Dreaming Paint
All my life I’ve dreamed deeply, vividly and strangely. I still remember dreams I had as a very small child. It is as though I have a separate but very tethered existence that accrues images, emotions and events populated with unlikely characters. I usually don’t hold on to them unless they insist. After watching three or four insane movies every night I don’t need to carry them. I let them fade with the daylight. Occasionally they hold their ground against the tide of the everyday. The catspider’s dream is one. It was a mythological, almost-nightmare taking place in an ordinary environment, the loft where I lived at the time. That creepy, lovely creature would not leave. So of course I had to paint it (gender unknown). I decided to give the catspider another tale with other of its kin and myself as a central player.
So we start here:
What Shape What Place
2004 35 X 40 oil on linen
Really it’s a large four-panel comic or narrative phrase that has now progressed from day to twilight with its protagonist followed by
guardian angels of dubious heritage. In the background is the City of Green Fire (from another dream):
Dreamgods
2004 35 X 40 oil on linen
Night of silhouettes and perhaps dreams within the boat within the dream:
Fireflies Palace
2004 35 X 40 oil on linen
Destination? Day at least and an overabundance of curiosity:
Thursday’s Jewels
2004 35 X 40 oil on linen
So I mentioned The City of Green Fire, which was another very insistant dream thick with its own gods:
City of Green Fire
1998 60 X 90 oil on linen
I know, the time line is all over the map, but we’re now moving again into the 21st. In 2002 I got pneumonia. Horrible nightmares and days lying on the couch trying to breathe. But finally one night the fever began to lift and I had the most marvelous dreams… one of the blissful snow as I trailed the white bear through the delicious stuff, and one (chapter 2 to the first) of a jeweled city. Thus:
The Snow Bear
2002 50 X 64 oil on linen
And another animal dream; anteater as affectionate companion. This morphed into a picture with snow turning into rose petals:
The Anteater’s Conversation with God
2008 22 X 30 watercolor on paper
2009, more dreams, more paint:
Yellow Dream
2009 55 X 60 watercolor on paper
More recently I lost my best friend. Several years after she sent me a dream that she arranged off stage just to please me. So I lay down in the grasses to enjoy it… later in the daylight world I painted it:
Under the Tartufala Tree
2017 30 X 40 oil on wood
I await the next nocturnal visitation substantial enough to not vanish in the sunlight like some iffy vampire.