“ART MEDICINE WOMAN”— this is how Aviva Gold is presented.
Jungian psychologist, artist, art therapist, teacher, healer, writer, Aviva Gold is the creator of the 'Painting From The Source' method*.
Art Medicine Woman... wisdom that seems untranslatable in French to me. ‘Femme-médecine et artiste’ or ‘guérisseuse-artiste shamanique’? This synergy of practices is nourished by a deep knowledge of the creative process, the spiritual world (and in the case of Aviva, Native American shamanism) but also Jungian and transpersonal psychology. Even today, such a proposal remains difficult to roll out in France.
I discover Aviva's first book, 'Painting From the Source: Awakening the Artist's Soul in Everyone', very soon after its publication in 1998.
I read it, reread it… and practice her method alone in the studio, again and again, without ever showing anything of the productions that emanate from it — all burned. Only the spiritual and therapeutic process of Jungian reference matters to me.
Already then I come into contact with Aviva, so enthusiastic about her vision that I want to translate her book into French. But it was only fifteen years later that I meet her for the first time, at her home in California during a teacher training seminar on her method 'Painting from The Source'.
* Painting From The Source: the website: https://paintingfromthesource.com
CONNECTION
Having left Brittany with no other perspective than a 'soul quest', I spend the three months of winter 2014/15 in NYC where I rent a studio in Hell's Kitchen.
One bright January morning, I leave Manhattan trapped in the ice of a historic polar vortex to fly to Los Angeles. The monochrome remained at JFK, the door of the plane opens onto the four-color. And I suddenly understand David Hockney’s paintings. The light carried by a rain of gold particles ventilated by a hairdryer. Colors appear bright and muted, proud and slow. Very lightly touched by a hint of white, this is how the frank rays of the sun give them this stability.
I smile, perhaps for the first time in years. I have never seen this spectrum in Brittany, nor even in my Italian or Riviera wanderings.
After a night spent reimagining the world with my friend Lida at her house in Ventura*, we head together to Ojai, on the ancient land of the Chumash who are among the rare examples of Indian fishermen on the high seas in America. We drive to meet Aviva Gold.
Her charisma impresses us and in the car, we are much less talkative than the night before.
Aviva is beautiful, slender, luminous. A few fine blue and pink strands enliven her silver hair. I am immediately struck by her gaze sparkling with intelligence, and her scent of freedom combined with an impressive grounding. She seems like a dancer suspended between heaven and earth, between the invisible and matter.
Aviva is waiting for us, palettes, brushes and temperas prepared with serenity in the small studio adjoining her house.
Day after day, like a modern priestess, she initiates us with passion, generosity, authenticity to lead PFTS workshops autonomously. The studio remains open day and night for anyone who wishes to paint there at odd hours. Specific techniques such as "dialog" or 'embodiement' which are already familiar to me, are here sublimated by the strength of the group and the expert guidance of Aviva.
I am discovering the power of collective rituals inspired by Native American and shamanic practices. The impact of this rare transmission on my own creative process will be decisive.
At the end of a deeply transformative retreat, Aviva awards me the certification and I leave California, overwhelmed, and head back to NYC.
INTEGRATION
In 2017, I meet Aviva again in her new home-studio in Oracle, Arizona, for a creative retreat organized in parallel with the filming of the movie 'Path of Life'**.
As long as my tired body supports me, I paint, day and night, sometimes accompanied by the howls of the coyotes that roam around.
On the plane to Phoenix, I caught a terrible bronchitis; sick as a dog, I lack medication. The framework is tight *** and the creative dive is more difficult for me this time. But I share with Aviva such exquisite moments of exchanges, so intimate and precious that they are, with the plants she recommends, my real path to healing.
Having overcome the discomfort, the retreat is all the more carrying a profound teaching — it reminds me of the taste of sesshins****. Masterful lesson, the experience reveals to me another language of the invisible through a practice of attention, a presence to the body, to the breath, to the murmur of silence that I have long sought in the path of Zen.
Video to play by clicking on ▶️
Impressions from the May 2017 Seminar with Aviva Gold, Oracle Arizona
* Ventura, West Coast city 70 miles from LA LAX airport. Ojai, known for hosting Jiddu Krishnamurti, is located 15 miles inland from Ventura.
** 'Path of Life', Film by Thomas Lüchinger, 2020
*** Aviva imposes a tight framework, not only in the studio (the recommendations on the quality of being and speaking are displayed there in large format) but also in collective life to encourage a direct dive into the interiority targeted by the retreat and allow for the unconscious to express itself with the greatest freedom. For example: coffee, tobacco, alcohol are prohibited in the house; anything that could leave a scented imprint on the skin or clothes is formally prohibited: shower gels, perfumes, laundry detergent. There is a lot of similarity with the rigor and discipline of a Zen retreat.
**** Sesshin: in contemporary Zen, an intensive meditation retreat in a monastery or retreat center, essentially centered on zazen (meditation) and samu (work for the community). It lasts 3, 5, 7 days or more and each time arouses in me, on the 4th or 5th day, an urgent desire to exfiltrate myself. Once overcome, the secret aspiration is transmuted into a profound openness of mind and heart accompanied by a desire to never leave the monastery again to work on the mind. Here again, the retreats offered by Aviva will trigger a resistance which, once overcome, leaves room for joy and energy then mobilized to explore the mysteries of Being, Beauty and Health through painting.
LEGACY
I will not see Aviva in person again, despite her insistence on coming to meet her later in the USA, in Switzerland, in Iceland... because during these years I immerse myself in an seasoned practice of Zen and devote my travels and breathing time to sesshins and Buddhist retreats. This regret of having made the radical choice of a single path inflicts a dull pain on my heart, is still vibrant these days.
Aviva, however, will always accompany me from a distance, with loyalty and a tender presence in the heavy health journey that would challenge me for seven years. In my artistic and spiritual journey too, and we will write to each other a lot.
Today I feel her extremely present in my artistic work in connection with the Sacred and Nature, flowers and animals, their essences and their spirits. She regularly rekindles my Jungian loves, inviting me to dialogue with the collective unconscious and the invisible. But her transmission goes far beyond that. What I was looking for in Zen — a work on attention, bareness, an in-depth exploration of the creative process, reflection on the commitment and responsibility of the painter (artivism), the aspiration to create uplifting and healing pieces for the sake of all sentient beings — Aviva showed me it all.
SUPER BLUE MOON
The Chumash Indians originally named the town of Ojai: "awhai", moon.
— Moon —
It was in the soft light of the supermoon — known as 'blue'* — of August 31, 2023, that Aviva left this earthly parenthesis and began her transition.
The blue moon of August this year is today and I am thinking of you, my friend, who is one of the most beautiful muses in the studio.
Thank you ☆
* 'Blue' because it is the second full moon of the same month or sign.
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