Date: Virtual Exhibit on view July 22, 2021 through December 2021
Time: Anytime Virtually
Free and open to the public
With this small virtual exhibit, OPUS expresses its profound gratitude for the monumental career of Dr. Christine Downing. After nearly 60 years of teaching–and 90 years filled with a love of learning–Dr. Downing is retiring from the classroom. Since 1988, she has taught at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she co-created the Mythological Studies curriculum and where her collection at OPUS will continue to impart her wisdom.
On view in Christine Downing: Exhibiting Gratitude are selections foregrounding the scholastic heart of Chris’ life, including lecture notes, appreciations, and news clippings, as well as items and honors from her time as a student, including mementos and materials related to several of her own great teachers (such as Freud, Buber, and Persephone).
OPUS wishes to congratulate Dr. Downing on her retirement, thank her for entrusting OPUS with her invaluable archives, and recognize the extraordinary impact she has made as a teacher of myth, religion, literature, psychology, and the deep significance of learning from and sharing one’s own life experience.
For more information please contact OPUS Administration 805.969.5750 | Email
Virtual Exhibit Date: January 23, 2021 through the year
Onsite Exhibit Date: When campus reopens, through December 2021
Onsite Time: When campus reopens, Monday – Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm
Once campus opens, portion of the exhibit will be on view at any time in the display case outside the OPUS office. See updates about the temporary closure.
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and open to the public
January 23, 2021 marks the centennial of Lithuanian-American archaeologist, author, and UCLA Professor Emeritus Marija Gimbutas’ birthdate, an occasion UNESCO has designated among its milestone anniversary commemorations for the year, posthumously recognizing eminent personalities who have “helped shape the civilization we share by contributing to the mutual enrichment of cultures for universal understanding and peace.”
In celebration of this honor, OPUS presents the year-long exhibit, Marija Gimbutas: Archaeomythology of a Goddess, featuring a variety of items from OPUS’ collection illuminating the resilient and inspired life and equally distinguished and controversial work of the self-designated “archaeomythologist” (1921-1994). On view are edited typescripts, notes, photographs, excavation maps, personal memorabilia, and archaeological illustrations spanning from her early studies of Lithuanian folklore, to her groundbreaking “Kurgan hypothesis” regarding the transformation of Old European civilization, to her passionate and impactful theories on the sovereign worship of a multifaceted Mother Goddess in pre-patriarchal cultures.
Join curator Devon Deimler in a related Webinar Event hosted by Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Office of Admissions on Tuesday, August 17, 3:00pm to 4:00pm.
For more information please contact OPUS Administration 805.969.5750 | Email
Past Exhibits
Guiding Spirits Virtual Exhibit (Now closed).
The physical exhibit is normally on view during office hours, however campus is temporarily closed due to Covid-19. A representative Guiding Spirits Virtual Exhibit has been created for your continued educational enjoyment throughout 2020.
(Campus is temporarily closed to visitors due to Covid-19 Learn more)
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and open to the public
Guiding Spirits: The Radical Witches and Women of OPUS presents an array of materials highlighting explorations of mythological witches and the occult and supernatural underpinnings of depth psychology. On view are germane selections from OPUS’ leading-edge women scholars, including Marija Gimbutas’ archeological illustrations of bird goddesses and their canine consorts and Christine Downing and Marion Woodman’s manuscripts on the magical powers of the lunar crossroad goddesses, Hekate, Artemis, and Baba Yaga. Also on view is OPUS’ most extensive display to date of Judge W. H. Barnes’ rare turn-of-the-20th-century spiritualist book collection, featuring testimonial accounts and investigative exposés of séances, trance mediums, and spirit materializations—all phenomena influential upon the psychology of C. G. Jung and the Theosophical establishment of OPUS’ neighboring township of Summerland, CA.
This exhibit serves to illuminate ways in which goddess worship, bodily healing, oracular arts, and the co-arising of Spiritualism with women’s suffrage all provided invaluable and pivotal leadership roles for women, as well as validation of our enduring human need for contact with the unseen.
