Journal: An Online Notebook Updated By The Artist
Posts related to Dreams
2010-07-13 10:23:16 | Writing: Part 1
The artist writing in his journal 10 July 2010. The pencil drawing is work in progress based on a postcard image of a painting by Caspar David Friedrich. ...Read More
2009-05-14 02:08:57 | Dreams and Images
(above) Charles Ritchie, Astronomical Chart, Bowl, and Candles, (work in progress), watercolor and graphite on Fabriano paper, 4 x 6″ Dreams and Images I don’t have many recurring dreams, but one returned recently. I’m looking across the solar system and the planets are right there; little worlds that I can stretch out and grasp, even reach down and touch their surfaces. My eyes are telescopic; everything far is near and I see space warping around, bending the distant galaxies into my proximity. This dream has reappeared to me in various forms over the years and it’s always exhilarating to experience it. You might think I might want to try and draw my dreams, but I don’t. The results are always disappointing. I dream in black and white or very subtle color that is much the cast of my drawings, but my dreams are mostly vague, shifting, mental images that feel so different that what I manage to put on paper. Perhaps film would be a better medium in which to construct surrogates for dream experiences. But even so, I’m not sure that rendering my dreams in any medium would be as pungent an art experience as someone might think. Have you ever had someone tell you their dreams? Most are pretty dull to an outsider. I am absolutely content to write my dreams out each morning, and occasionally rewrite and rethink special ones on my drawings. I believe dreams are symbol-filled missives from the subconscious that will reveal a great deal about my psyche if I study them closely. But, my associative readings are probably opaque to most of those who would want to try and follow along. Regarding the image above, it’s a work-in-progress, a composition sketched out in pencil with various areas articulated in watercolor. The image is dominated by a 19th century ...Read More
2008-11-01 01:02:44 | Day Dreams
Self-Portrait with Planets II, state two, drawing in progress 7 August 2008, watercolor and graphite on Fabriano paper, 6 x 4″ Day Dreams I’ve become interested in daydreams; flares of imagination that punctuate waking hours. We all do it; drift a bit and the mind is somewhere else. A few days ago I was dozing and an image floated up in my mind, three people were sitting in a car with a woman who was pointing to holes in her bare feet. I blinked. There was such matter-of-fact quality to the image, no sense of pain or alarm. What could it mean? A few days later I was sitting talking to a friend at the table and as we moved our heads, I felt I was seeing front and side views of his head simultaneously; he seemed cross-eyed for a split second. Not exactly a daydream, but a phenomenon representative of the slips in reality I like to note. Perhaps my sustained recording and study of dreams has cultivated my awareness of such jags of the mind. Kin to dreams, I can’t help but scrutinize them in the same way, imagining some underlying truth about myself or my situation being revealed to me in their arcane symbols. In previous online entries I’ve talked about my method of recording my dreams as a means of self-scrutiny (see entry for 25 December 2007). I am convinced these daydream images are a similar nudge from my subconscious to look at myself from an alternate, previously unnoticed perspective. I have begun to note these moments in my journal and I’m particularly encouraged by the momentum my writing has gained from incorporating these observations. The annotations have also begun to embellish my series of drawings called Pages (three states of one of the Pages are used as example above and below). Executed on sheets of paper the size of leaves in my jou ...Read More
2008-03-01 11:05:28 | Flying Home
Book 130, Sketch of northern sky above illuminated towns, 7:20 pm, 27 February 2008. Flying home from a trip this week I leaned my head against the window and drifted, blinking awake occasionally to see the light of the tumbling sun spread into pale rainbow bands above a plain of stratus clouds. I had been reading Jeff Warren’s recent book The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness, a fascinating study about the many levels of consciousness; not limited to waking and sleeping. I must have taken a subliminal cue from my reading because soon I was drifting into the afternoon with closed eyes. When I blinked awake it was darker. The sun had slipped further down and the color bands lifted higher. Another blink and I was gone. I awoke surprised by blackness. At first my disoriented eyes struggled to find anything. Then, out of the darkness emerged the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) balanced by winding stars of the Dragon (Draco). Below, the clouds were gone and I saw the patchy glow of several towns floating in the void. Words popped into my head, “This is where the dragon lives” the opening line of Wallace Stevens‘ poem The Auroras of Autumn. I had the strangest sensation; was I asleep or awake, was this dream or reality, imagined or real? Is this a dragon or is this air? ...Read More
2007-12-30 07:37:02 | Picturing the Place We Can't Reach
Blue Twilight, 1996-1997, graphite, watercolor, pastel, conté crayon, and litho crayon, 22 x 30″ Dreams are pure imagination. By transcribing them I attempt to give shape to what never really was. With painting I probe visual experience, uncertain and ephemeral. A favorite book, Le Grande Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier recounts a young man’s search to return to a world he stumbled upon while lost in a wood. Deeply atmospheric passages follow his quest for the unattainable; for what might well have been a dream. This is what the chase of art feels like to me. I see a blue light and seek a path to it. But which blue light? What did I see? I conjure multiple observations; snippets of reality and imagination to link to a phantom past. Such is the setting of my drawing, Blue Twilight (above). My artistic practice is based on longing for a place I haven’t really known. Study for Blue Twilight, journal entry dated 1 July 1995, watercolor, graphite, and pen and ink on Arches paper in bound volume, page size: 6 x 4 inches. ...Read More
2007-12-25 02:15:46 | Recording Dreams
Bedside notebook with jotted dream fragments, 2007, page size 5 x 3″ Dreams have been a key component of my journals since the 1980s. These strange narratives fascinate me as I often see my psychological temperature imaged in their symbols. I’ve found ways to cultivate dreams; as I go to sleep I repeat to myself “I am going to remember my dreams.” A notebook beside my bed (above) can hold scribbled fragments when I wake in the night. It’s a bit like fishing. Sometimes the fish come. Other times no. When I wake in the morning I look to see if I can make out my notes. A few words can sometimes bring back a flood of memories and I transfer whatever I remember immediately to my sketchbook/journal to avoid forgetting. Although my books overflow with dreams I’m convinced what I collect is only an iceberg’s tip. ...Read More