| Despite advances made by creativity researchers and feminist scholars in the last three decades, there remains a paucity of knowledge in our scientific and critical databases regarding the lived experience of women and, in particular, the struggles that exceptional or gifted women experience in creating artistic works. The research question was, "What was the role of the experience of creativity in the life and work of Diane Sloan (1940-2004), California iconoclast and Super-Realism artist of the 1970s and 1980s?";This qualitative case study included archival, psychobiographical, and intuitive-inquiry methods to investigate nine primary and secondary source materials including art work, published interviews, journals and letters, academic papers, critical reviews, photographs, feedback from "key informants," and an in-depth interview with a close friend and colleague of the artist. Interpretation from inter-subjective, existential, and Jungian theory was applied to narrative analysis of multiple data streams across three "creative cycles." Feminist perspective highlighted the discussion.;Findings showed that Sloan's experience of creativity served as a connecting "bridge" between herself and "the world" through activation of the archetypes of the trickster and trickSTAR in Jungian studies. With her stark humor and aggressive style (large, bold, colorful paintings), Sloan depicted cultural icons of "musclemen," "brides," and "guns" in shocking and unusual ways. In addition, painting enabled Sloan to enter a "field of healing," or state of wholeness (ease), in which her primal wound, created by early wounding, found resolution. Later, when faced with the collapse of empathic connections, she experienced an existential crisis, a horror vacui, with significant blocks to creativity.;The investigation was situated in the context of Sloan's life and demonstrated the value of case study methods in the study of women's lives and experiences of women's artistic creativity. |
