I travel from the dream to a part of the mind that is filled with images. The voice of intuition is not far off. Led by this voice I am encouraged to develop the dream. This is when I ask myself, “Will the collective memory represented by the dream be the birth of my art?” And from this inquiry sometimes a strong connection between what was held secret in the unconscious is revealed slowly through the process of portraying the dream. So, therefore, the images needed are displayed in my mind for me to create onto the canvas and that which was mysterious within the layers of the dream is sometimes revealed.

The darkness, the discontent, the connection to feelings, the film of images that slowly drift across my mind cause me to wonder. All are part of the waking, the sleeping, the dreaming. Overlapping moments that embrace me. Sending through my heart an arrow of sadness seeing something past, gone forever, remaining now only as flooding, floating visions pressing in on my emotions. Reshaping them somehow. And as I surrender, letting myself go I enter this journey of conscious remembering. I recognize the calling to something unknown.

Setting aside the ego is not easy, but necessary. The forms that come forward are inadequate, awkward, and animated. They create a deep desire to flesh out the other life. That life which contains the inner me pushing out onto the canvas a form of reality that is ever deepening, ever widening in scope. Yet, hard as I try to fully grasp it all, there is always something that remains hidden. Something that I am unable to capture. The true essence is there only in part. Fleeting and vague, disappearing like some dreams.

©Dorothy M. Rossi 1998-2002