IN THIS ISSUE 

“From December 1913 onward: he carried on in the same procedure: deliberately evoking a fantasy in a waking state, and then entering into the drama. These fantasies may be thought of as a type of dramatized thinking in pictorial form. p. 200 THE RED BOOK

“Jung’s self-experimentation also heralded a change in his analytic work. He encouraged his patients to embark on a similar process of self-experimentation. Patients were instructed on how to conduct active imagination, to hold inner dialogues, and to paint their fantasies.” p. 205 THE RED BOOK

EKPHRASTIC IMAGINATION

It must be emphasized that what I and many other ekphrastic poets do is not active imagination of the type practiced by Jung and others. It is not a free-floating, self-induced trance, but there are resemblances. The ekphrastic writer starts and ends with the art work which is its subject. Such a writer is grounded in the work of art as much as in his/her psyche. Whereas in active imagination it is the imagination that produces the vision and, possibly, painting or art work, in true ekphrastic writing the painting itself is the vision. What follows may drift away from the painting into personal fantasy, but writer’s fantasy and psychic health depends on the overall subject being rooted in the art.

Marco Rosales Shaw’s art and my experience

I find Marco’s paintings stimulate me to ‘evoking a fantasy in a waking state,’ as mentioned above. This may be confusing so let me illustrate by using examples of Marco’s paintings and my poems based on them.

Marco’s “Night Bird” and my “Nachtmusik”
I am not sure how the blue and white strands on a dark background set me fantasizing about night and two particular characters- the blind dancing girl and the sage. These figures have been with me before and resemble figures I found later in Jung’s RED BOOK. When I returned to the painting, the entangled lines had told me something of the mystery of their archetypal dance.

Marco’s “Icarus” my “Contact”
The coiling strands and arabesques along with the breaking up of the feathered wings are beautiful evocations of Icarus’ fall and took me first to the moments the fall began. I felt the fall as music until the colors seemed sounds. This part of the fall comes to a conclusion with Messeian and Scraibin, two composers who heard color as sound (synesthesia). The moment of the painting, just before contact, brought me back to Icarus’ present in the painting.

I hope these two examples give some idea of the latitude ekphrastic writing observes when confronting art, and, most important, how the art in question is the beginning and ending of whatever world is being explored.

ARTBEAT:  Is there a connection that you feel between yourself and the artist during this process?  If so what is that like?

Stan Morner:  Yes, there is a strong relationship. I feel the artist as guide leading one into specific inner realms. To what degree these realms coincide, where the overlapping occurs, when the methods are similar: always fascinating questions! The bottom line is that the artist saves one from indulgence and digression.

ARTBEAT:  Please offer any other insights about this event and about Ekphrastic poetry in general and in particular anything you would like to share for young aspiring poets and students.

Stan Morner:  I think of the paintings I liked and did not write about in the Mixology Ekphrastic Event. The breadth of the exhibit is so much more than what we can cover in this space. People should know that.  To students I say, “Do it all. Write. Draw. Dance. Sing. Part of the fun will be watching  them all come together one day. Don’t hurry.”

 - end-

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