Art as a Portal to the Unconscious: Victoria Zurkan

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine, our video podcast where we explore and celebrate creativity and the human spirit. Today I have with me Victoria Zurkan, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist, but also a painter, an artist. I always really enjoy having people tell me about the intersection and divergence of the work that they do that enables them to continue to create. Victoria, you and I are going to have a really interesting conversation about this. I can tell. So welcome.

Victoria Zurkan: Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

Lisa Belisle: Yes, my pleasure. And you're joining us from your studio in Portland, which normally you would drive out here. Today it happened to snow the day we're recording in March. That's the way Maine is. But let's start with your art, since I know that this is a big part of what you do on a daily basis. Tell me about, first of all, your background in animation.

Victoria Zurkan: I actually went abroad for my bachelor's degree. I was lucky because my mother is a software engineer, which was back in the day not very many women doing that. So American Airlines bought the reservation system, and she and my dad relocated to Paris. And so I had the opportunity to go to the American University there. There's also a Parsons in Paris. So I started taking classes at the Parsons in Paris way, way back then. And when I graduated, I moved to New York. I knew I wanted to do something with creativity, doing something with the arts, but I didn't know what. And I fell into animation. Back then, they did animation by hand, so I fell into an animation group, and we literally would cut things out. That was my job, cutting little things out. And they did an MTV ID, which was kind of cool. So I continued with animation. I ended up moving to San Francisco, and I got a job at a place called Colossal, which was a large animation studio. They did mostly commercials. I did that for a few years, and then I wiped out.

My mom's mom was from Hungary. So I really wanted to go to Budapest. For some reason, I had it in my head I really wanted to go to Budapest. So I wrote a letter to somebody that had an animation studio in Budapest, and I put it in the mail, and I was waiting, and then they were like, yeah, come on out. So I went out there with a job in animation and lived in Budapest for a year. But around my latter 20s, I started thinking, do I really want to work in animation? As I got older, I was already kind of foreseeing that it might be a field where there was a lot of demands and a lot of weekends. So I thought, well, the other thing I really like to do is psychology. I always felt like I enjoyed asking people, what's your life like? And reading biographies and understanding people. So then I transitioned. I started taking classes in Budapest for my undergrad, for psychology, which was really funny. I took one class with a Hungarian guy who was a statistics teacher. And then I applied for a master's program in London. I wanted to stay in Europe, so I applied for a master's program in London. So I did a year in London at a master's program, and then I was ready to move back to the States. I was around 30 at that point. So I moved to Los Angeles. And I recognized that my degree didn't really transfer because England and America have their own restrictions. So I did an MFT in LA and then I finished it up there. And then I ended up moving from there to San Francisco, and I started working in San Francisco.

Lisa Belisle: So it sounds like you've been crisscrossing the globe and then you've crisscrossed over here to Maine. So what's the Maine connection?

Victoria Zurkan: So my brother was married to a woman that was from Maine, and he met her in San Francisco. I have two older brothers, and they were both in the Bay Area. He met his wife. They got married and lived in California for a few years. And then they decided to move back to Maine. So I would go to Maine every summer for about 10 years. And then I started getting older and San Francisco started to decline a lot. The city became kind of a dangerous place. It was very expensive, and I just was ready to downsize, becoming more of a smaller city. San Francisco can be kind of overwhelming with the traffic. So my partner and I decided to move to Maine. So we moved out to Maine, and my mom came as well. She was also in California, so she lives now a mile away. She lived two hours outside of San Francisco. So we decided, well, if you're going to go, I'm going to go. And so now I just have one brother and a niece that live in Marin in California.

Lisa Belisle: Well, we're glad that you're here. And I know in talking to you, because you regularly come to our Portland Art Gallery openings, it's been so much fun to get to know you over really a period of years now. And what I've enjoyed is that you regularly are bringing in to our conversations new and interesting things that you're working on. So I think it was a few months ago that you said, oh, I'm doing this thing and it involves AI, but it also involves the art that I do. And you showed me some early pictures, and most recently you showed me some finished product pictures. There's a lot of creativity that you're bringing to your process. So talk to me about that. Talk to me about why you make the decisions you do to pursue projects and some of the ones that you've been working on recently.

