I have a dream once in a while in which I have created small living humans and placed them on plinths, under glass tops. The miniature people sit on stools, or stand beside a little table, just looking ahead. They wear red outfits. Just like that. They do not move but they breath and their little hearts beat. They seem to be just objects, not happy or sad things, just as they are. (This sounds terrible.) And at that point of feeling the terribleness, I realize that I have forgotten to feed them. And I am such a very bad person to have neglected looking after them.
I have come to the conclusion that this dream is about my art anxiety, a fear about having created the work. What is it? How is it? Why make it?
Every part of my house and studio holds stacks of my work that date back as far as 1973. The works from exhibitions of the past are in the basement, the bathroom, the laundry room, the study, the bedroom, and the office. The work is stashed away, crated, wrapped, adorning the walls, stuffed in drawers.
Each art piece conjures up that time in which it was made. I am surrounded my own life. Which is weird. These are objects, each with its own story of creation. Something outside of myself, but linked to me as its maker.
Each object that I encounter in my day to day routine, is not something that I seek out, but rather like a random brushing up against. I have come to accept the encounters as an affirmation of ownership. This inspires reverie. I think all collectors have such reverie for the objects on their shelves.
The objects are alive and they have voices, even under their wrappings.
Sometimes I imagine a grand museum with a room for each of the series of my works. Or sometimes I imagine a clutter of mixed up artworks that I have selected as pairings, as if the ideas of one work could meet the ideas of the other. My museum looks onto a big lake in a forest and there are lots of windows.
Posted August 2, 2022
Photo of crates in my bathroom.