Register NOW for Narrative Alchemy: Transforming Archetypal Texts into Healing Images, starting 3/26!
Join artist/educator Jennifer Sullivan in her new online workshop with The Pack! Wednesdays, 3/26-4/16, 7 PM-9 PM EST on Zoom
There is only one way and that is your way; there is only one salvation and that is your salvation. Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from outside? What is to come is created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you.
C.G. Jung
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
Narrative Alchemy: Transforming Archetypal Texts into Healing Images
Wednesdays, 03/26-04/16, 7 PM-9 PM EST (4 sessions)
Tuition: $300
Location: Online/Zoom
Instructor: Jennifer Sullivan
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Carl Jung described myths as psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul. Just as dreams provide insight into the individual unconscious, myths translate eternal, symbolic meanings for collective and universal psychological experiences. In this four-week workshop, participants will select an archetypal text—such as a myth, folktale, or fairy tale—as a foundation for visual exploration. Through lectures, readings, and discussions, students will engage in intuitive and experimental studio projects that explore themes of transformation, feeling, process, and the inner journey of self-discovery.
Emphasizing improvisation, students will develop ideas through drawing and exploratory making, embracing intuition, risk, and spontaneity. Role-playing as symbolic characters will serve as a tool for engaging with contrasting psychological perspectives. The course will culminate in a final artwork or series based on the chosen archetypal text, with the potential for continued self-directed exploration beyond the workshop. Students will be encouraged to consider how research, materials, and historical or contemporary references might inform their evolving work.
Von Franz said that the archetypal image is an act of grace and cannot be forced. However, by building a relationship with our psyche—paying attention to its messages and imagery and collaborating with them through a playful artmaking process—we can engage in creative preparation, inviting the healing qualities of the archetypal experience to appear.
Selected readings may include excerpts from Marie-Louise von Franz’s writings on myth and fairy tales, The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden: Understanding the Wounded Feeling Function in Masculine and Feminine Psychology by Robert Johnson, and Pregnant Darkness: Alchemy and the Rebirth of Consciousness by Monika Wikman.
Suggested themes of exploration: Descent, rebirth, union of opposites, maturation, sexuality, sorting and clearing, stillness, transformation, and the healing of instinctual nature.
MEET THE INSTRUCTOR:
Jennifer Sullivan (b. 1978, New York) creates expressionistic, character-driven paintings that explore personal narratives with a diaristic sensibility, mapping an ever-evolving inner life. Drawing on borrowed plot-lines and protagonists from film, music, and other forms, as well as her own life experiences, her work weaves intimate feeling with shared cultural references. Over the years, her storytelling has taken various forms, from autobiographical performance and video art to her current focus on painting, drawing, monotype printmaking, and hand-painted t-shirts. Based in Ridgewood, Queens, Sullivan holds an MFA in Fine Art from Parsons School of Design and a BFA from Pratt Institute. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include The Tenderness (with Raychael Stine, Emma Gray HQ, 2024) and Sleeper (Turn Gallery, 2021). She has participated in group exhibitions at NADA Miami, Peter Blum Gallery, Marinaro, Klaus Von Nichtsaggend, and the deCordova Museum. Awards include fellowships with Paint School at Shandaken Projects (2020) and the Fine Arts Work Center (2012–13), as well as residencies at The Lighthouse Works, the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, the Ox-Bow School of Art, and Yaddo. Her work has been featured in The New York Times and The Brooklyn Rail.
To learn more about the Narrative Alchemy workshop, visit our website or email sarah@tothepack.com
To register, click below: