A tragic dream ...

I am at a school or university, I seem to work there. I am moving around doing tasks independently - kind of doing my own thing rather than working as part of the team. I go to leave and recall some kind of message that I should stay safe by booking a bus rather than hopping on one randomly (it is late).

I run back in with my rucksack having forgotten something, for though I am at an institution, the dream also crosses over with a kind of "travel".

A man is there whom I fancy, he is a teacher. He is looking at something on my desk - some images including one I have made - I wonder if he will notice it. The one I have made I only see in a brief flash. I recall buxom thighs of a female body, a flash of intense scribble which could be pubic hair. A body very round - possibly no head.

He doesn't notice this, and instead comments on the one next to it which I didn't make. He says "now THIS is REAL art ..." and I am stung.

I look at the picture - it is a young slim woman with long hair who has "fallen outside of the city". She lies on the steep banks surrounding the city, like a fortress. The teacher waxes lyrical on how the land looks like the billowing sheets of a bed softly catching her (it is a black and white engraving).

As I stare at the picture, I slowly move into it. The woman begins to slide down the hill ...

She falls off a rocky precipice, but the rocks turn into a hand and catch her! I breathe a sigh of relief.

But then a big female snarling mouth opens in the rocks and says "I am going to crunch you up and eat you slowly" and begins to pull the young woman to her mouth.

The young woman says "no way!" (or something like that) and then takes a very deliberate and elegant dive, plunging out of the rocky hand. She lands with a sickening thud and a squeak another rocky outcrop. Then she pushes herself deliberately to fall again, and again, and again ...

It is too terrible to bear to watch ...

Even worse, a faithful companion dog - a springer spaniel - is running around and down the cliff desperately trying to reach her. The dog is quite young, like Rusty when he first came to us.

Finally the springer comes into contact with the by now bloody mess of a (still breathing) body and licks the woman.

I wonder if the rocks will scoop them both up to eat - but it seems now that they have found a place so low down, that they are out of its reach.

The cresta run

I am at an art event watching a film made by an artist of a cresta-run (the winter sport where people propel themselves at very fast speeds down a tunnel of ice in a bullet shaped vehicle) - she has mounted a camera on the front of the vehicle.

She sets off at a steady pace, but quickly builds up, faster and faster...

We now see her from overhead (and I realize it is ME) and the containing tunnel of ice has disappeared, she is careering out of control on open mountainside with little control of her direction.

She approaches a sheer scree face (one might say a cliff!) coming at it horizontally from the snow field above. The momentum of her speed takes her perilously across the scree face and it seems miraculous that she does not just fly off into the air.

Just as she arrives at the other side of the scree onto safer ground, we see an avalanche behind her and as she looks back, she knows that she crossed just in time to avoid the crushing ice, rocks and snow.

I look at her / me and think "wow, how spectacular, what a brave feat!" but in the back of my mind a voice also nags "but is it really? Is it not just foolhardy? She seems a brave adventurer, but I am not so sure about the core motivation of her activity, whether it is really sound...?"

Later on I am looking at a photo of her on a living room wall; next to it is the photo of a handsome man. The pictures are both kept in beautiful silver frames and each has a swirling motif rather like a shell.

I understand that he/me/she/they are married and very happy, they radiate contentment and bliss beyond the silver frames and there is something deeply beautiful about this.

Thieves

I am in an attic room with Steve (a friend and ex partner), hearing noises downstairs I go to investigate. I come across three burglars (they do not see me) and in the dark I try to muster an authoritative voice to command them to leave. I find though (once again) that I have no voice and so return to the attic.

I wake Steve and he descends from the loft to challenge them whilst I remain hidden. Some time later I come down, and find Steve chatting with them! He is reasoning, making friends, rationalizing their actions and forgiving their trespass.

I motion that it is time for them to leave and we all descend the stairs, looking around me I see lots of valuable antique furniture: sideboards, candlesticks and china. “We must be doing well”, I think to myself. I study the three robbers as they walk on ahead: there are two younger men (of no real note) and an older more distinguished gentleman with longish white hair, clothes of faded wealth.

I see that the thieves are drunk, they engage Steve in jovial banter but I feel paranoid that they will steal something on the way out. I try to see into their pockets and at the threshold spot that the old man is indeed carrying something. It is an abstract painting - blue, violet and green – small and slightly tatty (oil on canvass), a battered old sketch pad.

“STOP” I scream, for the first time finding my voice. “GIVE THAT BACK NOW”. The old man seems sheepish, like a small boy caught out - “Amidst all the rich furniture that you have, I didn’t think you would notice this one little thing missing” he says, and puts it down.

I grab hold of it knowing that something very important has been rescued, just in the nick of time.

The Ocean Painting 2

I am with a middle-aged woman, we are guests in someone else’s house: she is quite large, motherly, but insecure too and seeks my advice.

She tells me she paints: it is something she does on “her own, unrecognised” and has “no outlet for her work”. I remember she has shown me a painting the day before - a colourful abstract piece it was ok but not amazing.

She pulls out another recently completed painting; it is morning time and we are outside, I feel fresh and bright in the early light. Her husband is there too and he watches us mutely.

I hold her painting and look into it: a small picture of a grey stormy ocean, oil on canvass board. I find myself becoming absorbed in the tumultuous sea, rolling with the waves and cast about by the wind. I sense and see rocks rising up out of the water, jagged primal forms: I become the beginning of time, the emergence of land.

