The artist has an inherent dilemma . . . the urgent need to communicate and the still more urgent need not to be found.- D.W. Winnicott

I once heard a story about an ancient people and their ritual initiation of adolescents into adulthood. At the proper time, the elders would take the young person deep into the earth through a series of caves. The opening of the last cave was very narrow, just wide enough for the body to slip through.

On the stone floor of this cave was a deep pool of water. The initiate was directed to step into the pool and as the water covered the young person, they became aware for the first time of who they really were and what their purpose was. At the precise moment of supreme realization, the initiate was struck on the head and all their knowing disappeared. What was left, was a trace, a vague sense like the pull of a string that if followed could lead them back to the center of that revelation.

The drawings, paintings and prints found on this site are a record of being pulled
back towards that center. For many years the figure was my primary focus and discipline, a passion informing me of depths yet unrealized. My attention and inquiries shifted from the figure when I returned to the landscape of my birth, the indigenous colors and forms reson-ating. Yet even the landscape yielded as I was pulled deeper into the formlessness that I
am currently exploring.

While in my early 30's I had the opportunity to undergo a five year Jungian Analysis in Zurich, Switzerland. This experience provided me with tools I still use today. The tools have helped to impart an understanding of the slow unwinding and sometimes radical descent into freedom, a freedom devoid of past or future, fear or desire.

Carol Bradbury 2006

RESUME
Click here to download a PDF of my current resume

Quote above from D.W. Winnicott, Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. 1965. New York: International Universities Press.