Victoria Zurkan: When I first started painting, I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I didn't know. I thought, I don't want to be a struggling artist. I want to be able to make a living. So I pursued as a career to be a therapist. And then I've always wanted to be a fine artist. That was kind of my dream. So I always painted. And then about 20 years ago, getting up there in age, I really started to take classes, and I started to study atelier style classes, which is more like how to really draw and how to paint. So I took classes for many years. I still take classes because I feel like it's a never ending learning process. When you first start out, you're painting portraits and you're painting vegetables and apples and still lifes. And it takes a lot of courage to start to. I used to just paint fun things, anything. And then I studied and then it was like, oh, okay, now that I understand painting a little bit better, it's hard to break out of just trying to get better, to actually making paintings, things that are from ideas. And the kind of paintings that I do, I'm not sure that they're things that people necessarily, unless you are maybe a collector. My dream is just to make paintings that I want to make and they sell. So I'm not trying to make paintings that are for tourists. I don't want to make paintings that are landscapes, even though I love them. There's nothing wrong with that. But I always wanted to use ideas and more narrative and more surreal. So I started trying to do that a little bit more, probably in the last five or six years, where I started to try to think a little bit more about, well, what's important to me, what interests me as a painter and subject wise.

And so this last series, it's interesting that I've been painting this long and I never really created a series, which is something that I think artists do. And I always just kind of painted what I liked, painted things in my house because I made my house look like it's a very creative environment. I made it kind of surreal and interesting because my partner Brent, he actually knows how to build. So we did things like we made art installations in our bathroom. It's a very imaginative environment here. He also did this whole studio. We changed it up. He put on the ceiling wood and we pushed out some of the walls. So he was able to help me with my fantasy of what can this room really look like. Anyway, so this last series, it was last year. It was winter and I had this idea. I was like, wouldn't it be interesting to take pictures of winter scenes outside, but then add something like a very shiny object to offset the more, less colorful environment? Because when it's snowing, it's kind of muted colors. So I was thinking, that'd be kind of cool to have something really shiny and metallic. And I was like, well, what could I make? And then I thought, maybe I'll do an animal. Because I also wanted to do less figurative and do more animals and nature scenes, but not necessarily plein air. So I thought, I'll take pictures. I had a friend that's a photographer take scenes outside of winter last year. And then I thought, I'll find images online of different animals. So I found a picture. I thought, a lion might be interesting, a shiny lion. So that was the first one I did. But then I was like, well, how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna get a shiny lion? So I thought, should I do Photoshop? How can I make this object shiny? And I thought, let me just try it in AI. And I know everybody has such a stance against AI and art, but as a tool, it's so helpful. So I put it in AI, I put a picture of the background that my friend took of the snow, and I put a picture of a lion. And I said, make this lion shiny against this winter background. And then it did it. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. So then I painted it. So then I did a few more animals like that. Let me do a moose. Let me do an eagle. Because you see a lot of eagles around here and kind of symbolic of America. So I did a metal eagle. And then it started to develop.

And I was in New York and I saw at the Frick, there was this old painting of a painter painting a nude. I should have written down the name of the painting. But I thought, wouldn't that be funny if they were actually painting a robot? And so then I put that painting in, and I said, make this guy painting a robot. So I did that. And then I painted that. And then I was thinking, because robots are getting to be, I'm not a robot type of person. I'm not like, oh, I love robots. But I was just thinking the way the world is turning and AI is becoming, we hear all these things about robots being developed and robots taking over, like science fiction. We never thought this would really come to fruition, and here we are. And so then I was like, wouldn't it be funny if a bar scene with a robot. So put that in and got a bar scene. And so it just kind of unfolded like that. And again, it's hard because I don't think artists appreciate it. When you say AI and art, people get very like, oh, God, no, AI and art, never, don't do that. But for me, it's just been like, wow, I have all these ideas, but I don't know how to actually create them.

