Making Art in My Sleep

Woke up after the sun but well before my alarm was set to go off, so I eventually got back to sleep. And art invaded my dreams.  I had walked into a dimly lit large room that had stuff piled up everywhere, and some large low dumpsters in the center of the room.  In the closest dumpster to me (sides low enough that I could easily see over them) was loosely piled bodies.  Not living humans, but life size sculptures of adult bodies, both genders, carved in stone, or cast in concrete or bronze.  Some nude, some dressed.  All were incomplete, missing some parts, though I didn't know if they were made that way or had broken off.  Was this a storeroom for things being disposed of, a workshop for repair? Where had they come from?  I had no idea.

In walked Lewis Cohen, who was the main sculpture professor at William and Mary in my later years there.  Never took a class with him and probably had few conversations, but it's a small school so we knew each other by sight. Last saw him in 1990- probably retired by now.  He asked me what was going on, and I told him I had come in looking for some scrap paper, which at the time seemed truthful. Then he asked me what this place was, and I obviously didn't know the answer.  But my reply was also truthful, "I think these are the makings of an interesting figure art installation."  None of the figures was standing or laying down straight at attention, but all were posed as if sitting, reclining, or doing other activities, although the missing parts would have made it challenging.  He mumbled an agreement. Told him I was going to go get my camera to get some photos of all this for future reference and left.  

Outside it had gotten darker, but the sun wasn't down yet.  Crossed a very wide road, watching out for swerving cars, but none came close to hitting me.  I believed my camera had been left inside a particular store, but the place was packed, with a big crowd (appeared to be college age) waiting outside to get in.  But something seemed wrong.  Faces were blank, eyes were vacant.  Didn't know if they were waiting for a drug connection, or selling their bodies on the street, or worse, but I did decide that I didn't want to hang around to find out, much less push my way through the crowd.  Figured I'd deal with my camera another time and get away from there before anything bad went down.  I realized that these living people standing around were more disturbing than the bin of piled up and broken (seemingly dead) bodies I had left in the other place.

Still not sure what all this means.  Except for a 3D foundations class I took even before I met Cohen, all my figure art experience is flat- drawings, paintings, prints.  And there has been a lot of it, as head and figure have been a focus in my art from the start. (an influence of comic books, or renaissance and baroque art, or maybe both) When I taught 3D Design, I had students make small figures for an exercise in canons of proportion and create an installation around them for a later project, but it involved nothing life sized and I have never done any such thing myself.  No immediate plans to either, but I wrote all this down and I'll give my subconscious (which produced this dream in the first place) a chance to work on it. If it sends me an interesting and workable art idea, you'll find out here.  Meanwhile, the cure for weird dreams about art is to go make some good art, and that was my plan for the morning.