Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here -  this is a personal response to the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

Joseph Campbell quote - this & other inspiring quotes on ceramics are available from mbartstudios on etsy

It seems strange to me that Joseph Campbell's work on comparitive mythology and religion has been done so recently in time. I mean that it has taken all of history until now for someone to really take a good look at the belief systems around the world and draw out their essences, similarities, histories, relations and differences.


Despite the overdue arrival of this scholarship, oh my goodness was it done thoroughly. Such detail, such comprehension, such insightful cross discipline views and such synthesis and so much careful thought.



Where do we arrive at from this?
We now have a roadmap of how religions evolved. If you can manage to wade your way through the four part series 'Masks of God', of Primitive Mythology, Oriental Mythology, Occidental Mythology and Creative Mythology, your views on religions will probably never be the same. Your understanding of the opposing viewpoints operating in the world will be sharpened.

 We now have the understanding that myths are meant to serve as guides on how to live life and they need to be updated for each time period, each generation. Myths are there to help with how to handle adversity, transitions to different life stages and to help us with what life is all about.


We have an understanding of the structure of the great overarching communal monomyth, the hero's journey, and some eternal truths which have been distilled from it, the most famous being, 'follow your bliss'.

Mythology turns out to be centrally important to humans to function healthily. Myths connect us to another way of being. They help us find happiness.


What a stupendous legacy.





I have a huge admiration for the thinker who synthesised and distilled the roadmaps people have made for life. His explanations are detailed, well thought out and very complex. It often takes me several passes of his information to be able to comprehend and digest what he has to say. I enjoy the challenge. And the rewards are well worth the effort. Too much information out there is too simplified.

While I'm not sure I can call him a wordsmith, Joseph Campbell is a storyteller for the soul. It may be one of the most important jobs there is - reminding us that there is more to life than we can see.

Interview excerpts on how myth aids us in growing out of childhood and into adults:



And how myth helps us place ourselves in the life cycle and accept where we are (very odd audio/visual mismatch from about halfway through - I recommend shut your eyes and just listen!):

More Joseph Campbell links

Joseph Campbell Foundation: http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php
http://www.facebook.com/JosephCampbellFoundation
http://www.youtube.com/user/campbellfoundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here -  this is a personal response to the work of Tom Robbins by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

Loopy. Poetic. Irreverant. Philosophical.
Tom Robbins is a wordsmith and like most wordsmiths gets my admiration just for that fact alone. I enjoy language. I like the way it rolls off the tongue, the soundscapes, nuances, visual pictures, new conceptual landscapes and amusing connections it can make.

Great writing is rare, and the more I read newspapers and online media, the more I realise how rubbish, how low the standard, most writing really is.

Really original stories, well told, that delight and excite the psyche of the reader. That's what Tom Robbins aspires to and that's what I think he tends to hit. His stories are bizarre yet coherant. His descriptions so original he makes most writers look like plaigerists.

So much so that he is said to have redefined the novel and to have a completely unique voice. To have a completely unique creative voice is to me the pinnacle of creativity.



His work captivates me with the way it weaves mythology into today. There is a spiritual or mystical 'meaning of life' element to the way he approaches a story. It's never just bland facts well told. It was no surprise to me to hear that Terence McKenna, Timothy Leary and Joseph Campbell were all friends or mentors. His stories speak to the enduring part of humans, not the day to day part. 

And part of this is pure sillyness. His stories are full of belly laughs. They are undeniably playful. I find them a wonderful reminder to not take life so damn seriously. Have fun. Be silly. It may not be approved of, but it just might be the best way to live.



Comedy allows you to say truer, rawer things to total strangers without being shut out or beaten up than any other method. Cartoons distill what we are thinking in private and don't tell. They get their message through and yet are often seen as not weighty or deserving respect. I don't understand this view.

I think Tom Robbins' writing is like cartoons for our psyche. It bypasses our everyday selves with a raw message and wakes our psyche up and all the while we are laughing at ourselves and shaking our heads with remorseful recognition.



"What I wanted to do in this world was to surprise and entertain and enlighten myself and others by telling stories that had never been told in a style that defied categorization."

"What I do is twine ideas and images into big subversive pretzels of life, death and goofiness on the chance that they might keep the world lively, and give it the flexibility to endure."

More Tom Robbins links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Robbins
Short article by Tom Robbins - The Meaning of Life 

Video interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H60Nfr-lUQ
 

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here -  this is a personal response to the work of Marija Gimbutas by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

Marija Gimbutas was an archeologist with more skills and background than usual in linguistics, folklore, comparative religion and mythology. She worked diligintly and hard  across disciplines for many years to synthesise data from her archeological digs, linguistics, folktales and artwork. She saw connections that single discipline scholars could not see. She went on to make interpretations of these connections that gave the world a new way of thinking about pre Indo-European (Neolithic) societies. Specifically, she believed she had decoded the symbolism and mythologies of the Neolithic cultures.

