I came to my studio eight years ago in a mood. Not the best state for creativity, but I've learned that frustration can foreshadow breakthrough. That day I built the armature for a crow sculpture — three archetypal figures, crow heads and wings on human-like bodies huddled around a fire. Forty-five feet of wire and a few hours of work.
It sucked. The bodies weren't right. Too clumsy. So I shoved it under a table. Every few months I'd pull it out ready to cut it up, salvage what I could, and move on. But I never did.
This week I pulled it out one more time, hacksaw in hand. What if I added tails?
That's all it took. One simple question. The tails provided grace. Some added girth for the bodies and a few changes to the heads created a unifying feel. The crows were showing me what they'd wanted all along. I just hadn't listened.
This is the sculptor's dialogue. I am not in control. I am an active conduit. So I keep asking "What if?" — day after day. Or in this case, year after year, until the right answer arrives. Forcing it never works. Patience and genuine curiosity do.
Carl Jung described synchronicity as meaningful coincidence that logic can't fully explain. This week it arrived with an added bonus. I came home from the studio and rediscovered an old blog post I'd written the very day I built that original armature. There it was — the mood, the frustration, the forty-five feet of wire, the frustration at the end of the day. Eight years ago I wrote about beginning this piece. This week I finally understood it.
I shouldn't have been surprised. I walk past neighborhood crows every day on my way to the studio. I've watched them for years — their tricks, their chatter, their sharp and patient observation of everything around them. They notice what others miss. They communicate in a language not everyone can read. Three of them huddled around a fire, wings across each other's shoulders — sharing a moment that belongs only to them. A secret. An unanswered question. Which is exactly where the most interesting things live.
Jung understood that archetypes speak in their own time, through symbols and patterns older than language. The crow is one of those symbols — trickster, messenger, keeper of what is hidden. I didn't choose them for those reasons. They chose the work. And then they waited, patiently, until I was ready to listen.