Who's Driving This Life...Crazy

So the other night I had a dream that was so freaky it almost made me laugh once I woke up and thought about it. You know, there are a few dreams you can figure out no matter who's having it. I don't usually go in for the dream dictionaries, since I think a snake might mean a different thing, even subconsciously, from one person to the next. But...the water dream seems pretty solid in definition regardless of who you are. It sticks out as a truism because it's so vague. Water is emotion. Drowning in it? Is it following you in a threatening manner? Are you swimming happily? Found out you can breathe underwater? You can Lego snap your situation to water and you have your answer. This wasn't one of those, though I am expecting a torrent in my sleep sometime soon (not that kind). I had the other kind. It's not the same as falling dreams, which are pretty obviously about being completely out of control, sucked down ever faster by the greedy arms of gravity while the earth hurtles up to meet you and your fragile vessel, right? There's not even anything to hold on to! That's a different level of helplessness, and one I hope never to know...again. No, the dream I had went something like this:

I found myself behind the wheel of my car (do you see where this is going?). I pulled up to a red light feeling like I hadn't slept in weeks. Maybe months. I was the kind of tired that nothing can combat. Not coffee, not anything. My eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each. Like, I could actually feel my whole face struggling to keep them open. I noticed D sitting in the passenger seat, and I knew O was in the backseat, and I was roused from my stupor by the thought that I might be putting them in some danger. So I slurred to D, "Hey, maybe you could drive for a little while, honey?" And he, just as bright and chipper as a man who'd slept as long as I felt deprived of sleeping, said, patting my knee, "Oh, no you're doing great! You are doing a great job, so you got this. No problem." Well, the light turned green and I slid out into traffic with my eyes closed. But we didn't crash. We just kept driving. The car, apparently realizing I was out of commission, was driving itself. But cars, perhaps contrary to what you may have thought, are terrible drivers. We swerved, we careened, we narrowly missed, and I could not wake up. I had my hands on the wheel, but had no strength to move it where I chose. Well, when we nearly clipped a lamp post turning a corner, I tried. I grabbed that wheel and wrenched it right while stomping the brake with every drop I had left. Nothing happened. The car refused to listen to me. The end of that dream is lost to the fog, but I feel like I ended up getting it to stop, but by that time, I was alone in it.

This went into a second dream about taking a retreat in a house that turned out to be a haunted old military bunker I was afraid to stay in, and afraid to leave, though there were no doors and all the screens had been ripped out. It had the look of a mansion at the end of a loamy overgrown country lane, but was, in fact, a deserted and crumbling Swiss cheese fortress set back in the middle of nowhere. But I couldn't leave. I was terrified of the ghosts, everyone else had left me there, but I was sweating bullets at the thought of walking out the door.

You might ask what part of all that I found very funny. Well, it's funny to me. I won't go back and forth about what these things might mean. To me, they are as obvious as water and falling. That first part was about my life as an artist, and that second part was about my life as a smoker. These are two ways I identify myself to myself: an artist and a smoker. These Siamese dreams may seem very similar (out of control, insecurity, fear, confinement, etc.), but are actually quite opposite.

In the car, I wanted, after I knew I couldn't just get out of the driver's seat, to take this car under my control. I wanted to navigate it, make it go where I wished, answer the pull. But life must be negotiated with, I think. Ask for what you want, really mean it, then be open to the reply, willing to receive. Life is a river [Oooh, water (emotion) again!], and it keeps on rushing, bumping over you if you're a rock, wearing you down, bending you to the current if you're a reed, and taking you everywhere you ever would and wouldn't want to go if you're a piece of driftwood. But I am a woman. I swim in the river of life, I navigate its waters in my little boat, and if I'm not careful, I can drown. The car and I were fighting each other. I was not listening to it, and it was returning the favor. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to open the lines of communication between the me that is a person wanting to make money, and the me that is a conduit for art things. Simple, right?

That second one may be of less interest to you if you are not a smoker, and we're not really here to talk about that, so I'll be brief. Anyway it's, like I said, the opposite of the first one. If you've never been addicted to something that is bad for you, you may not understand, but it comes down to fighting against yourself. Nobody can argue a point to me like me, I know all the weak spots! I, on the one hand, am working to convince myself to stay inside on the basis that it is too scary out there without my (crumbling) support. I, on the other hand, know the "support" is haunted (full of outdated ghosts of ideas about who I am) and crumbling, and want to get the hell out of it before it collapses on me.

