Synchronicity
A process of letting go
Carl Jung defines synchronicity as “meaningful coincidences”. I chose this title because it suggests the process that I go through to come to a final piece. The process starts long before I ever enter the print studio, it started years ago in fact. Even as a little girl I cut pictures out of magazines, saved greeting cards and “precious” objects found on a beach or at a yard sale. Through my adult life I have continued this obsession. When I pick up things at a rummage sale or find photos and letters in a box in my parents’ attic, I don’t usually know what I’ll do with them. It’s not until later when I’m preparing to go to the print studio do things call out to be together. I’ll spread out all my treasures, of lace, feathers, stamps, old books and photographs and see what pops out. Things call to be together and a story begin to emerge. As the artist I combine the objects to suggest a storyline, make an outline but it is the viewer who makes the process complete. You come to the piece and complete the story, flesh out the meaning. There is a part of the collective unconscious at play here that makes these pieces sing. They are more than beautiful works of art. They are a secret whispered, a snippet of song long forgotten, an old joke that still makes you laugh, a line from a poem deeply loved.
On View: Bird and Feather, 15″ x 22″, Monoprint by Lisa Marie Thorpe, 2008. Lisa Marie Thorpe is artist-in-residence at The Bishops Ranch in Healdsburg, California and a member of the ECVA-San Francisco Chapter in the Diocese of California.