I recognise in the work a memory of my own work, a picture that I painted when I first returned to college as a mature student in 1996. My painting was huge: a blue and red sea crashing against rocks, a giant orange globe spinning and throbbing in a psychedelic sky. It was quite abstract and dramatic and it tried to express the beginning of time.

What impresses me with her painting is that it doesn’t try to do anything – it simply is.

I tell the woman how much I like the picture, because it is so real. She is pleased but tells me she is frustrated: she wants to know how can she get her work ‘out there’, how can she earn a living from this. I sense that this question has something to do with her pride.

I start to tell her of the things she can do – she can buy the Artists and Writers Yearbook, which lists greetings card manufacturers who will print her work. Or she can subscribe to the arts magazine ‘a-n’ which has lots of opportunities for exhibiting.

But as I tell her all this I wonder in my soul ‘how would this beautiful painting translate into a greetings card? Wouldn’t it’s magic be lost?’ I feel uncertain about the opportunities that I am trying to ‘sell’ to her and my voice sounds hollow as I speak.

Is it possible I wonder to translate her beautiful painting into a commercial product without losing its essence?

I climb into a car with her and the (still silent) husband. We begin the journey home though I realise as I gaze at the scenery passing by that I don’t know where this is.

Merely Decorative

I am back at art school with some of my old friends: Vicky (now my step mother) is there and Judith too. My friends at the time were mostly women, mostly in their fifties.

Vicky is asking the teacher about her painting (he is white, middle aged and authoritative in his half moon specs):

“Should I put in shading, should I be painting the shadows?” She asks him.

“Well it depends” he replies “the shadows make it real, without these your painting is just decoration, it is merely decorative.”

He shows us a small oil painting of a pink orchid: it is deeply shaded - almost bruised it is so dark - and as I stare I feel enveloped in its folds.

Vicky returns to her painting and considers the teachers remarks. I can tell from her shoulders that she is annoyed and feels somehow bruised by them.

The Finest Sable Brushes

I am with Vicky, my stepmother, she is an artist too - a painter - we studied at University together.

I giver her a gift, something to do her oil painting with - a set of the finest sable brushes. But they are even finer than this: they are sacred and we both gaze at them in awe as if at some holy relic.

Under our gaze though the brushes begin to transform. As if some veil had been pulled back they reveal themselves to be nothing but a bundle of cheap pound shop brushes – stubby, frayed, their coarse horsehair bristles all split and splayed. We realize that we were both mistaken as to their true worth.

Vicky looks at me confused and disappointed - “Why so many brushes” she asks “I didn’t want so many”. I say something about having plenty to choose from, to use and to discard – I sense though that this divine gift has become for us both a problem to be disposed of.

Angel Eyes

I find myself seated with a blank sheet of paper in front of me, a brush in my hand. I have watercolour paints on my right and a pencil too. I pick them up and begin working (I notice that I use my right hand which is strange as I am left handed).

I am not sure what to do - I have no image in mind – so I begin to paint content just to see what will happen. A portrait begins to emerge; I find my attention drawn in by translucent flesh and an elegant jaw line.

A mans face is forming, he is beautiful: I look into his eyes and feel myself falling in love for the very first time. I think how he looks like an angel.

I become aware of a distraction off to my left. My father is there and he keeps asking me something. I try to give him some of my attention to see what it is that he wants. He is prodding me in the side saying, “Do one of those drawings you do, you know, like a caricature”.

He keeps on prodding me “go on, go on” and I find myself loosing faith in those beautiful eyes. I try to think what it is Dad wants, I have a vague recollection of what it is he seeks: but my attention is now divided and I am rendered unable to act. In a rage I throw my sketchpad across the room with a scream that rips me in two.

The Sea Picture

Three dreams in the same night:

I dream of a picture frame, framing the sea. The water starts to pour through – the whole ocean, gushing out of this one small ornate plaster work gold leaf picture frame.

I am in a room in a house (the ocean outside now), I am trying to lock myself in as 3 huge she walruses are outside trying to get in, I am not sure if they are friend or foe. They are fat, copious she walruses (sometimes they are black women) – friend or foe, mad even?

Dead rabbits - I dream I have some dead rabbits, I bury them in a shallow grave under some moss – the moss forms itself into a word, what was it? I cannot remember.

I have several dreams that night also of small white delicate spring flowers growing in the moss. They are beautiful.

The Creative Prison

I am in a prison, I am the artist in residence.

I have to produce a work, but the work I have been doing is scattered all over the place and in a mess. I just can’t seem to get a handle on it.

Then I realise that I am making things difficult for myself, with no deadline, no subject, no focus, no topic – I realise that I have forgotten all of the essentials needed to create.

Underground shelter for homeless women.

I am in Wolverhampton, in Bantock park with old friends from when I was about 17 / 18. I have got a grant from the arts council to make something, to build a building.

With my friends we enthusiastically start to dig a hole for the building, we are going to make an underground shelter for homeless women. I get the sense also that the shelter may be a place of spiritual growth, a monastery of sorts. It is a daring art project, only I haven’t told the arts council exactly what it is about....

We dig some holes for foundations, we come across blocked pipes swollen with water – we look at how we might burst them – “by lancing them maybe?”

At that point the news comes through that the funding has been suspended because we haven’t been completely honest about our intentions....