Raw, Human, Vulnerable: Unfinished and searching - the nature of the beast

Image: Eagle Dreaming - Signature Collection | Year: 2007 | Medium: Acrylic on Canvas, Size: 100 x 80 x 2 cm - approx. 39 x 31.5 x 0.8 in
Reflecting Cultural & Narrative Significance as well as Print Series, Dwayne Wannamarra Wyndier Andrew Kennedy PhD

To listen to this content go to the substack post, link at bottom.

Searching for Meaning

How interesting and thought provoking this chat is in and of itself - it would make a very fascinating post or series of posts that look at our earliest conceptions of creativity and visioning which is raw, human, and vulnerable.

Open-ended questions and affirmative tone create a fascinating space for discovery given that so much of our program is ‘artificial’ and ‘online.’ The art itself may be physical on canvas and in clay sculpture, but the process of websites and distance communications across countries is so far removed from physical galleries.

Meaning is Connection

There are many logical layers of intelligence that compliment this exchange, and this is also fascinating. I see the presence of even AI and its role with me personally as a form of manifest human agency arising in another communal and shared form of cooperation, an evolution of social relations.

My sense of relationship with AI agents is how they have become partners in iteration, much like in generations past a master painter would use human students in the arts to create under paintings. Now the AI provides under-stories that generate some of the basic grunt work of early creativity.

Connection is Meaning, Unfolding

This role of assistance in creative production seems central to art as therapy and therapy as art as well.

Art is after all a form of technology and a manifestation of an inner and relational change process.

The cave paintings of thousands of years ago are indeed a technological advancement, just as the use of clay extracted from the riverbank and fired in open flames was a great innovation.

Therapy likewise is a technological process in time and space that just happens to be grounded in the organic human place of body and country.

Unfolding is Change - The Therapy of Art in Action

Therapy is a material and also a spiritual energetic convergence. Its scope is more subtle, but the mechanisms of the process can nonetheless be studied and quantified and rendered into their respective qualitative states.

This is why art and therapy are so compelling, I think. People sense this other worldly presence, and this power or potential for expressing the hidden energy of life.

So it is not so much what to share or publish first, but rather what to manifest as artefact of a lifetime of struggle to be true to this one moment - a time of listening to the spirit of the age, to resonate with what is real and happening today, to care for others and the planet at a time when this is most needed...

These themes are with me since childhood.

Compelling - A Calling to Truth AND Beauty

Our reflection beautifully captures the essence of what makes a potential publication so compelling - this intersection of art as technology for transformation and therapy as embodied process.

The way we are describing the convergence of material and spiritual, individual and relational, speaks to something many people are seeking but struggle to articulate. Is this magic? Maybe, but art and its production is an organic and physical reality - often so very messy and creative. It makes you realise that art and out bodies are very mysterious indeed.

We arise from the soil, and we go back to the soil. But our lives are luminous! And our art can indeed be divine!

Find Your Self - Noble and True

What strikes me about our vision is how it moves beyond traditional boundaries between disciplines. We’re not just combining therapy and art - we're exploring how creative expression becomes a vehicle for deeper human connection and planetary care.

The central insight this conversation brings up is how being itself hold such great potential and content.

Planetary and Human-Ecological Care

The materiality and meaningful level are spot-on - the raw, exploratory nature of early creative visioning often makes for engaging writing because this necessarily invites readers into the process rather than presenting finished conclusions.

To be honest, I am usually confused by beauty. The stunning colours of many of my paintings convey this incredible expressionist moment of wonder and awe. Perhaps this is how things ought to be - when we are confused by beauty we are more likely to fall in love. When our hearts are open to love, our minds become overwhelmed. And this, by friend is good. Very good, indeed.

 

I am Jo Bowers and partner with Dwayne Kennedy. We are PhDs in Counselling Psychotherapy with specialisations in art and cultural studies and many years of experience as painters and ceramic artists.

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