anima: a dream

Tags

anima, dream journal, Dreaming, dreams

Dream

27 October 2022.

Years later, she calls me and of course I go to her. She has a room upstairs in some city, like an attic apartment. We go to bed, fully clothed, and talk and cuddle. She tells me she always loved me and isn’t with that other guy anymore. I apologize for being mean because I couldn’t deal with her being with anyone else. I only ever wanted her all to myself.

We’re sad for a bit. We both turn away and lie back-to-back under the blankets. Then I roll over to face her again. Suddenly we’re both naked and I get on top of her. She’s so beautiful. So sad and beautiful, like she always was. We kiss. Looking into her eyes, I move with her slowly until we fit together. We do what people do.

The next thing I know, I wake up in an old rural house I’ve never been to before. Other people are there, but I don’t know any of them. I get out of bed.

Her brother is there, which is odd because she doesn’t have a brother in the waking world. He is played in this dream by Chris Pratt, the movie star. He doesn’t know where she is. I go through the rustic, disorderly kitchen and end up outside.

Across the yard, some old white guy is berating a black guy who’s dressed in shabby clothes like an old-time slave. The old white guy is ordering the black guy to clean up before he comes into the house. I hate this racist old fuck already and feel sorry for the black guy, who meets my eyes and looks forlorn. I can’t make any sense of how anachronistic this scene feels.

I want to find out where she went, and it feels like that should be priority number one. Instead, it’s night already, and her brother and I go to some other big country house for a party.

I’m upset that he isn’t helping me look for her. But he does ask around a little bit. I get a glass of whiskey and coke before wandering around the house and property.

Outside, I suddenly have a mobile phone with me, so I call her number. She doesn’t answer. I get an automated reply. It’s like a voice mail, but it’s also in text on the phone. I don’t read it right away. I disconnect and call her again, hoping she will answer. I try a couple more times after reading the message, without success.

The message says she accepted a job as a set designer at some theater in Europe. It gives no indication of when she’ll be back, if ever.

I find her brother and tell him. He says, as if he just remembered, that she had been talking about that job. He doesn’t have any idea when she’ll be back.

I don’t understand how she could reconnect with me so intimately then just disappear without saying goodbye. All I wanted was to be with her again, but now she’s gone. I don’t know what to do, and it feels like there’s nothing I can possibly do. I miss her so much.

Then I wake up.

indie box: Rare Bit Fiends

Tags

black and white, dream journal, Dreaming, dreams, indie box, Indie Comics, King Hell Press, Neil Gaiman, Rare Bit Fiends, Rick Veitch

What’s in the short-box of indie and small-press comics this week? It’s Rare Bit Fiends by Rick Veitch! Here to introduce the descent into the dreamworld is a strange and nameless beast who begins every issue of this unique series.

In Rare Bit Fiends, Rick Veitch made his dreams into pages of comic book art. Don’t look for traditional stories in Rare Bit Fiends. You’ll only find the psychedelic language of dreams and the weird workings of the inner mind. Veitch’s artwork is in top form.

Below is a sample of an illustrated dream whose narrative comes from a special-guest dreamer Neil Gaiman and rendered by Roarin’ Rick in ultra-cosmic perfection!

Collector’s Guide: From Rare Bit Fiends. Collections include Crypto Zoo, Pocket Universe, and Rabid Eye. King Hell Press.

The title Rare Bit Fiends is a nod to the early 20th Century comic strip Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend by Winsor McCay, who created Little Nemo in Slumberland.

sketchbook sundays: dream journal nine perfection

Tags

art, comic book collage, comic book dreams, dream journal, dreams, painting, sketchbook sundays

Sometimes you have those dreams where everything feels perfect. As a tribute to the numerous dreams we’ve had flipping through boxes of never-published comic books, the colors and textures of Dream Journal Nine contain vintage comic books in their depths.

