Authors: David Jay Brown,Rebecca McClen Novick
On September 14, 1989, in her candlelit living room at around midnight, we interviewed Carolyn at her home in Big Sur, California, which is perched on the crest of a mountain cliff (or on the tip of the “dragon’s crown,” as she refers to it), high above the Pacific Ocean. Carolyn spoke to us about the relationship between art and nature, expanded awareness and creative expression, and personal and universal transformation. Musing with us about the living secrets of nature, she looks as though she danced right out of one of her own paintings. Her eyes and smile have a luminous mystery that is also present in much of her work. She has a graceful and elegant manner about her, and one is easily enchanted by her poetic style of expression.
--DJB
DJB: What was it that originally inspired your interest in creative expression?
CAROLYN: It is the discovery of my relationship with the universe, the unknown, that propels my translation. The spheres explored radiate a spectrum of seed-images. The wilderness of the unconscious is lush with the gems of infinity. The ancient codes lie in the seams between worlds. They only await the radiance of our conscious light to be illumined, recognized.
For example, at seven years old, I wrote and illustrated my first book entitled,
The Nanose
. Many years later I found out that my experience then, which was triggered by dust particles dancing in a sunbeam flooding my bedroom window, actually had its inherent meaning in my poetic translation of it, rather than in the external event itself.
Through my impression of the dancing dust particles I had my first recorded interaction with atomic life. My art was the bridge, translating localized conception (dust particles) into atomic theory. I thus experienced intimate dialogue with the vaster universe.
Today my reading of science tells me that the Nanose in my childhood book were monads, or cellular/atomic entities that underlie our contemporary concepts of biology and physics. Even the title Nanose essentially is the Greek word "nano," meaning very small, as in the contemporary innovation called “nanotechnology.”
So art acts as a prescient translation from the unconscious mind, revealing the codes--the consciousness of the underlying forces of nature.
DJB: So, it was basically a need to express powerful experiences?
CAROLYN: Well, it was my interaction with inner experience, rather than the exterior event itself, that propelled the creative expression.
DJB: What do you think triggered these experiences?
CAROLYN: It is in the dynamics of discovery that innovation occurs. I also am saying that I "respond" from the inside out. Rather than having the exterior world give me its reality, I interpret the reality from within myself.
The experiences are woven and sculpted by my particular nervous system. Those certain experiences that need to be lived as part of one's evolvement are the ones to leave the deepest impressions. These impressions imprint their design within me and are the songs that emerge in my tides of creative expression.
Also, it is out of the foundation of my own philosophical architecture that I germinate my art, with subsequent reflection, consciousness. Out of this constant processing within me, which is my life's work, my visible art reveals the seeds, buds, blossoms, fruits, the pollen of my interplay with the unknown. Even the mistakes that are birthed instigate further invention. The propulsion of innovation wings me beyond localized sight.
This last idea intimates the possibilities of developing "laser sight" in the future. This means to inhabit a transparency of being that is so open a system as to let radiance flood it. The vision of our futures could possibly allow us to see through the density that now blocks our vision.
From the architecture of a new way of perceiving, we will peer from the infinite spheres and see into the gossamer connections of our electric loom of being. Our cosmic eyes will see immediately into the true laws that be. Instantaneous perception will bloom in this smoldering symbiosis. Our cellular beings will manifest our consciousness in new sight and technologies of life.
RMN: To what extent is your work autobiographical? How do you use it as a tool by which to access, understand, and integrate your inner processes?
CAROLYN: Being an artist, I am the translator of my experience and thus am the author of my life. Since each of us experiences something in our own unique way, everything we create is essentially autobiographical. I am at once the tool, and the work. The universe is strumming the strings of my nervous system and I record the songs. After the songs are born, either in my paintings, drawings, prose, or poetry, I study and endlessly see different perspectives depending on my own state of being, or cycle of evolvement.
Last Fall, I gave a reading in Monterey at the Cafe Portofino titled "Art as Evolution's Mirror"--my theme being that when artists are working directly from their emerging consciousness, their art is their most honest mirror. I mean, when the work comes from the inner development of the artist, rather than from imitation. Most artists are like engineers reproducing the familiar. This type of art, from the outside in, is not the same art as art that is being created as part of an emerging consciousness. If artists are not involved in the inner consciousness of their work, they can't learn by it.
But each of us has a unique path, and none are to be judged. It's just that for me the conscious reflection is part of the fun of discovery, so I'm blessed with this tool which shines light on my work. Symbolic poetry, which is my bridge of translation, offers a kind of insight similar to the
I Ching
. It reflects back to the participant-viewer or reader. It is a kind of Rorschach, revealing from the truth of the unconscious one's inner shadow.
This way of living requires constant preparation, keeping oneself clear enough to create the space to ride the constant waves of invention. The process is one of digestion, assimilation and integration of the universal flux.
RMN: Do you think you benefited by having a formal art training, and how have you incorporated that?
CAROLYN: In both my painting and poetry, I learned what didn't inspire me. It served to tell me I was to sculpt my own path, sing my own unique song. "Find your own voice," as Anais Nin wrote to me while I was writing
Climates of the Mind
.