Lisa Belisle: As somebody who has a deep background in psychology and also you are an artist and you're suggesting that artists don't like the idea of using AI, are you able to guess as to what would be the psychological underpinnings of not wanting to use AI?

Victoria Zurkan: Well, I think it's more like, especially in the atelier world, people are very much like, they like to do the old 19th century where they use rabbit skin glue and they do their own canvases and do everything from beginning to end by hand, which is great. But sometimes I feel like artists do use Photoshop all the time because, how do you make an object look like metal? That's a hard thing to try to imagine. Some artists can really imagine it in their head, what metal looks like and how it would shine. But I'm more of a person that I really need to have a visual to look at, to paint. If I were to paint something metal, I would have to have something metal in front of me in order to paint metal, because I can't paint from my imagination metal. But yeah, I think because there's so much talk about it, the whole data centers taking up so much, it's bad for the environment. So for me, it's been helpful and I feel guilty when I use it. But I have to say, another thing I like to use is for my therapy practice. Sometimes I get clients that are not very proactive in talking and I'm doing all the work trying to think of questions. So I sometimes make up worksheets. I put in the background of the client, and I say create a worksheet for this client to answer these questions regarding very specifically what their issues are. And I find that to be really helpful. So for me, AI has been helpful. So I am using it.

Lisa Belisle: I'm glad you're willing to even take a guess as to what people's objections are. And for me, I think about the people that currently love music and love vinyl. We have a whole group of people who have never given away their vinyl collections because this is the way they like to listen to music. And then we have people who are way on the other end of the spectrum, and they're doing technopop. What I like about AI is that it can be used in different ways. And while some people argue that it decreases our ability to be creative, it sounds like you are actually integrating it into your creative process. And it doesn't mean that you're saying, oh, if you want to use rabbit skin, my way is better. You're saying, well, that way is a good way, and here's the way I'm going to use it for myself.

Victoria Zurkan: I even showed this new series to one of my teachers that was an atelier style, and he's always kind of been like a mentor. His name's Noah Buchanan. He's a pretty big artist. He shows in New York, and he's more established. And he was like, yeah, I don't think AI is a good idea. I think it would be much better if you would have done this by hand. And I was like, well, okay, but I don't think I could have done that by hand. I mean, I guess I could have, but it would have also meant that. I'm not sure what the difference would really be.

Lisa Belisle: I agree with you. There's a way that you are working, it's a tool and you're working with the tool to try to achieve an outcome. And one of the other things that I hear as pushback is that it becomes too easy, that you can ask AI for something and it just spits out a novel, spits out a memoir, spits out an image. But that's not actually true. As someone that has used a lot of AI, both as a physician, but also in organizing content to benefit not only in the creative field, but also in the healing fields. It's not automatic. It's not like you don't go through the process of actually having to work with whatever your AI tool is. You still have to engage creatively, and it causes you to need to hone your requests, to move beyond prompts that are just copy paste. So I feel like it's creativity in a different way. And certainly there are some guardrails we need to put around it. But I just think being more open minded around the way that it is used and really trying to understand it before outright rejecting it might be worthwhile. Just my thought.

Victoria Zurkan: No, I agree. Even with writing, that's another little thing I'm doing on the side. I wrote during COVID a book with my mom that was kind of like a thriller. And I wrote it with her. We each took turns. She's a writer. So we went back and forth and afterwards I was like, let me see what would happen if I put chapter by chapter in AI and see what it came up with. So I did that and I wouldn't say that it was good, it was interesting. But if I ever have the time, which it seems to never have the time, I would love to sit down and see what I wrote, see what AI wrote and try to do a little bit of a combination. So again, I would never put the whole thing in and expect it to rewrite my whole story. But as a tool to be like, okay, what would you, almost like bouncing off another person.

