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Joan Kellogg |
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In Memory of Joan Kellogg (1922 – 2004) by Carol Thayer Cox Joan Kellogg was an enigma to many and I think she rather liked it that way. Those who heard her present at AATA conferences years ago and saw her vast slide collection of archetypal imagery would often be left scratching their heads saying, “Wow! What was that all about?” Joan was brilliant and complicated, a presence not to be ignored. She frequently spoke in metaphor and was capable of transitioning within seconds from a 20th century psychological theory to 4000 B.C. pagan symbolism, from alchemy to quantum physics, from shamanism to the Holy Grail. Those who were intrigued enough to learn more were rarely disappointed. Sadly, those who became frustrated by her tangential journeys chose to discount what she had to offer. I learned long ago that it was best to engage the right brain and assume a slightly altered state to fully appreciate Joan’s wisdom. She challenged us to keep up, having little patience for those she left behind. It took prodigious concentration sometimes to listen so as not to miss a beat. Eventually would come the reward: a sustaining rhythm to connect those seemingly extraneous beats. All that she spoke was not pure randomness. There was an underlying order that has been her gift to us, her all encompassing life cycle theory, which she called “The Archetypal Stages of the Great Round of Mandala.” This model can be applied to understand just about anything, from the evolution of man, to the creation of a painting, to the stages of a relationship. “She may well have stumbled upon the schema for the hardwiring of the human mind…” (Thayer, 1994, p.204). Fascinated in the 1960s with Carl Jung’s work, Joan began her art therapy career as an artist in residence at psychiatric hospitals in Wycoff and Paterson, New Jersey before the art therapy association was founded. Often accused of being psychic because of what she could glean from patients’ mandala drawings, Joan insisted that she was not psychic (though she certainly was highly intuitive) and could teach others to do what she did. She kept her promise, though her courses in mandala assessment were not to commence for another 10 years. In the early ‘70s, Dr. Stanislov Grof invited Joan to be a consultant in his famous LSD studies at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Towson where she continued to collect and reflect upon mandalas and their makers. It was there that she began her study of transpersonal realms and has been recognized for this pioneering work (Farrelly-Hansen, 2001). However, no matter how much she investigated matters of the spirit, Joan prided herself on being irreverent, sometimes alienating people who were offended by her outrageous remarks. Her dry sense of humor would surface at the most unexpected moments. She saw the profane and the sacred as two extremes of the same continuum. For, in fact, Joan understood mysticism and transcendence on a profound level and had a deep reverence for the world of archetypal realities. One of her apparent missions in life was to bridge the mundane and the magical. It was in Baltimore that Joan made some long lasting friendships with colleagues such as Helen Bonny, the founder of “Guided Imagery with Music,” psychiatrists Francesco DiLeo and Jerome Frank, psychologists Valerie and George Bigelow, and Deborah Glik, who was so inspired by Joan that she wrote her dissertation based on research of Kellogg’s theories while earning her doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. Joan also established a close relationship at that time with art therapists Gwen Gibson and Jeannette Fino. In 1974 Joan was granted membership into AATA via a grandfathering clause. She has become best known for her development of a therapeutic and projective instrument called the MARI® Card Test©, which evolved from eight years of collecting, observing, and classifying thousands of mandala drawings by clients. Kellogg’s book, Path of Beauty (1978, 2002), that provides the theoretical construct for her life’s work (The Great Round), was her thesis for her masters in psychology from Antioch in 1977. Art therapists Phyllis Frame, Bonnie Smith-May, and Roberta Shoemaker-Beal were probably Joan’s first protégés in those early days and have remained enthusiastic supporters of her work. Kellogg’s MARI Card Test, which has gone through a number of revisions, has stimulated a wide variety of research with many different populations and is one of four art therapy assessments included as chapters in the “Art-Based Assessments” section of Handbook of Art Therapy (Malchiodi, 2003). Joan is also the founder of the Mandala Assessment Research Institute (MARI). People from all over the world have come to the USA to receive training in the use of the MARI Card Test. Members of The Association of Teachers of Mandala Assessment (ATMA), a corporation that contracted with Joan, have taught her theories since 1989. In March of 2005, a new group, MARI Resources, purchased all rights from Kellogg’s heirs to teach the official MARI Course in Mandala Assessment and to distribute all MARI materials. Joan never considered herself a therapist. Preferring to leave the task of healing to others, she strove to understand how differently people are “wired.” She longed for answers to complex questions about human nature. Often comparing her form of art therapy to radiology, she viewed art products as x-rays of the psyche that can be examined for presence of health or pathology, that can answer questions as to whether treatment is possible and if so, what kind. Although Joan’s focus was on the psychological, she was also astute at assessing possible physiological implications through art. Joan was a theoretician, diagnostician, and researcher of states of consciousness. One of my favorite memories about Joan is her description of when her husband had retired and would wander in and out of the kitchen where Joan was sitting at the table staring into space, thinking. Desiring to help, he would interrupt her by offering cups of coffee or snacks, until one day in exasperation Joan said, “Russ, can’t you tell that I’m working?” Nine years ago, ATMA sponsored a conference at John Hopkins University honoring Joan. The cover of the conference brochure stated: This conference is a celebration of 25 years of the work of Joan Kellogg, M.A., ATR, one of our most remarkable and innovative thinkers in the area that explores the interface between psychology and the arts. Her theoretical model has enabled hundreds of clinicians and researchers to understand how archetypal images, symbols, and colors reflect