Art Exhibit at Pepperdine University
click image to read Carolyn's "Art Thoughts" from a 1989 notebook entry
Fueled by a need for creative expression and a lifelong fascination with psychological and spiritual transformation, Ms. Kleefeld is the author of three award-winning poetry books that explore these archetypal themes. These books have been used as texts in university courses worldwide and have been translated into Braille by the Library of Congress. Her book, The Alchemy of Possibility: Reinventing Your Personal Mythology (Merrill-West Publishing), with an introduction by Laura Archera Huxley, combines her visual art, philosophical prose and poetry, and is used as an inspirational text and oracular guidebook by healers as well as art and psychology professors.
An interview with Ms. Kleefeld is included in the anthology Mavericks of the Mind: Conversations for the New Millennium (Crossing Press), as are interviews with Alan Ginsberg, Terence McKenna, Dr. Timothy Leary and other cutting-edge thinkers of our time.
click image to read interview with David Jay Brown -
featured in Mavericks of the Mind
Her most recent book, Kissing Darkness: Love Poems and Art, a lovers’ dialogue in poetry written in collaboration with David Wayne Dunn, was published in 2003 by Riverwood Books, an imprint of White Cloud Press (publishers of Kahlil Gibran).
Over the past two decades, Ms. Kleefeld has created an extensive and diverse body of drawings and paintings, ranging in style from romantic figurative to abstract. In her language of poetic imagery, Ms. Kleefeld expresses the passions of the human heart and a pantheistic reverence for the Big Sur wilderness she inhabits. In addition to being featured in art magazines and textbooks, her award-winning art can be found in the personal collections of Ted Turner, Laura Archera Huxley, and many others, as well as at the United Nations, and in hospitals, galleries and museums nationwide.
S E L E C T E D H O N O R S & A W A R D S
*Art featured on front cover, The Bodhi Tree Semi-Annual Newsletter* 30th Anniversary Issue 2000
*Art auctioned at Christie’s, as part of Dr. Timothy Leary Estate Sale 1998* Guest Eulogist, Allen Ginsberg Memorial Service, Wadsworth Theater, Los Angeles, California 1997
*Guest Speaker, Second Annual Arts Festival, Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California 1995*
*Guest Speaker* Albert Hoffman Foundation, Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, California 1995
*Interviewed on film by renowned cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond* For documentary which aired in Europe on Big Sur artists 1994
*Guest Speaker on panels at UCLA & UCSC after publication of Mavericks of the Mind: Conversations for the New Millennium* With such speakers as Dr. Timothy Leary, John Lilly, M.D. and Laura Archera Huxley 1993/1994
*One-woman exhibit and poetry reading at Gallerie Illuminati, Los Angeles, California 1990*
*Numerous gallery and museum awards and exhibitions between 1990 and the present* In New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Carmel, Big Sur and other locations nationwide (list of exhibitions available upon request), as well as a line of fine art cards.
As a Flag
Over the years,
pieces of myself have died.
The winds of time
have hurled themselves relentlessly
against my anthem.
I stand now as a flag
to my experiences –
worn and tattered,
on the cliff’s edge,
gazing out to sea.
Yet I keep singing,
like the birds
after the storms –
like the sun-drenched day,
smiling with innocence
after the wind’s assault.
Falling again into
the eternal moment,
I bow like a wavering flag
before the sun.
© 2004 Carolyn Mary Kleefeld