Art & Spirit
7 July 2009
Hexagram by Ithell Colquohon ~ www.caduceusbooks.com
Many artists and craftspeople create spiritually resonant art or art whose Spirit can be felt by the viewer. Sometimes artists create their art in conscious dialogue or communication with Spirits or spiritual forces. Some of these creators are signposted here to build awareness of their extraordinary work.
Emma Kunz (1892-1963) lived in Switzerland and as well as being a spiritual healer, or ‘researcher’ as she preferred to describe herself, she created mandala-like drawings using a pendulum and graph paper, often creating each drawing in a single session. She used these drawings in her healing work with her clients. Her work can be seen on the Emma Kunz Centre website at http://www.emma-kunz-zentrum.ch/e/index_e.html#willkommen/.
Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988), the British surrealist painter, author and poet, also held a long interest in the occult and was an initiate and practitioner. Information about her life and work along with some images of her artworks can be found at Caduceus Books.
Pablo Amaringo is a Peruvian artist whose work is most well known in a book he co-authored with Luis Eduardo Luna entitled Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1991). Pablo’s work can also be seen at his website at http://www.pabloamaringo.com/. Amaringo’s work is an ecstatic journey through the world of his spiritual visions in communion with the spirits of ayahuasca.
Elizabeth Williams is a painter whose work evokes surrealism, the experience of dreaming and the spirit of shamanism in images of exquisite colour. Her paintings carry grace, simplicity and provocative intensity and can be found at http://www.artists.com/artists/elizabeth_williams/index.html.
Minnie Eva Jones Evans (1892-1987) was an artist born in North Carolina, a descendent of slaves from Trinidad. In her exquisite article on Evans, American shamanic healer, folklorist and textile artist Jill Bredal writes: “Minnie Evans is one of the first artists I think of when I think of shamanic art, because she made no secret of the fact that a spirit, an angel, stood near her and counselled her as she worked.” Click here to read Jill’s full article.
Vicki Noble and Karen Vogel are the creators of the Motherpeace Tarot deck, beloved by women, artists and feminists (be they male or female). Noble and Vogel started creating the deck in 1978 after both women experienced a somewhat simultaneous yet personal spiritual experience that resulted in the Motherpeace deck. They soon began drawing the deck. The deck was the first round tarot deck to be created and its hand-drawn images speak to women manifesting their visions in an effort to reclaim ancient knowledge and technologies. The website can be found at http://www.motherpeace.com/.