Lisa Belisle: That's very true. People who are preparing for a job that currently exists, but in four years after getting one's degree may not, where it's going to look completely different. So I agree. I don't think we should take it lightly, this idea of using AI, because there are implications of it. I just like what you're saying about this is a tool. This is a tool I've used in my case for this specific thing. And it seems like it's been very worthwhile for me. And trying to understand what it means at the human level, I think is the direction that ultimately we should be going in. Coming back to the human level, I'm wondering what role do you think art plays or could play in healing, especially for situations where people have substance use disorder or emotional concerns. You have this lovely parallel and interwoven path. So do you see possibilities?

Victoria Zurkan: Absolutely. Well, first of all, I think making something feels so good. You make anything, you're like, look what I made. So I think creativity is amazing and it feels really good. And that's why people do it. But my whole career, people always like, why don't you do art therapy? Which, as I've gotten older, I kind of think, well, maybe that would be a good idea. And I have ideas about that. I really wanted to do some Mommy and Me and Daddy and Me. One thing that always makes me sad is when people get divorced and then there's this kind of custody battle that goes on. So I always thought, that would be a nice thing to do is to try to have the kids with the parents and make paintings. But also it's a way to facilitate conversation.

So I ended up taking this class. I remember it was in Berkeley. As a professional, we have to get CEUs every two years to maintain a license. So I took a class, and I thought, oh, yeah, this is whatever. But you were supposed to draw, and then after you draw, you hone in on an area of the drawing, and then you do a meditation, and then you walk into that area of the drawing, and you walk the client through. So what do you hear? What do you taste? What do you smell? What do you feel with your other senses? And then you go, well, what does this place remind you of? It is so fascinating. It is such a portal into the unconscious. It's amazing. I did it, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. I ended up being in some theater, and the feeling was like kind of feeling alone. And then I just remembered being a kid and those times where you feel very lonely as a child. It was such a portal into my unconscious that I was like, oh, wow. It is very powerful as a tool for hitting the unconscious, for facilitating conversation, for making people feel good about creating something. So yeah, I think it is really a great way to help people, for sure.

Lisa Belisle: I've enjoyed our conversation. I always enjoy our conversation. So whenever I see you at one of the Portland Art Gallery openings, I'm just thrilled to see you. How can people, Victoria, actually see your art?

Victoria Zurkan: First of all, thank you. I love the community that you created. That is amazing. I remember when I would come visit, my brother lives in the same building of the Portland gallery, and I would be like, oh my gosh, this looks so fun. So thank you for creating that space. So okay, to see my art on Instagram, it's at V, like my name, Victoria, V Zurkan, like my last name, Z U R K A N. And then I have a website, Victoria Zurkan dot com. And I'm also trying to start teaching. I really love teaching art. So I was like, you know what? I really need to start teaching. So I did teach some at the Roux and Cyr. They had some kind of classes, they went under, unfortunately, but they were doing classes there. So I taught portrait. I'm going to start teaching at South Portland Community Center. I'm going to do a portrait workshop where I have a live model, Brent, my partner. And then I'm going to teach people how to measure and draw and do all the features.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I appreciate your saying that about the community that we're building in the Portland Art Gallery. And certainly Emma and Sean and Jess and Kevin, we are very intentional around wanting to have people in, to engage with art because it is such a wonderful thing to have these beautiful pieces on the walls and people do respond to them. And so when we see people like you, Victoria, who come to the art gallery openings, it's very gratifying. So I really appreciate your saying that, and I look forward to seeing you again at one of our upcoming openings. I encourage people to, as you said, go find you on Instagram, maybe find you as a teacher. Go to your website to learn more about your art. But it's been a pleasure to talk with you today. I've been speaking with Victoria Zurkan. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and she's also a painter, an artist, a teacher. So many more things. And I will see you again very soon at one of our openings, I hope. Victoria, thank you for being here today.

Victoria Zurkan: Thank you. I felt like it was such an honor to ask me to do this, so I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Lisa Belisle: Well, the honor is all mine. I appreciate your being with me. Have a good until I see you again. How's that sound?

Victoria Zurkan: Yes, I'm sure I will see you hopefully next First Thursday in April. Absolutely.

Lisa Belisle: Bye.

Victoria Zurkan: Bye. Okay. Thank you.