Occasionally, a visionary artist can show us a glimpse of the very foundation of our existence—our civilization, ways of being, cultural practices and beliefs—the structures that grant meaning to our lives.
I had just finished reading an article featuring artist Tracy Ferron in an interview with Bonnie Bright.[1] The interview focussed on a powerful dream Ferron had during a period of academic work, in which “powerful feelings of hopelessness and frustration arose, dovetailing with her personal life where she felt quite ‘stuck’ in shifting her life’s direction after nearly 20 years spent raising five children.” The dream animated Ferron, a conceptual artist, and her creative powers mobilized to produce some astonishing artworks, “performed” by the artist, that sprang from the dream:
In rendering her artistic variations on the dream, Ferron speaks to Jung’s idea of artist as Mouthpiece for the Coming Guest, i.e. the artist as the one who can give us hints of an unknown future approaching us.[2] I was particularly drawn to her work because I have been exploring the connection between depth psychology and art for some years.[3] I have discovered, for example, that contemporary art is hinting at a new set of appearances that constitute a new world—a narrow way through our benighted world of dead things to a living world.[4]
But I am mainly writing here to share my response to her shocking dream:
A naïve young woman arrives at what she believes is an audition, but instead ends up as a sacrifice. … she is murdered and immured in a wall, where the only thing exposed is her left eye.
In comparing Ferron’s dream to her subsequent artwork, I noticed several differences. For example, Ferron’s artwork above presents two eyes and arms exposed, whereas the dream presents only the dead left eye as exposed. An artist is of course free to dream the dream on in any way she chooses but, in doing so, elements that do not belong to the dream and its message tend to creep in and alter the discourse, as it were. So I began to imagine what would emerge from sticking very closely to what the dream is saying—dream as an artwork, if you like: the image of a naïve young woman expecting an audition (i.e. a hearing, expecting to be heard); instead she is murdered and immured with only the left eye exposed.[5]
This is a shocking image that confronts us all. It’s a horrifying sight! Ferron researched many historical parallels to this image of a walled-up murdered woman: for example, sacrifices and ritual immurements that ensure the stability of buildings or other structures, reaching back into antiquity.[6] In Ferron’s historical amplifications, there is no evidence of any body parts of the victim remaining visible at all. Our forbears only saw, after her death, the magnificent building standing, or the blank wall, etc. Citizens could get on with their lives with nary a thought of the sacrificial blood spilt or the murder that took place—murder that constitutes the very foundation of our civilisation and way of being—our modern existence as founded on a long-forgotten murder and immurement!
Ferron’s dream, with only the left eye of the murder victim showing through the wall structure, must therefore be saying something new to us, something we must attend to, something that we never had to attend to previously! Apparently now, unlike any time in the past, we must attend to the condition of the foundation of our existence.
Ferron’s dream is showing us the young feminine spirit, which has so much to say to us in speech that expresses what her left eye can “see” (i.e. intuitions, the invisible, the prophetess, the seer, the visionary, etc.) “She” constitutes the very foundation of our existence, so dominated as it is by the masculine, life-denying spirit today. She is silenced and now lies immured within a brick wall and only her depth-seeing eye is exposed for us to see.
Brick walls became historically possible only with a change in the appearances, around the time of the Romans. Matter lost its feminine mystery, its numinosity, and became just dead content, looking for a “stamp” or form to be impressed upon it from outside, via the masculine mind.[7] Bricks as inert shapeless mud pressed into shape from outside is a supreme symbol of this imposing masculine spirit at work. The Roman Empire was built with bricks!
Ferron’s amazing dream is drawing our attention to the present condition of the feminine foundation of our masculinized civilization, i.e. to the mystical tradition that lies at the roots of the structures of Western culture: “Spiritual guides and experts in other states of consciousness, healers and interpreters of dreams, prophets and magicians who laid the foundation for the world we now live in.” And over a long and excruciating historical process, “their work has been distorted, covered over, forgotten.”[8]
Her present condition is revealed in Ferron’s dream. Now is the time in which we must look, according to the dream! Look at her condition: speech silenced, murdered, body immured, her dead clairvoyant eye looking back at us. Is this her final message to us and our out-of-balance existence? Our civilisation is founded on the gifts of her visionary powers and mantic speech i.e., a mystical tradition stretching back into antiquity. Will we now, at last, attend to her terminal condition as the Nuclear Clock ticks down to its 2 min warning (just today)?
To attend lovingly to her condition as shown in Ferron’s dream, is to begin to participate at last in her devastating suffering and death. Ferron the artist seems willing to participate with her suffering and death, if her performance art is any guide here. Can we take Ferron’s artistic hint as to what we each must do, once the condition of the naive young girl is known to us?
Is it too late?
[1] http://www.pacificapost.com/depth-psychology-art-and-the-archetype-of-the-walled-woman
[2] See my book, The Coming Guest & the New Art Form: https://www.academia.edu/22401031/The_Coming_Guest_and_the_New_Art_Form
[3] See my blog and as well, my papers at academia.edu
[4] See my essay, Light of the World: https://www.academia.edu/35706269/LIGHT_of_the_WORLD_Abandoned_and_Redeemed
[5] My methodology here is carefully outlined in the above essay.
[6] We can think of modern examples too with e.g., Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
[7] Logically the form/content distinction arose and culture changed accordingly.
[8] Back Cover of Peter Kingsley’s book, Reality