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Image: Frida Kahlo, taken by her father Guillermo Kahlo in 1926
Image: Frida Kahlo, taken by her father Guillermo Kahlo in 1926

Yesterday I was writing about the Muse, about Mnemosyne the goddess of memory and her daughters the 9 Muses. Muses are usually feminine figures such as Beatrice leading Dante in the Inferno, representing the splendour of divine revelation as well as the flesh and blood beloved. It’s not only women who play the role of the muse though, men also provide inspiration for women… and women for themselves.

The muse is different to the anima or animus projection. It’s true that in many cases men and women admire qualities in their partners which they don’t believe they possess themselves. Sometime this results in putting our partners on a pedestal or seeing them through rose-coloured spectacles… it doesn’t end well. To admire a quality in a person and recognise that we are attracted to them because we aspire to expressing that quality is getting closer to the idea of the muse.

Women, especially women artists have sometimes rejected the role of muse in a desire to be creators rather than subjects of creation. Anais Nin once said,

“For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue—that I had to do the job myself.”

And for Frida Kahlo who claimed the inner muse for herself and her own creative work.

“I am my own muse, the subject I know best.”

Personally, I have been and continue to be inspired by men; In the past I projected a lot onto the men in my life. While my own creative and generative powers fed the relationship-and often the creative projects of my partner-my own creative life lay unrealised. As I got older, I reclaimed my creativity; I learned that to birth creative projects requires a left-brain, masculine, rational, and structured approach in contrast to the right brain, intuitive, imaginal realms from where creative inspiration is born. The task of the artist is to move between the two states.

I agree with Anais Nin, for too long women have been the muse, and even when they do become the artist, historically speaking their work is often over-looked or undermined.

For me, and maybe for other female creatives- and the mystically inclined- the task is to build a bridge between the inner world of psyche and the conscious world of language. Metaphor, symbol, mythology, dreams, and visions are the language of the soul. The medium can be anything.

I am taking things a step further; I have signed up for a 15-week art course with an awesome Visual Artist- 2 classes per week. Yesterday was the first class; the professor asked the question “What level are you at with your drawing- from Picasso to stick people?” My answer- “beginner stick”, Still, I am willing to take a deep dive into the process, arouse my inner muse and give her another channel to work with.

 

 

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