Event 2: Ann McCoy

A screenshot including Professor Vesna, Ann McCoy, and me

In the event “Alchemy + Art” with Ann McCoy, she opened my eyes to the world of alchemy. Prior to this lecture, I did not know very much about alchemy. Now, I understand alchemy and the power of tapping into one’s unconscious (“History”; McCoy). I enjoyed asking questions, listening to her personal experiences, and hearing other students’ questions, as they all provided me with a larger lens of what alchemy is.

McCoy is an artist; she paints, sculpts and draws with colored pencils. She has studied alchemy since the early 1970s in Zurich and Rome. In Zurich, she worked with Professor Carl Alfred Meier, the successor to Carl Jung, a very accomplished psychologist (Fordham). McCoy works with the dream world to shape the physical world. She combines these two areas of her life through creating art conveying alchemy as a form of what occurs in one’s subconscious.

A screenshot from the event of McCoy standing in front of a piece at UCLA

Her personal experiences, both reality as well as dreams, have influenced her art. She attended graduate school at UCLA, and above is a photo of her in front of one of her pieces at UCLA. In this piece, one can see water, an important symbol in alchemy, representing different meanings to different people–from a baptism to washing something (McCoy). To her, it is a spiritual flood that opened her up through an encounter with something larger than herself. She dreamt of being under water, where water was a symbol of the unconscious. In the event, she said it was as though one part of her life ended and another began after she created this piece (McCoy).

A drawing she made of the Red Sea, showing the importance of water (“The Red Sea”)

She also said we are often dealing with personal history that is transformed by the transpersonal part of the psyche. Going into the unconscious can help us learn about ourselves. In fact, about 95% of what happens during life happens when below consciousness (Szegedy-Maszak).

A screenshot of the Zoom of her standing in front of “The Death of My Father”

McCoy standing in front of the same drawing (“Ovum Philosophorum”)

The screenshot from my Zoom above is of her standing in front of her drawing “The Death of My Father” when she was younger. The color pencil drawing contains an egg, which is symbolic of new life. Eggs can also represent incubation and where processes within the psyche can heal people.

A screenshot from the event of “Hermaphrodite”

A photo of “Hermaphrodite” (“Hermaphroditus: Ann McCoy (2016)”)

Her piece “Hermaphrodite” was inspired by a dream she had. She said this piece represents the mystical marriage of males and females.

McCoy brings the spiritual realm into people’s lives and show us that there are parts of ourselves on a larger voyage.


My Zoom Registration


Works Cited

Fordham, Frieda. “Carl Jung: Biography, Archetypes, Books, Collective Unconscious, & Theory.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung. Accessed 18 April 2022.

“Hermaphroditus: Ann McCoy (2016).” Tree of Life, https://treeoflifeartists.org/tree-of-life-grantees/2016-grantees/ann-mccoy-2016-. Accessed 18 April 2022.

“History.” CG Jung-Institut, https://junginstitut.ch/en/About-Us/History. Accessed 18 April 2022.

McCoy, Ann. “Alchemy.” Ann McCoy, https://annmccoy.com/alchemy/. Accessed 18 April 2022.

McCoy, Ann. “Alchemy + Art.” DESMA 9: Art, Science and Technology Lecture Series, https://mailchi.mp/ucla/ucla-lunch-labs-artsci-2552421?e=%5BUNIQID%5D.

“Ovum Philosophorum.” Ann McCoy, https://annmccoy.com/alchemy/ovum-philosophorum/. Accessed 18 April 2022.

“The Red Sea.” Ann McCoy, https://annmccoy.com/alchemy/red-sea/. Accessed 18 April 2022.

Szegedy, Marianne. “Mysteries of the mind.” Auburn University, http://webhome.auburn.edu/~mitrege/ENGL2210/USNWR-mind.html. Accessed 18 April 2022.

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