C.G. Jung’s Red Book and Maria Taveras’s Dream Art

C.G. Jung’s Red Book

My “Dream Art” derives inspiration from the Red Book, the private journal in which C.G. Jung recorded his “active imaginations.” The New York Times Magazine has called the Red Book the “Holy Grail of the Unconscious” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html).

The Red Book, which is now being published as a facsimile and English translation, is being exhibited publicly for the first time ever at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City from October 7, 2009, to January 25, 2010 (http://www.rmanyc.org/events/load/308).

In the Red Book, Jung transcribed his dreams and fantasies and illustrated them in beautiful color. The Red Book resembles a medieval illuminated manuscript or the engraved visions of the romantic poet William Blake.

The Red Book exemplifies the technique that Jung calls “active imagination.” Active imagination is the Jungian method for engaging in a dialogue with images that spontaneously and autonomously emerge from the collective unconscious in dreams and fantasies.

This is the technique that I draw from to create my “Dream Art.” I sculpt and paint the psyche. I create works of art using archetypal images from my own dreams. It is a creative process that I call “interactive morphing.” (Morpheus is the god of dreams in Greek mythology.) As Jung does in the Red Book, I engage in a dialogue, or conversation, with the images that emerge from the collective unconscious in my dreams, and then I render these images as sculptures and paintings.

Philemon

The Red Cross

The Shadow

The Serpent and the Tree