What Do Dreams Look Like?

Most of the fine art we've seen is about depicting some aspect of reality; at least on the surface it is. Thus, we have all seen countless pictures of natural scenes and every sort of animal. And we've all seen zillions of pictures of man-made objects. 

When I say "fine art," for the most part I mean art that wasn't created to promote products, services, etc. Generally, we label such selling art as "commercial art." However, the process of creating art, regardless of its label, inevitably calls for artists to gather their thoughts and pour them out of their head, without bruising them too much. 

As an example, the painting above was done outdoors in 1983. It was a cartoonish depiction of a recurring childhood dream. Abstract plein air, perhaps?

This written piece is about the gathering and the steps of assembling parts of the creative process, as I know it. Thus, I am drawing on my own experience as an artist/writer, plus many of my friends are also artists of one stripe or another. So I have exchanged these notions with some of them over the years.

Before artists craft their thoughts into references and symbols and doo-dads, what is gathered and what does it look like along the way? Put another way, what does my imagination look like? For that matter, what do my memories look like? What do my dreams look like? How are their looks different? How do others see such things?

After almost 12 years serving as the Richmond Biograph Theatre's manager, 1971-83, I was in my mid-30s. By then, I had seen lots of art shows and watched plenty of art movies. And, I had created countless art things to promote the Biograph's movies and other show business ventures. 

During my last two years at the Biograph and the three years, or so, afterward, I tried in several way to depict the coalescing of my thoughts. How it looked in my head when I was designing a piece. 

Suddenly I found myself believing in the interaction, back and forth -- with inspiration and improvisation in the air -- between artist and a forming art object. I imagined the art speaking to me. Sort of like a jam session in my head. For a while, I thought maybe the doodles that I did when I was talking on the phone, or listening to the radio, were my most natural way of drawing. 

With that kind of thinking, during this time, I came up with the Zism (example seen below), as a symbol of this sort of shadow boxing with my art and time passing. A series of collages and SLANT -- a little magazine I edited and published for nine years -- also came from this unusually creative period.

Consequently, in 1984, when I ran for City Council to me it started as a performance art thing. While I had been interested in politics since my teens, in the beginning it was a prank of a sort. Then it changed and I tried to win. I also saw the first couple of years of publishing SLANT -- the writing, the drawing, the pasting up, the ad sales, etc. -- as a performance challenge, as much as it was anything else.  

During this time I wanted to plunge into art more deeply, to see more than the first glance, the surface. I can remember yearning to better understand what artists of any era were thinking, while they were making art that went beyond merely being decorative. With my own stuff, I felt drawn toward wanting to do more than persuade and entertain an audience. Like, why have one color shine though another?

My girlfriend at the time, Tana, was a talented painting and printmaking student. Going to art shows and music happenings with her was a gas. At some point she urged me to quit the Biograph job and go to art school, or travel. Although she had a lot of influence on me, I didn't take her advice about formally studying art. But during our three years together I did start making more fine art than I ever had before ... so, in a way I traveled.

However, I did take Tana's advice about quitting my longtime movie theater manager's job. Which was either the dumbest thing I ever did, or maybe I should have done it five years sooner. So it was better late than never. 

Nonetheless, the immediate problem with that impulsive move in the summer of 1983 was that I suddenly had to find a new way to make a living. Ever since then, my journey as an artist has proceeded with fits and starts, because of recurring money problems. 

*

That's the end of the chapter of this story about my sifting though some art thinking that was done half a lifetime ago.

The Zism has always looked like a 3-D thing in my head.

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