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Many people, when touring my gallery ask, "How did you start painting dreams?", and also "Do you just paint your own dreams or other people's dreams too?" So I'd like to briefly explain why and how I began painting dreams and how that work is evolving.
My interest in dreams began several years ago with my own experience, when night after night I was haunted by the same dreams. I had many different flying dreams which would always end with my being forced down, usually by people catching me, or by storms or even gravity's pull. In the dreams I felt that my very life depended on being able to sustain flight.
I did a series of sketches on this theme, caught up in this mystery constantly saying to myself, "I know this means something!" This led to reading about dreams and eventually finding the dream community. Now, I have come to realize that these dreams came to me as a warning that a lack of opportunity for creative expression was killing me! I had a creative spirit that needed to be set free! This was the beginning of my seeking a professional career in commercial art which I also eventually found to be unfulfilling. There after, I left my graphic design business and focused completely on painting my dreams.
To me dreams provide an unending source of inspiration and a way to come to know myself very deeply. Painting dreams has become for me an intense form of dreamwork and as Jeremy Taylor calls any mindful, spiritual work, a "prayer practice." I let the dream's inspiration engulf me, and the images flow through me on to the canvas. It's a very mysterious and powerful experience. Quite often the subject matter of the dream will be echoed in my daily experiences, as though painting the dream makes it come alive in my waking life!
For some time now I have not only been painting my own dreams but the dreams of other people, which you could say is an artist's form of projective dream work. It's projective because I make someone else's experience my own experience, in order to paint it. So far the people who have been the recipients of my art projections have really appreciated my retelling their dreams. They have indicated that it's inspiring to them to see their dream as art and have received healing benefits from having the art work.
Since 2003, I have started to build a body of work called Amazing Women's Dreams, which, when completed (estimated finish date 5 years from now) will be the basis for an art exhibit. These dream paintings will be a contemplation of questions like: What do amazing women have in common? What are their dream experiences like? What muses guide them? Have any of their dreams influenced a major life change or redirection? What demons have they confronted?
This project will be a glimpse into these women's psyches, which will not only be fascinating, but will give the Feminine Hero a voice and encourage others among us to take our dreams more seriously.Click on the images below to see a larger version.
My first painting in this body of work was from Kathleen Sullivan. called "Surrender to the White Buffalo." This powerful dream was perceived to be an initiation dream and the beginning of Kathleen's spiritual work. Soon after the dream, Kathleen was given a weekly radio talk show, and since then her dream work continues to expand.
Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. has given me her powerful and transformative dream to paint, "Meeting the Inner Saboteur", which was just completed in April 2005, and was exhibited in June of -05 at the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) annual conference' dream art show, in Berkeley CA. The dream allows a look at those darker regions of the soul where the Inner Saboteur resides in each of us.
This painting, called "The Branching Woman", is a retelling of a dream given to me by Patricia Garfield. This is a beautiful dream about a woman with branches growing out of her head told in her best selling book "Creative Dreaming" (p. 227), and also in her new book "Morning Dove Dream Poems", and it marked a period of great career growth for Patricia. This painting was featured in her talk "Creativity and Dreaming" at the Montreal IASD conference in the summer of 2008, and was part of the conference art show. Here's Patricia standing in front of our "Branching Woman."
Next I will be giving my attention to a dream given to me by Candace Pert. This summer I visited her briefly at her Washington, DC home and spent some time talking about the dream she has given me to paint, which I am calling "City Lights." This project should be finished soon!
Meanwhile, I am in the process of contacting more women who shine in all genres, from creative fields to
health professions and the sciences. I've begun with women who, like myself, believe in the power of the dream, and other women whose careers focus on women's health and wholeness.