dynamics of self and psychological development. (Association of Teachers of Mandala Assessment, 1995) Keynote speakers who traveled from afar to pay tribute to Joan included Helen Bonny, Stan Krippner, Don Campbell, and Judith Cornell. A psychiatrist and mandala artist flew in from Russia to present their application of Kellogg’s theory. Expressive arts therapists, psychologists, social workers, a rabbi, and a Tibetan Buddhist monk all contributed to this international conference on the mandala. At last year’s art therapy conference, Joan received a lifetime achievement award from the AATA for her contribution to the field of art therapy. Michael Franklin received it in her absence and Mimi Farrelly-Hansen delivered it to her several weeks later. She was thrilled to be recognized by the organization she had chosen so many years ago to be the umbrella for her work, especially since she considered herself something of a maverick. Joan was also a member of the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Society of Psychopathology of Expression. Joan spent her most productive years as an art therapy theorist in Towson, Maryland; Clearwater, Florida; and Williamsburg, Virginia. Before Joan knew anything about the world of art therapy, she joined the WAVES after graduating from High school in St. Petersburg, Florida. During the war she served as a Hospital Apprentice, First Class, working part of the time at Bethesda Naval Hospital. She received an honorable discharge in 1945 after contracting polio and married Russell Kellogg the following year. Her husband’s vocation necessitated a number of moves, during which time she gave birth to and raised six children. In the 1950s while being a homemaker in Baltimore, she explored color in oil painting classes taught by an artist trained by Morris Lewis. Later, in New Jersey, she focused on collage and actively showed her work throughout the ‘60s. An avid reader up until her death (she was last enjoying Dan Brown’s mysteries), Joan’s library was remarkable in scope, including works in anthropology, creativity, religion, philosophy, psychology, physics, biology, folklore, mythology, symbolism, and color theory. She said she allotted a substantial portion of her annual budget towards books, which she considered as vital as food. Before her move to Colorado 4 1/2 years ago, Joan’s longtime friend Kay Allison, owner of Quest Bookshop in Charlottesville, Virginia, purchased most of her extensive library. Joan was devoted to her friends and her friend’s families. Francis Sporer commented how touched he was that Joan always asked about his mother whenever they communicated. She never failed to ask me about mine as well, and sent my mother many cards and notes over the years, though she only met her once briefly. Joan honored the “Mother” in all of us, was well versed in goddess mythology, and had an affinity for religions and cultures that worshipped Gaia or Mother Earth. In fact, one of the books that she took with her to Colorado was a dog- eared, highlighted copy of Erich Neumann’s book, The Great Mother (1963). Those of us who knew Joan well can appreciate her as the“Archetypal Mother”: aspects of Demeter, Kali, Athena, Tara, Hestia, and Oceana all present in one person! My last visit with Joan was in October 2003 at the assisted living facility where she had recently moved. She was soon to be transferred to a nursing home as her emphysema and congestive heart failure required ‘round the clock care. Michael Franklin and I spent a pleasant autumn afternoon with her as she reminisced about her years of passionate inquiry into non-ordinary states of consciousness, offering Michael books for the Naropa Library that she knew she would no longer need. A poignant moment as she perused each book, it seemed like she was parting with old friends. As our afternoon with Joan came to a close, she shared a prized photo album with us. With a tenderness that reflected the richness of her memories, she reviewed with us meaningful figures and events of her past. As I looked around her room, I couldn’t help but notice what she had chosen to adorn her relatively small space: a striking sculpture of the Black Madonna and a large framed portrait of her dear friend, the venerable Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen Rimpoche, founder of The Tibetan Meditation Center in Frederick, Maryland. The juxtaposition of these two beloved items captured the essence of Joan, who embraced both Eastern and Western thought and made a contribution towards integrating the two. I knew that would be the last time I would see her, though I talked with her by phone several more times before her death. I think she did not ever get tired of living, but she grew very weary of dying. I sensed she was headed for her cosmic home, the stage zero of her Great Round that she knew so well. A visionary and pioneer of art therapy, Joan died of heart failure on January 25, 2004 in Loveland, Colorado at the age of 81. Two sons and her husband of 50 plus years preceded her in death. Three daughters, a son, and five grandchildren survive her. Her ashes were buried next to her husband’s in Pennsylvania at a family memorial service in May. Before her death, Joan made a generous donation of the remainder of her library to the Art Therapy Program at Naropa University. The family requests that expressions of sympathy be sent in her name to this program at 2130 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302. I am grateful to have been Joan’s friend. She enriched my life in ways that I cannot even begin to describe. All the MARI teachers, whom she lovingly called “her girls,” have been deeply affected by her presence in their lives. She left us a legacy that we feel honored to carry on in her name. References Association of Teachers of Mandala Assessment. (1995). Mandala: The sacred circle – A conference honoring the life and work of Joan Kellogg. [Brochure]. Baltimore, MD: Author. Farrelly-Hansen, M. (Ed.) (2001). Nature: Art therapy in partnership with the earth. In M. Farrelly-Hansen (Ed.), Spirituality and art therapy: Living the connection (pp.137-158). Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley. Kellogg, J. (1978). Mandala: Path of beauty Baltimore: MARI. Kellogg, J. (2002). Mandala: Path of beauty (3rd edition, 2nd printing). Belleair, Fl: Association of Teachers of Mandala Assessment. Malchiodi, C. (Ed.) (2003). Handbook of art therapy. New York: Guilford Press Neumann, E. (1963). The great mother. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Thayer, J.A. (1994). An interview with Joan Kellogg. Art Therapy: The Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 11(3), 200-205. |
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