Dreamsickles, Knuts and Barries

Face Flip

He flips to one side. 

“I can’t believe in YOU.”

This is one of my most recently completed pieces. He haunts my dreams sometimes, daring me to believe the imaginings of my mind. 

Face Off

For some reason, my doodles always turn into faces…Here is an assortment of faces that are my favorite.

I just found this in an old sketchbook:

I learned to draw by copying my sister’s manga. I still think this is one of the better copies I made, but I have no idea what character it is… 

Hollywood Swinging

The first thing I drew in this collage is the scary little demon in the bottom left corner; I had originally written  a piece based on a terrifying dream I had involving this demon creature who pretty much stole your soul through his palm. I remember waking up as he grabbed for me. But because this piece turned into so much more (and I have no idea where this writing is now) I am not including it.  It started as an exploration of the soul (i remember sitting on my sister’s bed and asking her questions about “the soul”) and turned into my winter/spring of 2007/2008.  And yes the words around the crab are lyrics from a Devendra Banhart song: “Well I came upon a dancing crab and stopped to watch it shake, I said dance for me just one more time before you hibernate and come out a crab cake.”

The most trusted dream companions: Please meet Ari and Piplup.

In my dreams, I often find myself on Indiana Jones-esque adventures, although I never seem to be able to solve any mysteries. I do however encounter plenty of pyramids with underground passageways and sacrificial mounds. (chak-mool anyone?? anyone??) Anyhow, Xipi Totec was (and is) awesome and in college I created a shadow puppet piece around a warrior who was sacrificed to Our Lord the Flayed One and had to find his way to the underworld. Please imagine you are listening to Asilos Magdalena by the Mars Volta as you look at the puppets and imagine their shadows.

What Planet are You From? 

This central question, originally from The Little Prince, sparked this collage piece. If you look closely you can see our Petit Prince alongside characters from Miyazaki movies, such as Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke. Although I don’t have a specific written piece to go along with this, I had written some very terrible angry poetry while under the influence of Early Times Kentucky Whiskey. My roomate (who is now in a creative writing graduate program for poetry) particularly enjoyed the lines “The Death of a standing tree equals the loss of a military base,” and “Please eat my ::explitive:: soul. Dine on my entrails and feast on my words.” The rest of the poem should be left to the imagination. 

Robots on Parade came out of a dream that was turned into an installation piece during a summer program in Paris.

I fell asleep one night and woke up in a world of robots.

Every swirl of color blended with machine. And I became Lost.

As I reached for my own flesh, machine souls exited from the legs of heaven.

Seven times I lost myself in the circus in my mind.

What are robotic fears?

This piece was the first I finished both the text and the drawing.  I remembered this dream very clearly when I woke up and the images never really left me. I believe that it was finished December of 2007.

Dreamsickles, Knuts, and Barries #1 

Lost car soul float.

The floor of Rehearsal Room One was cool.  My breath was moving in and out. Just as Mitch Hebert said, focus on the breath: In and out. I thought I heard a sound coming from the door, but I kept my eyes closed. “Sound, sound,” I thought, and the sound drifted away like a ribbon. Focus: in and out. I felt a breeze, which was impossible in a room with the windows sealed shut. I cracked open my eyelids and in the doorway, there he stood. His brown eyes pierced my skin. “Impossible,” I whispered. “How did you get here??” He took my hands and calmly explained, “I don’t know, the wind just picked me up, I can’t control it. I started to fly and it took me straight here.” And so I held him, held on to the impossible, kissed his lips, his cheekbones, the groove between his chin and his neck. Suddenly the breeze picked up again. “Hold on, quick and tight or I’ll leave without you.” So I put my arms around his waist and held on fast as the wind picked us up. The roof opened, and we could see only vast blue sky. At first we soared, easily, swiftly and I gripped his body as the wind whipped our hair in each others’ faces. I looked down and a crowd of people began to gather. “Who are they?” I whispered. He only looked straight ahead and did not answer. We flew lower, closer to the people whose hands were outstretched, grabbing for our feet. Someone’s hand touched the sole of my bare foot, and I wrapped my legs more tightly around his. “Hurry; get us somewhere safe,” I said, almost whimpered. “I can’t control where we go, but keep holding on.”  We soon rose again, out of the reaching mob and toward a secluded enclave of trees. On either side were rows of weeping berry trees. To our right, the trees dripped with bright orange berries. Deep red blossoms fell to our left, as though the trees were crying tears of blood. We touched down on the grass which felt damp on my bare feet. A chill extended up to the tip of my spine. “Where are we?” I could hear the sound of waves crashing in the distance but could see no water. He shrugged and we walked slowly hand in hand, weaving in and out of the trees, in an out. Suddenly he stopped. I leaned against him, trying to breathe him in, but his body was unyielding. “I have to go,” he said softly and slowly looked into my eyes. The air around us stirred. “Can’t I hold on again?” I responded just as softly. His brown eyes turned away from me and looked toward the sky. He let go of my hand and my body went numb as he rose in the air. “Wait!” I yelled. “Please! Stay just a little longer…” I grabbed for his foot just before it was out of reach but he didn’t even look back, his eyes reflecting the gleam of the sun, his mind already continents away. As I lost my grip on his foot, he soared into the air. I witnessed the gold tips of his hair dancing on the breeze as he quickly disappeared into the distance. And so I was alone. I stood in a silence only broken by the sound of far-off waves crashing and being drawn back into an invisible ocean, out and in. I breathed in and out came a sigh so deep that it shook the blossoms off the trees. They rained down on my head, staining the air with deep red and orange streaks. I jumped up to catch a red blossom and the petals crumbled to ash in my hand. I stared at my stained fingertips, and thought, I like the orange ones better anyway.

Welcome

Hello all, welcome to dreamsickles, knuts and Barries.

This is a place where I want to be able to share my art with you, which I have been working on as a hobby for many years. Many of my drawings are born from dreams, or images and feelings I remember when I wake up. I generally use a combination of markers to create a collage of color and ideas, sharpies and prisma markers being my weapons of choice. This first drawing I’ve posted is a doodle I made a few years ago when I got the idea that I wanted to do a book full of dream drawings. The idea was that dreams I’ve had would be represented, both abstracted and literally through collage. Accompanying each piece would be some sort of text, a description, song lyrics perhaps or snippets of poetry that fill the spaces that the visuals can’t reach.

I would love to get opinions on both art, and dreams. As an avid sci-fi/fantasy watcher and reader I tend to have dreams that revolve around apocalyptic scenarios. I often find myself running from aliens, escaping natural disasters, exploring space and encountering robots. Most of all, I fly. I swim through the air with my arms and legs flailing.

Hearts and Stars

Rachel