Date: On view June 24 through November 2019
Time: Monday – Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm.
(A portion of the exhibit is on view at any time in the display case outside the OPUS office.)
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and open to the public
The Bestiary of Dreams: James Hillman’s Animal Kingdom presents the decades of work James Hillman spent on the power of animals as living forms and dream images. Animals animate us through their unique aesthetic displays and multifaceted roles in myth and folklore. They serve as guides and teachers, sharpening our senses and deepening our empathy. To relate to the animals, Hillman maintained that we must strive to see with an animal eye. On view in this exhibit are manuscripts, research materials, images, and samples from the many animal dreams Hillman collected over the years.
Animals wake up the imagination…
As we get more into imagining, we become more animal-like…more instinctually alive.
— James Hillman, Dream Animals
James Hillman, PhD (1926-2011) was an American psychologist, a leading scholar in Jungian and Post-Jungian thought, and is considered by many to be one of the most radical and original critics of contemporary culture. The field that he founded, Archetypal Psychology, emphasizes the importance of imagination both in the experience of psyche and in life itself.
After his service in the US Navy Hospital Corps during World War II, Hillman attended the Sorbonne in Paris, and Trinity College in Dublin. He then received his Doctoral Degree from the University of Zurich and completed his training as a Jungian Analyst in 1959, becoming the Institute’s Director of Studies the same year—a position he held for ten years. In 1970, Hillman became the editor of Spring Journal, a publication dedicated to psychology, philosophy, mythology, arts, humanities, and cultural issues. Upon becoming the Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Dallas, he returned to the United States and co-founded the Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture in 1978. He also held teaching positions at Yale University, the University of Chicago, and Syracuse University. Over the course of his career, Hillman published many books, including Healing Fiction, The Dream and the Underworld, and the New York Times bestseller, The Soul’s Code. His groundbreaking book, Re-Visioning Psychology, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1975.
OPUS will hold special gallery hours with curator and host Devon Deimler for attendees of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Altered States: Dreams, Vision, Renewal conference on June 21 and 22. Registered attendees please check The Retreat at Pacifica event programs for opening hours.
Date: On view February 20 – June 11, 2019
Time: Monday – Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm.
(A portion of the exhibit is on view at any time in the display case outside the OPUS office.)
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and open to the public
OPUS is excited to present an overview of Dr. Jill Mellick’s collection, featuring selections from her teaching materials, manuscripts, artwork, poetry, and research into Jung’s Red Book pigments. This exhibit runs concurrent with the exhibition, Illuminated Imagination: The Art of C. G. Jung, at UCSB’s Art, Design & Architecture Museum. OPUS will hold special Gallery Hours with the Curator for registrants of Art and Psyche: The Illuminated Imagination conference, held in April 2019.
Jill Mellick, PhD, is an Australian-born, California-based Jungian-oriented clinical psychologist, artist, writer, and expressive arts therapist. She is the Founder and former Director of doctoral and master level specializations in Creative Expression at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, where she is now Professor Emerita. She is also a founding member of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA). In addition to publications on artistry and dreams, creativity, and poetry, Dr. Mellick co-authored Coming Home to Myself: Reflections for Nurturing a Woman’s Body & Soul with Marion Woodman. She recently published The Red Book Hours: Discovering C. G. Jung’s Art Mediums and Creative Process and “Matter and Method in the Red Book: Selected Findings”, a chapter in The Art of C. G. Jung. You can find more about Dr. Mellick at her website.
OPUS will hold special gallery hours with curator and host Devon Deimler for attendees of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s upcoming Art and Psyche Preconference on April 3, 2019. Registered attendees please check The Retreat at Pacifica event programs for opening hours.
Date: On view January 2 – January 31, 2019
Time: Monday – Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm.
(A portion of the exhibit on view at any time in the display case outside the OPUS office.)
