Mary Antonia Wood, Ph.D.
Artist & Professor, Maker & Mentor
"Meaninglessness inhibits the fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything."
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As a visual artist for over thirty years, I've experienced the highs, the lows and the in-betweens of the artist's life. I feel fortunate to have had my work shown in respected galleries and museums, as well as collected by wonderful institutions and individuals. However, even in the best of times, I've sometimes felt a lack of meaning, or an emptiness while translating the creative calling into what our culture calls "career." The thread into the labyrinth of creation can easily be broken - the demands of the marketplace can easily overtake the deeper demands of the creative gift.
I'm currently Program Chair and Associate Professor in the Depth Psychology and Creativity program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. My academic background includes both an M.A. and Ph.D. in depth psychology and mythological studies. My first publication for Routledge is entitled: The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create available at Amazon and Routledge. This publication has inspired a six-week series for creators via Pacifica Extension and will expand to a nine-week session for Kosmos Institute in winter 2026. In my private practice... I specialize in helping individuals reach their fullest potential as creators. The complex territory of creativity includes not only the joy of creating, but also longing, melancholy, and loss. Today we might also describe these feelings as "being stuck" or "blocked." There are times in an artist's life when a reinvigorated relationship with the Creative Spirit – the deep mystery of imagination – can transform art-making into "soul-making." "Psyche is image. In other words, making images
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