Articles
"Death Dances Around My Bed"
Frida Kahlo and the Archetype of Death
Kate T. Donohue, Ph.D. REAT
Frida Kahlo’s words about her death dance became a vivid portrait of how our unwanted agonies can be our greatest teachers. This Mexican artist’s paintings illuminate her life story and illustrate that Frida’s artistic images were her psyche’s voice. For Frida, life and death existed simultaneously from her birth until her death. This paradox compelled her to create images of her bloody and golden body. Frida boldly painted her reality with its pain, losses, and betrayals. The shadow usually hidden is revealed, and then a metamorphosis took place on her canvas. Using a Jungian expressive arts therapy lens, this paper delves into the intimate relationship between Kahlo’s art and the Archetype of Death and the Shadow and its transformation into the wounded but triumphant feminine.
A Transcendent Journey Through the Motherline: A Voyage with Helen Hardin, Southwest Artist
by Kate T. Donohue, Ph.D., REAT
Helen Hardin, a bicultural southwest artist created her own imagistic mythology of a feminine trinity: Changing Woman, Medicine Woman and Listening Woman. These images combine universal themes and Tewa spiritual legends and emerged from exploring the Motherline: the unconscious feminine legacy of one’s family. Using Hardin’s life and transcendent images, this article explores her Motherline individuation process by delving into her paradoxes (personal, maternal, cultural and spiritual) that molded her experience, exploring the dynamic of bridging these paradoxes, the transcendent function and how this led to numinous experiences of the sacred feminine.
Paradox, Precision, and Passion
Passing on the Spirit: Helen Hardin, 1943-1984,
Commemorative Retrospective Exhibition.
Organized by the Institute of American Indian Arts
Santa Fe New Mexico, Summer 1994
Reviewed by Kate T. Donohue, Ph.D., REAT
Paradox, precision, and passion are woven into the life, paintings, and etching plates of Helen Hardin. A Southwest Native American artist, Hardin strove to imbue each creation with her passion and spirit. As a contemporary artist, her work was a bridge between the paradox of her warring internal worlds. Her precision was a compensatory function balancing her unpredictable chaotic childhood and led her into a numinous state in which she danced with her Tewa spirits. This article explores these three themes through a Jungian analysis of her work. Her artistic process climaxed with her most significant work, her Feminine Trinity - Changing Woman, Medicine Woman, and Listening Woman, her representation of the sacred feminine.