Wednesday 26th July, 2023
Are you bathing in a subconscious moonlit lake of crab claws & snarling wolves? Is there a queen of the night standing over you, handing you a sword & telling you to chase a cup? What about a beam of sunlight landing on your forehead & filling you with the urge to proselytise? Maybe you eat a talking fish & now you know everything… et cetera, et cetera, eth chetera!
I’ve been diving into the world of the subconscious in my journey to develop artistically. As a part of my thesis, I need to base my research in someone who’s considered to be much smarter than me. I’ve gone with Carl Jung, cause the serendipity linking my ideas to his work are just too synchronistic to overlook. So the concept of ‘subconsciousness’, both collective & personal will feature heavily in my artistic development. My idea is that we can, as artist/public figures, take shortcuts into the hearts & minds of the public, by tapping into both a collective & a personal subconscious… by associating ourselves with characters & ideas they are already familiar with on a deep level, & giving them an idea of who WE are, very quickly. I’ve spoken about this before in this blog, but that was before I started studying Jung.
Something I found out, after I had begun researching Tarot symbolism, is that Jung ALSO studied Tarot symbolism… another link in our sexy chain. So I’ve been venturing into something that I swore off as poppycock my entire life. Ya see, my mum reads tarot cards. Since I was a kid there were books & symbols dotted around my life, my mum would do readings about me, & I even had a card associated with me. (the Magician) Naturally, as all must, I rebelled against my parents in any way I could. To rebel against my very active father, I became apathetic. To rebel against my mystic mother, I became cynical… (I thought I was being logical, but I wasn’t smart enough to know the difference back then.)
So, just like I swore never to become an electrician, like my father, only to end up rewiring lights for my first circus show… I so too will now learn about tarot cards, & its mystic symbolism… like my mother. (we really can’t escape becoming our parents, can we?)
These days, with regards to ‘Nathan Mac’, the direct & secondary associations to the Jungian archetypes is the the Fool. An archetype that so perfectly overlaps with the Tarot symbol of the Fool. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. A lot of, if not most artists take the role of a ‘Fool’ character. The Fool is seen a young person, about to begin a journey, venturing into the unknown. They are playful, creative, & the person who is yet to ‘become’. They also bare a resemblance to artists (& clowns), in that they transcend the hierarchies around them. They are equally comfortable (or uncomfortable) with the fanciest & simplest of folk.
Some of the symbolism of the Fool involves a white rose (innocence), a dog sometimes warning the Fool of danger (no idea), a cliff that they’re about to walk off (the journey), a gaze upwards to the sky (ignorance), & a lil bag over their shoulder (poverty maybe? or minimalism?). Unfortunately for ‘Nathan Mac’, most of these don’t make sense. I’m a cat guy… & also a hare guy but that’s a different symbol for a different week. I do love roses, but I like the smell, taste, & pink colour associated with it all… so maybe I’ll opt for that image instead. A gaze upwards is very ‘Nathan Mac’, & the walking off a cliff thing could be adopted too… or some kind of drop.
Some famous ‘Fool’ type characters you may know of would be ‘Peter Pan’, ‘Aang’, ‘Jake the Dog’, ‘Monkey D. Luffy’, ‘David Bowie’, & a whole bunch more but I’m tired of listing…
There are other cards that I’m connecting too. The ‘Hanged Man’ is one that entices me for the imagery. A guy in baggy clothes, strung upside down by his ankles? Well if that isn’t a great analogy of a Corde Lisse artist, then I dunno what is. But we’ll get there as my research unfolds.
For now, I’ll wish you well… & maybe I’ll see you in your dreams.
Nathan