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and open to the public
Marion Woodman, LLD, DHL, PhD, was an international teacher and workshop leader, author, lecturer, and Jungian Analyst. Much of her work focused on psyche and soma, as well as the experiences and lives of women. With over half a million books in print, she is one of the most widely read authors on analytical and feminine psychology of our time.
This special one-month exhibit follows the more modest memorial exhibit that was on view during summer 2018 and features a rich and broad spectrum of Marion’s life and work.
OPUS will hold special gallery hours with curator and host Devon Deimler for attendees of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s upcoming symposium and memorial in honor of Marion Woodman on January 19-20, 2019. Registered attendees please check The Retreat at Pacifica event programs for opening hours.
Passages Through the Archives
From the darkest night may come the brightest light. Passages Through the Archives features manuscripts, artifacts, video, and artwork from the Archives exploring psychological experiences of utter pain, ecstatic revival, and how these two extreme and uncanny hours of the soul both eclipse and catalyze one another.
Part 2: Midnight of Noon on view June 2018 – November 30, 2018
Time: Monday-Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and Open to the Public
Passages Through the Archives: Midnight of Noon (part two) follows midnight into the long-awaited or spontaneous experience of noon, often imagined as a heightened moment of sacred union. Items in this exhibit will present investigations and visions of rebirth, synchronicity, spirituality, parapsychology, and mythic figures embodying the transcendent emergence of life from death.
OPUS will hold special gallery hours with curator and host Devon Deimler for attendees of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s conference Trauma + Transcendence (June 22-24). Please check Pacifica’s event program for opening hours.
Part 1: Noon of Midnight on view January 2018 – May 2018
Time: Monday-Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and Open to the Public
Passages Through the Archives: Noon of Midnight (part one) delves into ideas and expressions of midnight experience, including the value of deep suffering, underworld encounters, nightmarish imagery, and mythic figures of death who also offer hope of resurrection.
This two-part exhibit is designed to compliment OPUS and Pacifica Graduate Institute winter programs on trauma and mythologies of the otherworld, as well as Pacifica’s upcoming summer conference, Trauma + Transcendence: Depth Psychology, Spirituality and the Sacred. Special thanks to Richard Buchen for his assistance in selecting items from the Joseph Campbell collection.
August 1 through September 2018
Time: On view at any time in the display case outside the OPUS office
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and Open to the Public
Marion Woodman, LLD, DHL, PhD, was an international teacher and workshop leader, author, lecturer, and Jungian Analyst. Much of her work focused on psyche and soma, as well as the experiences and lives of women. With over half a million books in print, she is one of the most widely read authors on analytical and feminine psychology of our time.
In honor of her influential life and work, OPUS Archives and Research Center has created a special exhibit featuring a rich selection of Marion’s personal memorabilia, including rarely shown photographs, awards, and treasures she kept on view in her study.
This modest yet expressive memorial exhibit is currently on view at any time in the display case outside the OPUS office.
Date: On view June 19, 2017 – November, 30, 2017
Time: Monday-Thursday 9:00am to 5:00pm
Location: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA
Free and Open to the Public
Ever since C.G. Jung ventured into the matter, alchemy has been a rich mythopoeic source for depth and archetypal psychology, offering colorful, enigmatic images of psychological states, vessels, transformations, and a unique subject for engaging metaphor and the concrete equally. OPUS Archives and Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit showcasing pieces that demonstrate the processes of research, writing, and painting towards distinct alchemical opuses. These include several of James Hillman’s drafts and artifacts formative to his prolific essays on alchemical psychology; Joseph Campbell’s personal, annotated copy of Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis; and select paintings by Katie Sanford representing her own dream images of fired vessels and ouroboric figures.
OPUS will hold special gallery hours with curator and host Devon Deimler for attendees of Pacifica Graduate Institute’s upcoming events “Response at the Radical Edge: Depth Psychology for the 21st Century” (June 16-18th) and “Ars Alchemica: The Art and Alchemy of Transformation” (August 25-27th). Please check Pacifica’s event programs for opening hours.