This little 8×10 canvas has been a companion in the painting studio for two years, the object of many small-scale experiments we would later apply to larger canvases. It was once a light-hearted collage called “Perfect! The Master Will be Well Pleased!“

We’ve had much time to consider the idea of perfection, and we have a new perspective on it now. Perfection is a process, not a static state. Perfection is a verb, not a noun. Perfection is how we shape the world ever closer to an ideal we have in our minds. In reality, nothing is ever truly perfect, but that should not disappoint us too much. We are not trying to attain a state of perfection; we work to perfect our less-than-ideal world and make it more ideal.

On the flip side, you have imperfection. The crackled textures of Dream Journal Nine suggests cracks and imperfections. In dreams, the imperfections sometimes alert the dreamer that yes, this is a dream. You notice something that doesn’t seem quite right. And when you pause to think about it, it becomes clear you are dreaming. The imperfections of the dream world make perfect signposts on the road to lucid dreaming and greater awareness in the dream.

Dream Journal Nine could just as easily bear the title Imperfection, for perfection and imperfection form two sides of the same coin, two halves of the same whole.

We recently published three years of dreams from our dream journals in a 148-page paperback, and also Kindle format, called Three Years Dreaming.

art sales today

Tags

abstract, acrylic, art, art sales, collage, dream journal, guitar, painting

We sold two paintings today. We had our doubts that anything would ever sell due to a Craigslist ad, but we were happily proven wrong.

Guitar #20: Frozen Coast caught an art lover’s eye on Craigslist. While she was here, she took a liking to Dream Journal #8: Night at the Lake. Good choice! We are very fond of that one, and miss it already.

You can read more about Guitar #20, or Dream Journal #8, in our archives. Their original posts include detailed close-up photos.

Dream Journal Eight: Night at the Lake

Tags

abstract, acrylic, art, collage, dream journal, dreams, mixed media, painting

Dream Journal Eight: Night at the Lake. Acrylic paint, varnish, and mixed media collage on canvas
12 x 12 in. heavy duty frame, 1.5 in. deep.

Our Dream Journal series combines collage, print media, found objects, and acrylic paint to make deeply personal expressions.

Night at the Lake recalls a memory of a dream, a dream written on pages collaged into the layers of this piece. At night, you and your love swim in this lake. Silent fish drift by in the deep waters. The clouds part their fingers to reveal the full moon at its apex above the forest. The two of you tread water together, then dive.

Tiny metal beads adorn the surface of Night at the Lake, finished with several coats gloss varnish for durability and protection, resulting in a glass-like finish. The signature appears on the back of this original piece.

dream journal 7: fun

Tags

art, collage, comic book collage, dream journal, dreams, painting

 
Some of our dream journals have addressed pretty heavy emotions, but this one is lighter and happier. This is a dream of laughter and sunshine, pretty colors and shiny things. It’s fun – a dream you wake from, smiling.

We often have all kinds of fun in our dreams. We’ve seen the moonrise on an alien planet and rocked out on stage with Mudhoney. We’ve gone for rides in flying cars and played baseball, made love and attended cocktail parties. We’ve discovered the secret of flying, cuddled kittens, and taken epic treks through panoramic landscapes. And many, many times we have spent what seems like hours going through longboxes full of comic books that have never been published.

This has everything from a latex cast of a toy snake to wire from a fan, drawings from our art teacher to a Marvel Value Stamp, tin foil to jewelry, keys, stickers, and flowers. The stencil for the spray paint, the flowery black shapes, is part of the casing of a fan motor. The loose wires on the left got the staple gun treatment to hold them on the back of the wooden frame.

Dream Journal 5: Disappointment

Tags

art, collage, dream journal, dreams, painting

All the objects in Dream Journal 5 come with associations of disappointment. Despite its small size and simplicity, this collage/painting was perhaps the most difficult to work on thus far. Memories of potentially wonderful times marred with bitterly disappointing outcomes seem especially heavy — like leaden weights holding you down. Everyone knows the feeling of disappointments in romance, finance, health, travel — any time we expect great things but end up feeling let down by ourselves, others, or circumstance. Feelings of disappointment, if left to linger, can become feelings of chronic failure.

