Some time ago I read a book by Robert Fritz called ‘The path of least resistance’. It was a marvellous exposition of uses of creativity. I thoroughly enjoyed working through it.

Well, you often find yourself going around loops and back to where you started. At the moment I am reading Peter Senge’s ‘Fifth Discipline’ and in searching through associated websites on the net (www.fieldbook.com) I noticed that Robert Fritz has worked with Senge. I then found a Fritz website (www.robertfritz.com) and reference to a couple of new books by him. One is called ‘Creating’ and sounds fascinating. There is also a recently published book called ‘Your life as art’ which I’m keen to read too.

I’ll come back to these books once I have tracked them down and read them.

Meanwhile, in a couple of weeks I am going to a Workshop which will be run by an actor, looking at applications of creative techniques in work situations. I’m looking forward to this.

Today’s music:

Miles Davis – Double Image

Jack de Johnette – Dancing with Nature Spirits

And a fair amount of quiet too – ah, the sound of silence.

Tags: Art, Books and Reading

Art therapy – a technical formalisation in language for something that I dabbled with at the start of my career. Back in the 1980s I worked within a team of artists of a wide range of disciplines. I was the poet who mucked about with photography and did the latter very badly (noble ideas without the technical skills). We had fine artists, ceramicists, photographers, dramatists etc. It was great fun. We worked with a wide range of people, leading workshops that were either uni- or multi-disciplinary.

It wasn’t really art therapy as such, because the therapeutic intent was not controlled, although the work we did had a clear impact on many of the people with whom we came into contact.

I mention all of this because I am in the middle of reading a book by Anthony Stevens called ‘Withymead: a Jungian community for the healing arts’. It’s an interesting book, even if the style is a little dry and stuffy. The fascinating thing about it is the fact that this early attempt to establish a therapeutic community which used the arts was not formalised and rigorous. It had a clear emphasis on family, and focused very much on the Jungian ideas about active imagination and use of artistic expression as a way of externalising symbolism.

“The aim of Withymead was to encourage people to live the ‘symbolical life’, for once the conscious personality is open to the meaning of symbols it is forever opened to a source perpetual renewal and replenishment.”

Jung describes the act of ‘active imagination’ as the art of letting things happen.

An interesting aside was the extent to which luck and certain apparently random incidents led to the setting up of Withymead. It was the bombing of WW2 that led to people taking refuge at the house that became Withymead. Acts of synchronicity – it is always worth looking for the purpose in seemingly random incidents!

Reading this takes me back to those days of expression and self-expression. At their best, the team were using the time to express themselves as well as encouraging others to find their voice and express themselves. It was a splendid vision, naïve and full of innocence. But it was the fresh youthfulness of it that made it work. We steered close to the edge at times, but the energy of the whole thing made it work.

I still have material that I was working on from that time. It was during that time that I produced ‘sharp / blue breath’ which was the first collection of my poetry which I would claim to be in my own voice (earlier poems were searching for the voice, working from juvenilia in form). I also worked on a small painted cardboard box which was filled with scrolls and tiny booklets representing my life and inner world. It’s an idea that I never finished, but it still sits in my box of secrets and memories under my desk.

Tags: Art, Books and Reading

I’ve been back from holiday for a week now, and things have been really hectic. I’m just finding time to rise out of the chaos and resume the weblog.

The holiday – a week in Languedoc, South France followed by a week on the coast near Begur in Catalonia, Northern Spain. Then, to finish, a weekend in Barcelona. Different cultures, diverse experiences – a fabulous time experienced by the whole family.

High points – all of the Gaudi in Barcelona (especially Sagrada Familia, El Pedrere), the Kandinsky exhibition, the Dali Museum in Figueres, Picasso Museum, waking to the sound of the sea in the mornings, the beach in the cove at Sa Tuna, the medieval town of Pals, the fortified town of Carcasonnes, the tiny harbour of Marseillan.

The huge blast of art, architecture and culture in Barcelona left me thirsting for more time to write.

I took a dozen CDs away, and half way through the holiday the only trace of home sickness was a yearning for the rest of my CD collection.

The CD which has been haunting me over the last couple of months would be ‘blemish’ by David Sylvian. I keep hearing new things in this music in spite of it being so seemingly minimalist.

I didn’t read any poetry this holiday (but I did write two poems). I did read ‘Anil’s Ghost’ by Michael Ondaatje which is a marvellously accomplished novel. I love Ondaatje’s poetic prose style. He is not as experimental as he used to be, but this is a powerful novel.

I’m also part way through ‘Life of Pi’ by Yann Martel (Ondaatje’s fellow Canadian). This is shaping up as a great read – truly original.

Before going away I stumbled across the fact that my local library will arrange an inter-library loan for just GBP 1.50. This means that I can get hold of any book in any UK library for such a paltry sum. I have just managed to track down a copy of ‘Withymead’ by Anthony Stevens which is about the art therapy community in Devon founded by Jungians. To be able to find any book, whether in print or not, is incredible!

Tags: Art, Books and Reading