Excerpts from The Archetype of Medusa in
"The Book of Her"

I met a startling monumental sculpture of Medusa's head in a cistern in Istanbul. It had been used casually to create a pillar holding up the roof of the structure. Apparently, it was refuse that an ancient builder had confiscated for some repair during a past century. When I saw her tipped on her side, dripping with algae, glowing in the floodlit underground, I was moved by a very powerful archetypal image. Here she was, literally in the underworld. Here was the very Medusa, executed by Athena as punishment for her beauty and sexuality and placed in the chthonic pantheon.

Suddenly, Medusa gripped my spirit and my hands, and insisted that these images be presented. Her very real presence thus emerged in six of the thirteen pieces. Sometimes Medusa underlies the prints, almost hidden from view peering out from the underworld to challenge the viewer. Sometimes, she is presented as a full-face portrait, leering at us, reminding us that she has secret knowledge so important that we could lose our life if we are exposed to it unprotected. In other places, she dances across the paper as the Lady of the Beasts leading an above-ground, Lady of the Plants to an unknown destination. Both types of earth's living creatures, flora and fauna, are connected here. In the later numbers of the series, Medusa retires again to the underworld appearing as mortal woman, other goddess images from the collective unconscious, and even the divine mother and her son-lover. Throughout "The Book of Her," she is a polyvalent symbol, a true archetype that represents not simply a piece of the world, but all of it.

We cannot directly image the unconscious, we can only receive the partial images which psyche creates. In "The Book of Her," I offer a vision of the collective unconscious and the seen and unseen archetypes. Artistic creation, especially as I experience it, can be likened to alchemical transformation. The consciousness of the artist meets an emissary from the collective unconscious. A visual expression is born in this intersection, in this union of opposites. The creative work occurs while the artist is in a liminal state, not fully in the world, rather in a prolonged meditation.

The power of "The Book of Her" lies in its authentic journey into the archetype of Medusa. Rarely do we have the opportunity to experience the full range of unconscious imagery associated with that mythic figure. Medusa is both a being of ancient wisdom and a being of exceptional will. She guards the esoteric knowledge that warns of danger. However, there is also the dark side of her personality. Permitting the archetype of Medusa to dominate in one's life can turn one into stone behind an immovable mask. Our job is to find and live in the balanced place.