Flying to Florida with Patti Smith

Last Thursday I flew to Florida for a dear friend's wedding. I'm always so busy in my regular life that I often don't find time to read. Travel affords me the time to crank through one or several books and I cherish that aspect of traveling and vacations. On this trip, I read Patti Smith's Just Kids. It was the perfect book for me to read at the perfect time.

I didn't go into reading this as a huge Patti Smith or Robert Mapplethorpe fan. In fact, I didn't know much about either of them except for the basics. But diving into their world - their youth, young love, passion, sexual exploration, friendship, devotion, SEEKING, fearlessness, vulnerablity - all of it provided a deep insight into a fascinating life told from such an honest and self aware place. I almost finished the book by the time I landed and had a lot of personal reactions to what I read that I shelved for party-wedding-time.

Now that I'm home, I'm inspired to aspire to be as devoted to being an artist as they were. They were making art and living in apartments with junkies across the hall and no food but they were always committed to art. As vital to them as their blood. It's time for me to take money officially out of the picture when I'm making art. Take it entirely out of my mind and thought process. I've allowed it to permeate into my relationship with art and it's only served to limit me. Remembering what it means to be an artist, the responsibility I have to the gift of art, the responsibility I have to myself to not stop at small dreams.

I think I need to read nothing but artist biographies for a while. Soak in the reality that there is no "right way" to be an artist. Everyone has their own story, their own journey. The questions of "how do I relate, how do I agree, disagree, desire, reject their various choices, their process, their lives?" will help me figure out where I stand in it all. Where I want to go.




When I was in Florida I saw so many galleries and great contemporary art, I had this dream of opening a gallery down there and getting a condo so I could come and go and co-manage the gallery. I got so into this fantasy it was all I could think about when I was walking on the beach by myself. Returning home, I kept dreaming other dreams - a gallery/house on the Cape or Maine. A house on a lake here in Connecticut or in the woods in the Berkshires. For fun, I look up real estate in different states and vacation rentals in other countries. It's like a fun hobby for me but meanwhile, I don't really know what I REALLY want in the future. Am I supposed to know?

Blending all of this together, I think the focus is pretty simple. Just be an artist and let life take you where you're meant to go.

Lucid Dreaming

I'm at my grandparent's farmhouse and the whole family is there, including a bunch of other people and children that I don't know. My husband and cousin are outside playing football with some kids, my aunts are inside busily cleaning and preparing a large meal. I find myself bonding and playing with a child that looks like my best friend's son, only she's a girl. I love this little girl. I want to go outside but my aunt stops me and wants me to sweep the porch. I act like a baby about it, "but I wanted to go outside!" and she lets me. (I can be pretty stubborn and hot headed in my dreams). Once outside, a little mean boy pours water over my mother's head. She stands up and it has somehow affected her leg brace. I'm so angry at this kid I want to smash him to the ground. I help my mother up and lead her into the house.

Then I'm standing in the porch looking out. A great rumbling in the distance gets closer and closer like a hurricane of destruction. The otherwise natural surroundings turn more urban and it's like a giant plane or train crash with debris rumbling closer and closer to the windowpane I'm standing in awe in front of. As it comes rushing towards me, I realize I'm just dreaming and challenge myself to keep my eyes open - nothing's going to happen to me. In this moment I am aware, I am lucid, as soon as it hits I once again forget I'm in a dream. "It" - this rumbling pile of gray - hits the house like a tidal wave and then the house feels like it's floating and bobbing on water.

I am lifted up and out of the scene and fly over city streets, parks, people walking and cars. Little shifting clips of scenes from above. The last scene I see is a disturbing funeral group hovering over a casket out in the clear sunny day. It's not really sad, it just sort of... is what it is.

My flying adventure ends at a stairway into a building which I enter. Inside is an art and craft show. I'm dizzy from my "flight" and have to gain my footing before back tracking to the first artisan, I want to visit every booth. She is a kind woman selling silver jewelry with sparkling gems - my favorite kind of jewelry. I pick out a pin and buy it for $8. She says "remember to keep this away from children" and I say I plan on giving it to one of my aunt's that don't have children for Christmas (Jo or Jan if you're reading this, I'm already thinking of presents for you!). She packages it up with a smile and I continue on.

I find myself in a room with antique dealers and I'm carrying a chair on my behind. Yes, as strange as that is, a folding chair is awkwardly being carried along with my purse stuffed with paper work and other random clutter and my new purchase in a bag. It's too much to carry. I ask the vendors if they mind me putting down the chair and one says it's fine, another gives me quite the attitude - "Why do you have a chair with you?" and I snap back, "Because if there's MUSIC or some kind of PERFORMANCE I want to SIT DOWN, OKAY!??" and I've crossed a line, made a spectacle of myself and feel ashamed.

I pick up my chair and exit that room into another that's very cluttered with antiques and some seriously amazing paintings. The artists don't seem to care that their work is strewn everywhere and I find it hard to step around things but I want to take it all in. I put down my things and realize after my little scene in the other room, I somehow managed to pick up one of the antique dealers displays - like a washboard with little nick-nacks on it. Sneakily, I just stick it behind some old chest hoping they find it, too embarrassed to return it myself. The artist looks at me like "oh sure, you'll spend your money on that crap but not on art?" and I tell him I'm an artist too and that I collect plenty of art.

Then my dog woke me up.

I laid in bed for a bit, remembering the artwork I had seen, the images swirling around in my mind and then began to see images that I want to paint. Abstract figurative paintings, big and bold, paintings that say something. That's what's sticking with me and I feel like I have something new to say in painting. After this time away from making art, something has struck me. Inspiration has struck me and now I must take it to heart and do some sketching and planning for new work.

I don't know what the totality of the dream is saying but I thought I'd share it since it was so crystal clear to me when I woke up. (I also find it hilarious what a brat I can be in my dreamstate!). I'm entering the season when my dreams are WILD adventures, sometimes scary, sometimes thrilling. I think on the whole I'm getting better at realizing not to be afraid when danger threatens me. That lucidity clicks in at the key moments and I'm whisked away from danger at the last minute. Like a car headed towards a tree that somehow magically lifts up and off the ground just before the strike. Most importantly though, is seeing art in my dreams. I love when I have art dreams and I wish I could just wake up and paint everything I've seen but already the images are lost to me. What is not lost however, are the images that I "dreamed" when I woke up. These paintings will become a reality. I don't know when, but they will. Stay tuned...

If you like to interpret dreams - have at it! Have you ever had a lucid dreaming experience? Do you ever dream about art?