What is serious play?
Creative process with Larry Vigon, illustrator of Bean and Bubbles Together
I am fortunate to consider Larry Vigon a longtime friend and to work with him as the illustrator for the books in the Stories of Change series. I have learned a lot from his approach to art because it also models a creative approach to life. Larry can be a man of few words, so here are my impressions.
Larry Vigon works both spontaneously and precisely at his craft, turning playful doodles into art on a canvas or into a corporate logo that sharply reflects a company’s focus. Years after he paints a seemingly random dream image in his personal journal, he may recall it for a current project. He is always curious about new materials and how a medium can influence the form an image takes. Larry treats every endeavor with respect and integrity, however large or small in scope.
He listens— carefully— to the intermingling of voices, ideas, music, emotions, dreams, accidents, synchronicities to find the very essence that an image can express.
Larry views his lifelong creative process as “serious play.” This paradox is one of the best ways to understand his approach to making art and the outcome of his process. “Serious play” combines two seemingly opposing concepts—seriousness and playfulness—yet suggests that they can coexist harmoniously, each enriching the other in the creative process
Creating Bean and Bubbles Together
Larry’s process with Bean and Bubbles began when I spoke with him in 2017 about creating a children’s book, a totally new genre for each of us. I wanted to base the story on the actual life experience of my two rescue cats through the lens of my therapeutic understanding of building resilience around traumatic experiences.
We started with my early draft of the narrative, initially called “The Tale of Two Kitties.” I showed him photos of my two cats lovingly snuggled together as the “two kitties.”
Larry listened silently as I explained how I was trying to convey the felt sense of psychotherapeutic work. I wanted the experience of an adult and a child reading the book together to feel like a therapy session, with their personal connection as a steady and comforting presence to navigate the difficult emotional experience of the cats. I told him it felt like trying to condense a novel into a poem and that I was struggling to fit it into 32 pages.
“Ink drops,” Larry said. “What do you think about making the cats from ink drops?”
I had no idea how to visualize what he was proposing. The ink drop sketches of people and animals he made in 2007 did not seem relevant for a children’s book. I trusted him, though, and he enthusiastically started work on the project.
Here are some examples of how Larry’s ink drops developed into the Bean and Bubbles story. Notice how his artistry reveals the layers of the story, freeing the narrative itself to frame the book.
These first two spreads of the book (see below) show how Larry moves the story from a scene depicting a scene of stability to one of abrupt surprise. His hand-lettered words float across the pages, offering different emotional possibilities for how each part of the story might be experienced. Readers can discuss these deeper layers or simply follow the story.
The following spread was the one that Larry intuitively visualized first. Its stark simplicity represents the core of the story, an incident that changes everything for the two kitties:
Most of us can relate to this kind of exhaustion. Larry’s drawing of it is so spot-on that it always makes me smile:
And then Larry totally gets the sweetness of the happy ending:
Larry at home and work
The warm and welcoming home that Larry shares with his soulmate and wife, Sandra Vigon, who is a Jungian psychotherapist, is filled with their finished art, as well as works in progress. Along with Sandra’s intricate ceramic sculptures and soul collage, Larry’s images adorn the walls and even a cool trash can in the living room. The art can be any size and shape, with varied emotional tones and sometimes quirky self-reflections. Larry’s two-dimensional canvases feel multi-dimensional, some with gold paint or diamond dust cutting through black backgrounds. Shimmering serpents wrap around actual rocks. On the dining room table, the laptop computer screen reveals a wine label in progress.
By playing with whatever is at hand, Larry creates from a place that is beyond words. It is an immersive process, one that is not separate from him. It doesn’t matter where Larry works— the Italian countryside, an LA design studio, a flat in London, or his home in Santa Barbara— he is within the creative process.
Spanning decades of his work as an artist, art director and designer, Larry selected the title “Serious Play” for his 2022 retrospective book set, a two-volume compilation divided into his commercial and his personal work. A steady creative flow that defies these distinctions, however, is clearly the driving force.
The range of his work is astonishing. Whether it’s a famous rock n’ roll album cover (he’s done many that you will recognize), a logo for an ecology organization or hospital, or a promotional poster about the healing process for a book by a craniosacral therapist, Larry’s approach builds on limitations as a necessary part of a creative challenge. It’s just part of the mix for him.
Through Larry’s vision, we immediately engage with more than the literal information. We get the feel of it.
Larry’s devotion and integrity
“From Blake, to Jung, to Vigon— three kindred spirits of the embodiment of the visionary imagination: vision lovingly and faithfully recorded in a marriage of word and image, bound together in a printed book.” - Sonu Shamdasani
Larry and I have often talked about the importance of creating various kinds of art without knowing where an image or a creative process might lead. So it’s significant that although he never aimed for it, Larry is recognized internationally as a visionary, even beyond the many awards and honors that laud his career.
Larry’s devotion to his own personal process of creative play is foundational to his vision. His intensely personal journals, with dreams and paintings, were part of his work with Jungian analyst J. Marvin Spiegelman. Over time, Larry began sharing them with others, finding that they were inspired by his process. He eventually published DREAM (2006), carefully following the original design.
A few years later, DREAM became a model for the long awaited publication of the personal journals of C.G. Jung. As those in Jungian circles know, there were many obstacles to making this foundational work available to the general public. After a conversation with editor Sonu Shamdasani about these frustrations, Larry facilitated a connection with W.W. Norton, the publisher of DREAM, knowing that they would honor the original form and format of the art-filled volume. And of course, Larry’s subsequent art direction of The Red Book: Liber Novus stayed true to every detail.
“Without Larry’s DREAM, Jung’s The Red Book: Liber Novus would not have been published in the form we have it today. Its readers are in his debt.” -Sonu Shamdasani
Larry’s “serious play” has a lot of things in common with Jung's approach, blending play and precision to inspire a creative journey.
“There is something about the act of dipping a pen into ink, the sound of the pen scratching the paper, and the application and layering of paint that brings clarity to my thoughts and feelings. In the bringing together of dream and paint, imagination and matter, both are changed.” -Larry Vigon, Introduction, DREAM
You can view and purchase Larry’s art from his website, LarryVigon.com. His books, Serious Play and DREAM, are wonderful ways to be inspired by his process and his work. You also can inquire about hiring him for a project.
Bean and Bubbles Together in the world
I really value your help with getting Bean and Bubbles into the world. Every mention in a conversation, each gift of the book helps share the message of building resilience through connection.
Huge thanks to two supporters who have endorsed Bean and Bubbles Together to readers of their own newsletters:
Dr. Tish Signet, with her depth psychological take on how the book matters for adults as much as children. In her NewShrink Substack, Tish writes, “. . . the book allows both adult and child to gain strength and psychological agility as each gets to play the role of explorer and learner. Sometimes one takes the lead, sometimes the other. The adult is relieved of having to be constant expert authority-figure. The child is empowered, in comforting low-risk space and situation, to develop and practice what it’s like to take the lead, help and guide another (and a grownup one.)”
Dr. Carol Pearson featured the book as "Recommended Reading” in the March 2024 issue of her monthly newsletter and blog, “Narrative Archetypal Intelligence.”
Wonderful introduction to Larry’s work! A heartfelt, engaging tribute to your friend. Thank you for sharing his artistic process and the peek into his work space. I loved every word you wrote and the images both you and he create. ♥️Kathryn