In my life creating art, I am asked where my inspirations and images come from.
My world of unconventional reality.
Much of it does come from dreams dreamt at night. Dreams I can still recall from decades ago. Dreamscapes I walked among and participated in. Dreams that are coming to reality now. On canvas and in our shared reality. Dreams are the drivers of my creations. A constant of questionings. What is real for me?
Dream # 42, March, 1986…
“On the road to somewhere. Somewhere my heart aches to be. The sun glared brilliantly off my hood ornament. Somewhere my artworks await my return. In some unnamed city to the West. Roads connecting, dissecting and crossing like erratic branches of grandfather juniper. Blue and red lines on my map and the veins of my adventures. In my nightly pursuits, like hundreds before this, I always choose the longer route. Shortcuts hold no promises.
Still, in some darkened gallery in some darkening city, my paintings will wait.
On a Lonely stretch of road somewhere in pseudo-Nevada state, I roared along to the rhythm of another road song. This landscape has a bleached out look to it. Like an old Polaroid photo aged by time. Wildflowers waved on both sides of this road. Waving in welcoming and blessings. Tethered to the shoulder like spirits roaming their haunts. Shimmering palette of early spring .
Just below the telephone lines that run on my right side, above the mile marker, I am startled by an appearance of a big vulture. A dark disturbance against the pale blueness of the sky. At almost the same moment, a beautiful white hawk appears over a road smudge just ahead. A remnant of an oily death of some small critter. The darkness of the big vulture swooped down and quickly grabbed the hawk that did not struggle in the least. It remained a proud and stoic bird even in this death grip. The vulture, with its prey landed on asphalt behind me. I am still moving as this drama unfolds in my rearview mirror. The image of the birds remained large, clear and centered just above the frosted message of my side mirror. It reads: the image in the mirror appears this way until I lose interest. I see the beautiful and proud head of the hawk fall away onto the asphalt; he never lost composure. With the sinful splotch behind me, I am riveted back to the road ahead. The rules of distances and dimensions reclaim their reality as the scene falls away and disappeared into the distance.
The pavement before me ends. The road continues as a gravel corridor between large rabbitbrushes and Chollas. I drove into a small way station. I ordered chicken fried steak at a very dusty diner. It was too long in coming so I left. I saw for an instant the fallen expression on the face of the waitress in my rearview. In another dream, I waited.
Some distance ahead, a bustle of activity near a small cluster of buildings. Beyond that, creating a dramatic backdrop is a massive construction site. A huge sandstone rock; a whole mesa is being carved up to accommodate a road. The mesa sits like a Swiss cheese as engineers bore holes only to abandon it for another. Like a beautiful white hawk desecrated. Like an oily smudge on the road. I am told the road is being constructed to connect with a larger highway visible just beyond the mesa. Some twisted perversion of optical rules allowed me to see this. This is a dead end for now. I must retrace my drive to get beyond this mess. The evening sun casts gold reflections off my ornament and I must follow it. Still. My art awaits me in some storeroom. My beautiful ones. The ones I share; the colorful ones; the new ones.
Dreams do provide vehicle for inspirations in an artist’s lives. Dreams continue. Hundreds of stories on my nightly journeys. Dreams dreamt decades ago were the predictors of what was yet to be and I am always amazed. Some dreams continue the same travel narrative for me. One lasted 16 years in real time and one night in dream time. There are no disturbing dreams anymore, just reality processed and faced. Instincts and subconscious searchings are given a stage in this nightly one-man play. Dream well.
