Bubble

Feb. 26, 2003:

I had a dream I was back in R__ near my aunt's old house, and I thought I could get back to her house from there, only everything was all different and the city just wasn't the same any more. It was like a maze, and every time I turned around, the streets change. So I couldn't get to her house; in fact, I got completely lost! Then I wound up going through this weird carnival type thing that I don't remember much about, only that it was weird. Only it wasn't a carnival, it was this crazy art exhibition, and people were doing all sorts of weird displays and performance art and stuff, except it was sort of scary in a way. And then I went through a playground only it was a really shoddy one and everything was all broken down (actually, that does sound quite like my aunt's old neighborhood...). Then I got to this one tenement that had never been there before, near where the old hardware store used to be, and it was all run-down and broken down. I met my old art teacher Mrs. D___ there and she said there was some guy there that I needed to meet, because she thought I'd be interested in the stuff he'd done and what he had to say. Turns out he was some great printer or something but everyone had completely forgotten about him in his old age, and I'd barely even heard of him myself. However, I went up there anyway, and he was waiting in his apartment... it was a real slum... he was just this shrunken, emaciated old guy with white hair and bleary blue eyes, he didn't seem like much, he was a hermit of sorts and never really went out, never talked to people or interacted with them, and sort of cranky, but once I started talking to him he actually seemed like he was a pretty nice guy, just really antisocial. I guess never going out and talking to people... they sort of forgot he was there, or that he'd done anything important. I felt bad for him.

So he asked me to show him some of my work, and I did. He looked at it and said it had potential, and told me not to give up, that art and the printed medium in particular could be discouraging but to just keep trying. Then he showed me some printing techniques. I don't remember very much about those, only that it looked like some sort of silk-screen but when you drew your finger across it, it made light, and you could actually etch these really neat luminous designs in it this way. So we sat and drew designs together, and then I heard Mrs. D___ calling me and telling me that I'd talked to him enough now and didn't need to be there any more, and then I woke up.