Dreams are the hushing of the bodily senses, that the eyes of the Spirit may open. ~Harriet Beecher Stowe
Still painting my dreams, this time it’s in my journal. Which is where the visual interpretation usually starts and eventually whether it is months down the road or years, it’ll probably end up in an actual painting. The other week I dreamt about how I had a constant companion as I walked on a long journey. My companion was a black elephant. I never saw the whole elephant in my dream, just its trunk and its front feet, occasionally its face. But mainly its trunk was in my line of vision. When we finally got to my destination, which was a large ship that I had to get on to cross a big body of water, the people on the boat told me that not only could my companion not get on the boat, but that she had to be killed. And I clung to her trunk and cried and cried. I woke up feeling very sad.
I looked up dream interpretations and I’m still not sure what my subconscious was trying to tell me! Perhaps nothing. Except it was such a vivid dream, that I think that there’s a message there. I do know that death in dreams usually means transition and its not necessarily as awful as it sounds. Elephants can also represent memory. But also 1st root chakra sacral needs like physical survival… I am not well versed in all that, but that sounded interesting. I will keep thinking on it.
I wanted to share here another deer dream painting I did that is currently in the “Nocturnal” show at Lark and Key.
The inspiration for doing the deer with dark background came from my studio table….often the best ideas come from things that happen not on purpose, and my eye catches it and likes it and I decide to follow that thread. So these deer paintings I have been drawing onto and into the wax. One of the steps I use is to draw on paper first then I use transfer paper to get the drawing onto the wax and then I will use different tools to draw into the wax.
On the upper right side, is my original drawing on white paper. To the left of that is the transfer paper after I had transferred the drawing onto the white background of the encaustic panel below. I loved how the drawing looked on the dark transfer paper so I decided that I had to create deer painting on a black encaustic surface, which led to “Dreaming, I See Visions” above.
I don’t know who said this, but it’s so true- from the work comes the work. It’s hard at times to get started when I’ve had to take breaks from the studio, but I also know that once I get started, more ideas will flow. It’s the starting that is the hard part at times!