The Artist Paints in Dreams
On two separate nights in the past week I have painted in my dreams. This feels like a sort of rite of passage, an indication that I have embodied my practice enough that it inhabits my dreamscape—like when you first dream in a foreign language after being immersed in its study.
A year ago, painting was still a foreign language to me. While I was committed to practicing, I knew I wasn’t speaking in my own voice yet. They say it takes something like 7 years of living full-time in another language to achieve actual fluency. I wonder if that is the same for modes of artistic expression? A poet learning to paint—the skills are only theoretically transferable, but not on the level of the body—the gesture, the brushwork.
In any case, this week I am working on the paintings seen in my dreams—I’m seeing these as a very clear message from the universe and my subconscious about the direction I am heading as of late, in particular in regard to color in my work.
Miniature abstract painting in Sumi ink & watercolor by Anne Keefe
Manifesting in reality
Even as I write this, I feel a little pang of “contraction”—as my Tarot teacher Lindsay Mack might put it—a bit of fear at the bigness of claiming a path, declaring “my style,” and so on. These are big questions on any artist’s journey. Whenever my mind wanders near these types of questions I get that uncomfortable feeling of approaching the unknown, as if the soundtrack of the dream is now playing ominous music and threatening to become a nightmare.
Because I know I’ll never stick to one style, one medium, or even one craft. And yet, the expectation that I should seems to haunt me. When I try to identify where that pressure comes from—the pressure to narrow down the style or the thing one is known for—I realize that’s not coming from me—that’s not my heart’s voice. As an artist, I want to be free to explore where my intuition takes me.
Scarcity thinking robs us of the flexibility on which creativity depends.
I think some of that pressure comes from the sort of “brand identity” and product-based thinking that feels as if its in the air as an artist sharing work in a digital age. This product-centric thinking can gnaw at an artist when we are first putting ourselves out there creatively. Especially if we offer any works for sale, we can too easily feel the need to be a finished project ourselves.
We must challenge these ideas because this kind of scarcity thinking robs us of the flexibility on which creativity depends. I am not a static product, nor is my art. Instead, it is a living process, one that—at every stage of its unfurling—can speak to another being, make them feel seen, and capture part of what it means to be human.
My Dream’s Unfurling
When I feel that pang of contraction, I remind myself to just stay in the process of making without judgement. This mindset was really a crucial part of The 100 Day Project, which really jumpstarted sharing my art and committing to a daily practice in early 2021. This year’s 100 Day project has just started and I’m looking back on the previous year with such gratitude and joy in seeing how my creativity unfurled over the course that project.
For instance, I had been reading Frida Kahlo's gorgeous art journal (Alas Rojas has published it in a full facsimile version including English translations). Her writing and artwork intertwine on each page of this intimate diary—I highly recommend reading it to anyone who hasn’t yet. It’s really something to be drawn into her process, which is more than making, it’s truly manifestation, incantation, and utterly divine. I was struck by the image of the ink in the quote below—how ink, color, shape combine to transform the artist into a bird. Inspired, I began making small abstracts in Sumi ink and watercolor.
"I don't know what my mocking dream thinks. The ink, the stain. The shape. The color. I'm a bird. I'm everything, without any more confusion."
Frida Kahlo
My little paintings in response to this inspiration were really quick and free in terms of brushwork. It’s amazing how invoking dreams can open a portal to a new wave of creativity. These quick miniature paintings were a perfect fit for the 100 Days Project because watercolor and ink are both mediums where less is usually more. These studies helped me get in touch with my intuition in regards to composition, contrast, and—perhaps most importantly—when to decide the painting is finished.
For each mini painting that made it onto my Instagram, there were several “learning experiences” that I didn’t share, usually because I should have finished the painting sooner and in continuing it became muddled or overworked. That’s such a delicate balance that I’m still learning it. Kahlo’s inspiration, the 100 Day Project, and these little paintings all coincided to ignite my commitment to daily practice.
So much more came out of last year’s 100 days that I’ll probably have more posts on this. I hope you’ll follow along with me for this year’s 100 Day Project. I’ll be posting my work in my Instagram stories.