I am fascinated by her interpretations and intuitive leaps. A lot of her conclusions as to the symbolism and surrounding mythology seem to be based on inferred information and can't be proven, or at least, not easily. Her analysis of the artefacts is not necessarily accurate as they are viewed through the lens of our current culture and time. She has stirred a up a hornets nest with her assertion that Neolithic culture was egalitarian, matrilinear, peaceful and Goddess worshipping.

She stood firm and presented what she had found, despite it being so resoundingly unpopular with the academic world and I respect that attitude and fortitude. I really don't know if her conclusions are intuition gone astray or insightful and accurate.

What I do know is that her book, 'The Language of the Goddess' is a compendium of European Neolithic symbolism. Whether her interpretations are correct or not, Westerners like myself now have their cultural symbolic history compiled and available to them.

When I was introduced to this book I was told a story of when it was shown to Aboriginal elders. Their reaction was one of recognition and an exclamation of, 'this is white man's Dreaming'. My intuitive reaction was similar.

Whether Marija Gimbutas' conclusions as to the meanings of the symbols are right or wrong, I now feel that I have a language of symbolism to work with. And as someone fascinated by petroglyphs and rock art, that is indeed a wonderful thing.

More Marija Gimbutas links

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

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here -  this is a  personal response to the work of the Findhorn Foundation by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

Findhorn nature sanctuary - a meditation room - photo courtesy of TripAdvisor

More Findhorn links

Official site: http://www.findhorn.org/
http://www.findhorn.com/nfa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Findhorn_Foundation

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of Michael Leunig by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.

"In contrast to European dragons that are considered evil, Chinese dragons traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious powers.... The Chinese dragon is also a symbol of power, strength, and good luck." (Thanks Wikipedia)

I've been reading Steven Pressfield's 'Do the Work' wherein he talks about Resistance - the Inner Dragon that constantly talks you out of doing anything that you've decided to do to make your life better. Behind the Inner Dragon is the treasure. ie what achieving your goal/s would bring. This little book very directly shows the characteristics of Resistance, the path of achievement, your allies and what you need to do to get your treasure.

Do the Work is  short and very good. It's available for free on Kindle at Amazon. The Kindle app for iPhone is also free. I don't think you have any excuses. You do? Stop listening to that dragon.

This Inner Dragon is evil. It is Resistance. That is the Western idea of the dragon. Manifestation of evil, blocking the hero (you) from riches. 

Another idea is put forward on Resistance. That which you resist the most, is the most important. The thing that you are most afraid of is the thing that would make the most difference. Resistance as a compass. Head to where there is the greatest fear. An Oriental dragon. Resistance the asian dragon pointing the way to potent and auspicious powers. A marker of the surest way to power, strength and good fortune.

It's the same inner landscape. Two useful points of view. Mythology at your service.

Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of author Alan Garner by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

No, not a visual artist this time. A writer. A wordsmith. A poet. Many of you will be familiar with the work of Alan Garner. The author of 'Elidor', 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen', 'The Stone Book Quartet' and 'The Owl Service' (probably my favourite of his), among others.

Through the unimaginative categorizing of literature, this lucid poet has generally been labeled a children's author. This is simply not true. What he does so brilliantly is to take the ancient stories that are tied to the places that his family has inhabited for at least 400 years and breathe life into them for people not from those places who live today.

He is a mythmaker.

And that is the main reason I admire what he does.

This mythmaker is a craftsman who works with words. He manipulates time, consciousness, atmosphere, fables and intertwines stories. His words are as pared down as possible and yet they speak on many levels. There is a new weaving of reality. There is always depth and the utmost of integrity to his writing.

What he does in words is what I, one day, want to do in pictures.

Here's Alan Garner the person, telling the story of how he recognized an irreplaceable antique find. This is the storyteller at work, in this case relating a tale that is entirely true. I love how, by including the most ordinary of details of personal experience, this becomes a story that could have happened to any of us. It is made so easy to relate to.

The most compelling of all his writings to me so far has been Alan Garner's collection of essays and lectures. 'The Voice That Thunders' is stunning in what it illuminates so poetically and clearly. Bipolar. An attack of a negative engram. The perplexing responses to his books. How a book writes itself through him. The other world of the ceiling. This book is one of the few books I keep rereading.

More Alan Garner links

http://andrew.dale.free.fr/favourites/garner.htm

http://www.ericawagner.co.uk/journalism.php?section=journalism2&id=7

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.