Welcome to besensitive.com, transpersonal artist james woody!

A scientific point of view.

Transpersonal Art is one of the disciplines considered by Boucovolas (1999), in a listing describing how transpersonal psychology may relate to other areas of transpersonal study.

A Transpersonal Artist view-point:

The art world is between two worldviews, one slowly dying, and one not yet born.

Transpersonal Art is the "new" modernism, it is the power of now. Paints and pigments can be approached as ritual objects, magical energetic substances, we create a space for manifestation, we don't need to invent or devise from our minds. Painting or the ownership of them can be a meditative ritual, a ritual of affirmation and manifestation. When we are present with the actual reality of what we are doing, breathing, with our ritual objects, our paint, paper or canvas to hand, when we are clear what is before us, we can take the space-time to dwell with the work in its such-ness, making every part of the process a trance inducing play, rather than racing to a foregone conclusion that we hold somewhere in our heads. Its the difference between goal-orientated behavior, contrasted to the attitude of appreciating every phase, every process as an end in itself. No part of life or art should be merely rushing from A to Z without appreciating the journey in its fullness along the way. Every moment is complete in itself. With art and life, there is space and opportunity at every phase for invention.

What is Design Psychology?

According to Toby Israel, Ph.D.a visionary founder of the new field of Design Psychology. "The purpose of Design Psychology is to create environments that reflect the individual or group as well as encourage positive change". Using design psychology to create inspiring spaces. Design psychology is defined as a process, involves a sort of environmental autobiography, where the client meticulously, methodically explores the places in their past and present that elicit the most positive memories - what Toby calls an environmental family tree. Watch Toby Israel's television interview (Windows Media Player required).

What are Woody's paintings?

Woody's paintings are not derived from drawings, they are organic memory, spontaneous reactions to color and movement. His works are developed from his vision, not evolved from a pre-determined expectation, most of his works are considered interactive, allowing the viewer to find within the image their own reality. We are making this point because some academics have defined Woody's paintings as a derivative of the Action Art Movement. "Action Art" is a term first coined by Harold Rosenberg, it refers to unconventional techniques of applying paint to a canvas and connected to the Abstract Expressionist movement. More precise in its meaning, Action Painters believe in the expressive power held in the actual act of painting as much as in the finished product. Rosenberg defined the notion of the canvas as seen by the artists in this movement as being not a picture but an event.

Transpersonal art is not magic, it is the creative imagination.

Graham Wallas (1926) identified the creative process as occurring in four stages: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. He explains further, the most important stage of the creative process--incubation--occurs in the unconscious. Verification is where the solution arrives in the unconscious and becomes manifest to the conscious awareness. When the artist is there the image s/he has discovered 'appears'. In newer creativity studies, Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi (1996) characterizes the experience of functioning in the creative state as one of being "in the flow". Successful engagement by artists in the creative process yields what Joy Guilford (1956) identified as divergent ideas and forms characterized by fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.

Questions to ponder:

What do you think the quintessential art movement will be that accurately reflects the moments of our time?
How will our collective creative visions survive the external, the digital and the cyber-worlds?
What is the imagination when the ego is anaesthetized, can we behold the world anew?

What is Transpersonal Art?

The following definition of Transpersonal Art is an excerpt from the manifestos of James e. Woody.

"Transpersonal art is the symbolic reenactment of the abstract imagination, images of a timeless and internal universe, that are reflective in accordance with the knowledge of our time, organic expressions that demonstrate the eternal magic of the human condition. Transpersonal art accurately reflects the multiplicity of our reality, by expressing the realm of our primary meaning, a universal mode of consciousness that envisions life as sacred. These images may appear mystical, literal or conceptual, because the abstract elements vary as representation of the known, the less known, and the unknown. Whether you view Transpersonal art as simply a mirror of ordinary biological urges or as contact with other worlds filled with living beings, what is certain, is they are our collective dreams and visions, the dramatic personae of your own imagination realized as an independent entity with a life of its own." copyright, 1991, james e. woody

The objective of this website is like unto a journey. Within these pages we will examine the purpose of Design Psychology and how it works to create environments that reflect an individual or group as well as encourage positive change; the origins and purpose of Art Therapy and the birth of the Transpersonal Art Movement.

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this is the way

to the online galleries .

For all inquires please contact: Ms. Ann Reade-Moore via email us at info@besensitive.com.