So while the first dream was about negotiating control so that I might stay and steer this life, the second is about finding the courage to abandon an old comfort that now threatens to kill me. Funny, right? Hm. Well, I guess you had to be there.

xoxo
L

On Human Realism/The Figurative Figure

I love to paint eyes. It's one of my most favorite things. It does occur to me, however, that some people get very uncomfortable when looking at a paining that is looking at them. When you're standing in front of a painting or drawing in which the figure's eyes are focused at the viewer, especially if the figure is life-sized or close to it, something internal is made a little wiggly. It's different than staring at a still life, for sure. And that's just it: figurative painting can't sit still. We watch a sleeping person in a painting, recognize the form, the structure of a human face and body, and because it makes no sense otherwise, we place a mental overlay on top of the image, a recording. We imagine, we make believe, the figure is breathing. Now, open that figure's eyes and point them right at the viewer, and that's why so many have trouble staring at one for long. The viewer is engaging in a staring contest they cannot win! Maybe something primal inside them taps them on the proverbial shoulder and informs them that the total insano facing them down doesn't even blink. He doesn't even blink, man! And so they cower, they look away, move on.

So how to make that moment something someone would invite into their life, into their home? Well, as much as it can tap into some human reflex to run away, that's not the only human reflex.

I think about this a lot since I paint figures mostly, and many times, the person I'm painting is not someone the buyer even knows. I try to imbue my figures with some sense beyond the obvious, each one specific and different in a way that, hopefully, different types of people will have a reflexive reaction to. Something for everybody, I guess? It's kind of optimistic, really, to believe that people will feel the way I want them to when they look at a piece, but it happens whether it's designed to or not. It's a great social experiment! I do it for me: pour something of my self into this person, this representation on canvas, and it acts like a visual for a conversation I'm not having out loud. It's very interesting for me to see who is attracted to which conversation.

Anyway, maybe none of that is real. Maybe I'm reading too far in? But I can't help it! I'm around my own paintings all the time, staring at me from out of their imagined worlds. Sometimes I do get drawn in. Sometimes I realize I'm engaging in that conversation. Since it's not a great idea to engage in too much circular self-to-self, I remain hopeful that not everyone is afraid to look a painting in the eye. Hopefully, someone stumbles upon my staring contest champion, and feels what I felt when I made it, speaks the language of that moment, and takes them home to pick up the thread of conversation. Maybe you?

Cheers!
Laurelin

On The Eve Of My...

This is what I found I had written in the wee hours a few nights ago on a piece of paper, on the back of my to-do list:

"As dangerous as it is to be hopeful, it's the only way to be. Defense, offense, the law of gravity, attraction, positive tension. The theory of relativity. Intuition, precision, marksmanship, design and marketing. I wish I had some tools to understand this with. That's what business school, marketing, is for! I have to hope I recognize a lesson when it arrives instead of knowing what to look for. Yes, luck, but also presence, awareness, an ability to step outside myself (because otherwise - insecure), and yes, hopefulness too. Am I inviting my own demise? Why would I do that? This is one of the times I can say for really real I have no fear of success. Fucking subconscious is a sticky wicket! No doubt. But I feel more a sense of calm in the face of unavoidable downfall. Like I was tired of waiting for it, glad it's here. But I also feel a strong sense of transition. This miserable complacency vanishes in the face of something else. I am ready to move forward, to ascend a little. Fuck all other options. I remind myself to keep an eye on it, whatever it is. I guess I'll know it when I see it."

Bit of a midnight rambler, but I can dig it.

Whatever I want I can work for, maybe even get it. But the thing for me is just to do it. I protect my right to perform my craft to the best of my ability, and I pursue the opportunities for me to present said craft doggedly. That's the hustle. And while the hustle can get dirty (physically, emotionally, spiritually), it is never without worth or impact. That means I get out what I put in. The work is never done, but the work is the thing, so who's looking for an end?

Every day new bliss(ters)

Cheers,
Laurelin