RMN: How easy do you find it to be objective about your own creations, and what do you think are the most important qualities that a good critic should have in order to evaluate something from a non-biased standpoint?
CAROLYN: There is no such thing as being objective. Every observer has a particular set of prejudices and preferences, so it isn't possible for myself or a critic to be non-biased. The most essential quality for a critic to have is to be aware of this.
DJB: When you're in need of inspiration, where do you turn?
CAROLYN: It depends on what cycle or season I'm in. It could range from quiet meditation in a beautiful environment, to dashing somewhere for social stimulation. It's all in my relationship to the internal dialogue that the inspiration comes. So, I will draw to me that which mirrors me. The outside inspiration comes from a projection, which later I may say "inspired me," or was the "stimulus." Actually it's the interplay of myself with that which mirrors me. The company distributing my art is called "Atoms Mirror Atoms," which reflects this idea. We are nature's forces translating, in human terms, our existence. Art is my bridge of translation. That is why art is the "international language," as it has the myriad tongues of its artists' voices.
DJB: Are there any particular authors or musicians that have inspired or influenced you?
CAROLYN: Yes, my first mentor was Dr. Carl Faber, then came the writings of Anais Nin. Other influences include: Herman Hesse, Rainer Marie Rilke, William Blake, Vincent Van Gogh, Marc Chagall, Gustav Klimt, D. H. Lawrence, Baudelaire, Dylan Thomas, Benjamin de Casseres, Aldous Huxley, and Mozart. Then there is the current powerful influence of my friends and contemporaries.
DJB: How do you experience and describe the stages of the creative process?
CAROLYN: To begin with, creative expression requires an overflow of energy. It requires me to be a canvas or open page. I offer myself as the film for being photographed by the sublime. It is always out of a random spontaneity. That is why I have paints in different areas outside as well as in my living room. I carry a pen and paper on my hikes. I draw some of my best work while in a car. As to the length of time of the stages, it varies from very quickly to a few months, or longer. Sometimes there is a fermentation or incubation; other times, the flame seems to be ignited in the darkest night.
DJB: How do you see consciousness evolving in the next century?
CAROLYN: Progress is painfully slow. We are still existing on a biological survival level. Nature will use us as its tools to continue its galactic body. For us to survive, we will have to refine ourselves as one with this endless expanding universe. Notice that the word "universe" means united verses. When in harmony, life is a symphony of united verses; when discordant, there is cacophony.
RMN: How do you compare the creative process involved in writing poetry with that of painting?
CAROLYN: My painting and drawing, being visual, are pre-lingual. Poetry and prose, being verbal, are more restricted in their word-clothes. I enjoy both translations, the freedom of the nonverbal in painting, and the architecture of words. They are in constant dialogue, a harmonious chord ascending my song.
DJB: In your three books, there seems to be an evolution of consciousness that is being expressed: a progression from states of psychological difficulty and struggle to ecstatic mystic revelations. How would you describe this archetypal journey from darkness to light?
CAROLYN: I would say the darkness is there before the "witness of oneself' is developed. It's in the capacity to reflect, that one illuminates one's experience and thus can move into the light. The light is one's own star in orbit amongst the galactic systems in constant electrical interplay. The dialogue, the information, the secret messages come from being deeply in reception of these infinite channels. It is a lying back in the embracing arms of infinity, having all in expecting nothing. My books are the charting of this voyage of experiences, the currents in the wake of navigation. Presently I am editing and completing my first prose book titled
The 6th Dimension: Architecture
for a Ecstasy
. It represents the recordings of my own particular vessel as it rides the waves of existence, a vessel united in verse with the universal.
RMN: Many of your paintings reveal mythic combinations of humans and animals. Does this arise from your own experience of inter-species communication?
CAROLYN: Yes, we have an aviary here with thirty-six lovebirds, parakeets, and cockatiels. We're living with owls, hawks, peregrine falcons, chipmunks, squirrels, mice and many other unique creatures. The creatures and I are in daily dialogue. I make a special whistle sound when I paint which I also use to communicate with the birds. They seem to tune in to the resonance.
RMN: Are they usually friendly?
CAROLYN: Yes, unless put on the defensive, which we avoid. In Nature one can see into the ancient wisdom, the order that governs our greater existence, our interactions with one another.
DJB: So you feel that you can talk to Nature sometimes, or that Nature talks to you?
CAROLYN: Yes, I do commune with Nature. It may be necessary for others to also experience a less literal, more poetic language for this to happen. Incidentally, we've discovered that lovebirds aren't necessarily monogamous and that falcons can carry grudges.
DJB: Free-love birds?
CAROLYN: Well, their behavior exposes our misconceptions about their monogamy. The creatures' instincts are the same as ours, except that we are far more complex and lethal. Even though our birds have all their needs met in the aviary, they are still programmed in a survival code, and will fight if territory or sex is involved.
DJB: How has your location influenced your artwork?
CAROLYN: We are living 500 feet above the sea, with a 360-degree view. This serves to keep a lid off our heads. The beauty is a never-ending, changing spectacle. We receive the winds from every direction, which can be quite a challenge to live with. The wildly divergent energies, forces of the "dragon's crown" where we live, are all translated into my art through the instrument of myself in concert with it all.