Born in England, philosopher, poet, prose-writer and visual artist Carolyn Mary Kleefeld grew up in Southern California and studied art and psychology at UCLA. Her innovative artwork and writing have been used for over twenty-five years in the fields of human consciousness and creativity. A visionary pioneer, Ms. Kleefeld has the rare ability to convey through lyrical language, metaphor and symbolic image, the spiritual potential of human beings.
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. In addition to these purely poetry publications, her book, The Alchemy of Possibility: Reinventing Your Personal Mythology (Merrill-West Publishing), inspired by the I Ching, with an introduction by Laura Archera Huxley, combines her visual art, philosophical prose and poetry, and includes corresponding quotes from the I Ching and Tarot. Healers as well as professors of art and psychology have also used Alchemy as an inspirational text and oracular guidebook.
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. In 2003, Kissing Darkness: Love Poems and Art, a lovers’ dialogue in poetry written in collaboration with David Wayne Dunn, was published 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.