In this dream, however, we can see the beauty of these things. Even the dead plants and beetle, painted silver, suggest the value in things we experience as transitory. Life goes on. And in this dream, all these memories are caught up in a gust of wind. It lifts them up, almost animating them, into the light. Here, held up before us, we can appreciate their beauty. Here, we can set free our attachments to the negative feelings that plague them, and remember why they shone so brightly for us in the first place.

You awake from this dream more at peace with yourself and your past. You feel more alive, refreshed. You know something sad happened, but somehow it doesn’t drag you down. You feel ready to move on today, to appreciate the wonder in small things, and make new memories.

Dream Journal 3: Love

Tags

acrylic, art, collage, dream journal, dreams, heart, love, painting

A glow surrounds the heart in Dream Journal 3. It glows white for healing and pink for passionate love. For this heart, if you look closely, is rough. It has scars. It has sustained damage in the past. It carries a lot of memories, not all of them pleasant, but all of them very intense.

This piece is that heart’s dream of healing. Even the scarred heart can be beautiful, its unique texture inseparable from its personality. It has witnessed death and loss, but also creativity and joy — even bliss. This healing dream surrounds the heart in loving warmth. You wake from this dream feeling protected, content, and ready to embrace the day.

Dream Journal 2: Touch

Tags

acrylic, art, collage, dream journal, dreams, painting

Dream Journal 2 features a latex cast of my right hand, affixed to the canvas. This piece deals with touch: human contact. In these days of email, instant messaging, blogs, comments, and social media sites, we all have a lot of “Contacts.” But how many do we actually touch?

Touch causes a chemical and an emotional reaction that is essential to our well-being or, you might say, to the ideal calibration of the human “machine.” Babies who are denied loving touch develop a host of psychological disorders, many of which are painfully evident in our culture and society today. Perhaps our entire culture suffers from a lack of touch.

The tactile aspect of the hand also suggests that the dreams not only involve touch but can be touched. You could put your hand to mine and feel my dream, says this piece. Perhaps you and I can even dream it together that way.

The jewelry, buttons, and broken snail shells layered into the canvas have all been touched. They relate to powerful memories of tactile experiences — some sad, but mostly happy in this piece. This is an intense dream, full of touch and contact, physical intimacy and the joy it brings. You wake from it feeling loved, refreshed, at peace, and smiling. You look forward to dreams like this.

Dream Journal 1: Anger

Tags

abstract, acrylic, art, collage, comic book collage, dream journal, dreams, painting

Dream Journal 1 deals with anger. The bottom layer of comic book panels reconstructs a nightmarish sequence in which two friends fight violently. The anger of this dream traps them in a vortex of repeated panels, their conflict echoed over and over again, surrounded by angry faces like a series of funhouse mirrors gone wrong. This is a dream where you wake up feeling terrible, tense, and on edge all day.

The layers over this collage deal with that anger. It still glows red, almost like a wound, through the diagonal ‘rift’ across the painting. The greens and blues seek to sooth this angry wound. There, there, they say. Ssshhhh. It was only a dream. That’s all it was. Just a bad dream. It’s okay now.

This piece also deals with letting go of that anger. This isn’t denial. It is acknowledgement and then working through uncomfortable feelings to the other side of them, moving through both light and darkness. Anger is just one thing we cling to in our lives.

Many times we feel anger as a way of protecting something we care about. Anger is a shield we put up around us to keep something valuable from being hurt or threatened. It may form a defensive barrier against feeling an underlying sadness. If we hold on to our anger, though, it becomes a disruptive force in our lives. Sometimes we have to dig deeper and ask ourselves, what are we hurting about — or trying to avoid hurting about — underneath all that anger? By getting to the source, we can diffuse its negative energy.

This painting moves through the process of considering anger, identifying those underlying sources, and releasing that energy in a creative, transformative way. In one of the panels, now buried under layers of paint and collage, the Human Torch shouts to Spider-man, “You’re a free man, Spidey!” It became our mantra for the rest of the piece. Free. To do anything we want. To experience anything. Free to let go of anger and open up to life. Free to create and destroy. You’re a free man, Spidey. Don’t waste that.