An unsettling dream of creating art from life…
I awoke a few weeks ago from a vivid dream involving the creation of a sculptural installation. When I dream about making art (which happens only rarely) I pay attention- writing the details down right away, and mulling over the ideas behind the work I create in a fantasy realm. I am usually driven by a need to create it when I wake, but am often unable to follow through due to practical concerns.
In this particular dream, I was on a sunny street, with someone that I have known at my job for the last three years. This person has anorexia, and I feel very protective towards her and really hope that she will eventually recover. She is very concerned with pleasing others, always saying yes, and although she has many talents and is an excellent writer, she undervalues her abilities to the point of wanting to hide them away from others.
I turned to her, and even in my dream self, I was uncertain that we should proceed.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked, looking into her eyes.
“Of course, yes yes.” She replied.
I then lined her up against a store window, which was very large, and stretched right from the pavement all the way over our heads to the roof. I had her stand with her back against it and drew her outline in a black marker. I did this four times, on four different windows. I took out a measuring tape, and with her watching silently, I measured an equal half inch inside the first one, and drew a new, smaller outline. I then measured each one, getting smaller and smaller, until the fourth one was 2 inches smaller than her actual outline.
Then I took a bucket of newspaper scraps, with random words of text on them, and mixed up a paste with glue. I then spread it inside the outlines on the windows, to dry as a lumpy mixture of words.
In the background of the window I pictured a colourful and bright cityscape, something that would be a shocking contrast to the newspaper mache figures.
The progression from largest to smallest, in my dream self’s imagination, could easily be reversed by walking the opposite direction on the street. However, it seemed paramount to make sure that none of the figures was the actual size of my model. The text was also essential, a mixture of the words of others, all jumbled up and forming an inner core.
I am thinking a great deal about this dream these days.
