson

Judy Watson

Viewers were able to trace Watson's development from the year she travelled to the country of her grandmother's birthplace in north-west Queensland to the present. This was a crucial decision as it is through her matrilineal heritage, the Waanyi people, that Watson has chiefly drawn inspiration. A small lithograph of 1990 titled the guardians gives an inkling of the potent connections Watson made with her Aboriginal heritage. The shadowy figures emerging from a shimmering background are like ancestors standing as witnesses in a dry and arid landscape.

Watson not only expresses her identity as an Aboriginal person and as a woman but she is also fearless in taking a strong political stance. For example, the artist's recent portfolio of prints on display titled a preponderance of aboriginal blood (2005) drew on documents of not so long ago, such as the electoral enrolment statutes which classify whether a person is a full-blood Aborigine (and therefore not entitled to vote) or a so-called 'half-caste' (entitled to vote). Watson selected fragments of these official forms for duplication and in the printing process splashed them with blood-like ink. This meant that the didactic function of the portfolio is eloquent, yet muted; razor-sharp without posturing.

She is also an artist who conveys spiritual power across cultures and several of her works in the exhibition brought Buddhist references together with Aboriginal spirituality. The bell-like stupas in the painting big blue world with three stupas (2004), for instance, and the beautifully resonant lithograph blue pools of 1996 - surely a pun on the heroic Blue Poles by Pollock in Canberra? Watson produced the early prints herself until she realised that master printers (such as Martin King and Basil Hall) gave her more freedom to experiment and explore intricate processes.

The physical reality of her textured canvases corresponds to a rock face and the chine colle, to the fineness of skin. With this exhibition, I was aware that Watson brings a ruggedness of natural terrain into the museum and a sensuousness of the body. But in acknowledging this context, she also asserts issues of how her indigenous ancestors have been traditionally categorised and collected (with anthropomorphic specimens and ceremonial objects). There were etchings with titles such as our hair in your collections (1997). Visual expressions of identity, of place, of country, of transformation and liberation were presented as a continuum in this important survey

Artlink Article http://www.artlink.com.au/articles.cfm?id=2756http://www.northerneditions.com.au/gallery/album12

Examine the Symbolic Context This is a highly symbolic work using colour, shape, line, form, pattern, movement, balance and contrast to convey a visual story. Consider each of these elements and write about what it represent to you?

http://www.northerneditions.com.au/gallery/album12

Judy Watson Vessel

etching image size 31 x 45 cm Edition Size 30

Examine some Symbolic Works This is a symbolic work using colour, shape, line, form, pattern, movement, balance and contrast to convey a visual story. Consider each of these elements and write about what it represent to you?

Another Image to Investigate

Sally HarrisonThe Power of LoveLorraine Pilgrim Gallery

Respond to this image as you did the previous one

Tests + Jungian Type Descriptions

http://similarminds.com/jung/infp.html

Tests ~ http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html Short Test (30 questions)

Medium Test (84 questions) Advanced Test (126 questions)

Short Test (50 questions) Word Test (60 words)*

Word Choice Test (30 pairs) Big 30 Test (155 questions)

Big 45 Test (225 questions) Short Test (50 questions)

Word Test (70 words)* Advanced Test (131 questions)

Freudian Inventory Test (36 questions) Jung (48 questions)*

Eysenck Personality Test (46 questions) Visual Pattern Test (15 questions)

Career Inventory Test (58 questions) Vocabulary Test (<10 minutes)*

Advanced Jung (144 questions)* Word Association Test

Number Pattern Test (15 questions)

Inkblot Test• Your Unconscious Mind Is Most Driven by Peace.

• You have a deeply-rooted desire to make peace in the world. Whether through subtle interactions with loved ones, or through getting involved in social causes, it is important to you to be able to influence the world in a positive way. You have a deep respect for humankind.

• You care about the future of the world, even beyond your own involvement in it, and you inspire others to feel the same way. Your innate drive toward peace guides you in daily life towards decisions that are respectful toward yourself and others. Your psyche is very rich; the more you learn about it, the more you will understand who you really are...

http://uk.tickle.com/test/inkblot.html