I have so many dreams in which I am traveling far from home and don't know how to get back. Almost every night these days. Last night I dreamed that I was traveling to a festival in California, probably because before bed I was looking through Daniel Zetterstrom's photo albums on Facebook at all the festie folk. I am planning on doing a portrait series, both paintings and drawings of the people I consider underground celebrities. You know, the people we may not know but we know who they are and what they do; painter, DJ, wire-wrapper, fashion designer, belly dancer, etc. We have our own cultural elite, whether we want to admit it or not. So I look out for photos of these people that are composed in a compelling way and would lend themselves easily to my drawing style. I have gotten permission from the photographers so I'm about ready to start the project--the only strange part is that some of these people don't have a clue who I am or how I know them, so I have to contact them and tell them what I'm doing, and hopefully they won't think it's creepy. Mostly I will be illustrating people I know.
So anyway, the only part I really remember about last night's dream is the only important part. I saw myself through someone else's eyes. They clicked on my Facebook profile and opened a video of a performance I had done. I was dressed in fluorescent colors (like the ones in the mask photo I posted here), intricately patterned into a costume I made myself. It was long sleeved and full-skirted, like a whirling dervish-meets Victorian overcoat sort of gown. I had a fantastic headdress on and little braids, hair wraps and other stuff all flying from my head as I spun poi. Even the ends of the poi were fluorescent, furry like little tribbles. I watched myself in awe, as if it were someone else, someone spectacularly, dynamically beautiful and talented. I was thinking, "Ah, now I see why this guy clicked on my photo". I became one of those celebrities I've been admiring in Daniel's photographs. And she was so humble and focused, she was in the body I'm striving for, being admired but not worshipped.
I woke from this dream thinking that perhaps I need to do a portrait of that beautiful woman.
