Plumbing the creative depths of the soul
This is a technique developed over decades by Tim Holmes, diving into the encounter with a model to find each one’s own true self.
Of a morning one climbs out of one’s bed into a relationship with the world. And if one encounters there another human being, one enters into a marvelous theater of endless possibilities.
We humans cannot help but project our unconscious material onto any other person.
In any interpersonal encounter what you experience in the person before you is an indecipherable amalgamation of the other’s personality and your own projections. Who is whom, really?
For each of the partners in an encounter, only some portion of the ingredients are conscious. No wonder the results are so enigmatic!
Model-Artist alchemy is like a combination of theater, psychotherapy and professional wrestling. It is perhaps the first development of the ancient tradition of drawing from the nude since the 19th century, when women were first allowed in the studio as artists.
In Model-Artist Alchemy we attempt to unravel the complexities of this strange entity between ourselves and the other that forms a “third space”. By concentrating on the fact that our relationship reflects a moment––unique in all of history–– resulting from an inextricable combination of our personality features, we can begin to explore the mystery of the invisible realm of the psyche that forms perhaps the most important aspect of our lives.
In our sessions we set up a kind of “relationship laboratory” where we encounter another (the other) in a somewhat intimate setting where each is provided safety and yet absolved of the responsibility that we assume in any normal interaction outside the lab.
With such mutually agreed measures in place, we are free to explore ourselves and the other with courage, curiosity and respect.
Alchemy is about transformation. Separate entities in the world come together, heat is applied, and the entities are transformed. What Carl Jung discovered is that a similar alchemy happens in relationships. He and Freud he developed what he called the “love cure” , a kind of kinship libido, where a man and a woman reveal in each other parts of their own psyche that are otherwise invisible to them. Unlike a normal love relationship, which is spontaneous and uncontrolled, this is a more subtle relationship, a controlled encounter, which is very difficult to achieve, because it is undertaken in the imagination and never realized in the outer world. The man finds in the woman, his anima, His creative, spiritual and emotional side, which is often hidden. Meanwhile, the woman finds her animus which is her voice, her thinking her spiritual guide. A person cannot come to own their full potential without modulation through a partner, “the other”. The woman brings to the man certain elements that are undeveloped in him that he can only find in her, and for her likewise.
“The lab is carefully constrained, providing safety for all involved. This process has become a central theme of my work and has produced some of my most creative art. But it has also deeply influenced the models I’ve worked with. Now we are sharing this technique to encourage others to explore in their own way.” – Tim Holmes