Primary Colors

Acrylic on canvas, 4’x5’
2003-2007

This eight-canvas series, PRIMARY COLORS, depicts the eight dimensions of the creative process in human development as presented in Ruthellen Josselson’s The Space Between Us. (Newberry Park, CA/London/New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996)

holding
attachment
passionate experience
eye-to-eye validation
idealization/identification
mutuality/resonance
embeddedness
tending (care)

Just as the primary colors are the essential hues from which all colors are mixed, the first four dimensions are formative essentials for our primal well-being and neurological development. They are also requisites for the emergence of the last four dimensions—leading to psycho-spiritual maturation and differentiation.

These primary movements—dependent on the creative process of giving birth, nurturing life/creativity, and letting go—inform and transform our physical, psychological and spiritual energy. Their absence perpetuates cycles of disconnection, shame and violence.

On a global level, our world consciousness moves through similar stages. Imagine humanity collectively reaching these last stages

PRIMARY COLORS 1
holding  

the containing/grounding environment for emergence of innate potential; the Creator Spirit-  "my rain, wind, and sun"-animates the foundational elements of this entire creative process

PRIMARY COLORS 2 attachment 


the hub for creative experimentation and differentiation

PRIMARY COLORS 4
eye-to-eye validation 


the responsive affirmation which provides existential meaning

PRIMARY COLORS 5
idealization/identification 


the yearning for that which is beyond and larger than self

PRIMARY COLORS 7
embeddedness 


the sense of place/communal memory within a community

PRIMARY COLORS 8
tending (care)


the highest form of loving in context of reflection and struggle