“Self Portrait, Dreaming” 24 × 18 inches, Crayon on paper
This is a handmade, original work of art NOT A PRINT and NOT AI GENERATED
FREE SHIPPING Shipping takes 3–4 Weeks This ships from San Carlos, California (The San Francisco Bay Area). I use UPS and sometimes US Post.
I have a lot going on around sleep. When I was in my teens and twenties, sleeping until one or two in the afternoon was a luxury I could have enjoyed every day. Even into my mid-fifties, I routinely stayed up late and slept past ten. As I've gotten older, I sleep more lightly and less, and something I once took for granted has become much more complicated.
I've always had night terrors, and plenty of my dreams are uncomfortable. They take the anxieties, desires, jealousies, and fears of daily life and magnify them. So even though my eyes are closed in this drawing, I don't necessarily think of sleep as peaceful. There is a difference between the resting body someone else can see and what might be going on inside it.
The drawing is also a chance to study my own body. My head rests against a pillow, and one arm reaches across my torso. Loose, looping lines describe the body hair, while denser crayon marks build the shadows around my face, hand, and arm. The folds of the bedding have their own rhythms. I'm interested in how these different kinds of marks can describe both the weight of a body and the surfaces around it.
I'm interested in how images of sleep can move between innocence, vulnerability, eroticism, and the possibility of a dream or revelation. Sleep has a long history as a subject in art, including its association with death. In Greek mythology, Hypnos and Thanatos, Sleep and Death, are twin brothers. That history gives sleep meanings beyond simple rest, but my starting point here is personal. Like the other self-portraits in my Self Directed series, this drawing gives me a way to look at aging through an ordinary part of my own life.
“Self Portrait, Dreaming” 24 × 18 inches, Crayon on paper
This is a handmade, original work of art NOT A PRINT and NOT AI GENERATED
FREE SHIPPING Shipping takes 3–4 Weeks This ships from San Carlos, California (The San Francisco Bay Area). I use UPS and sometimes US Post.
I have a lot going on around sleep. When I was in my teens and twenties, sleeping until one or two in the afternoon was a luxury I could have enjoyed every day. Even into my mid-fifties, I routinely stayed up late and slept past ten. As I've gotten older, I sleep more lightly and less, and something I once took for granted has become much more complicated.
I've always had night terrors, and plenty of my dreams are uncomfortable. They take the anxieties, desires, jealousies, and fears of daily life and magnify them. So even though my eyes are closed in this drawing, I don't necessarily think of sleep as peaceful. There is a difference between the resting body someone else can see and what might be going on inside it.
The drawing is also a chance to study my own body. My head rests against a pillow, and one arm reaches across my torso. Loose, looping lines describe the body hair, while denser crayon marks build the shadows around my face, hand, and arm. The folds of the bedding have their own rhythms. I'm interested in how these different kinds of marks can describe both the weight of a body and the surfaces around it.
I'm interested in how images of sleep can move between innocence, vulnerability, eroticism, and the possibility of a dream or revelation. Sleep has a long history as a subject in art, including its association with death. In Greek mythology, Hypnos and Thanatos, Sleep and Death, are twin brothers. That history gives sleep meanings beyond simple rest, but my starting point here is personal. Like the other self-portraits in my Self Directed series, this drawing gives me a way to look at aging through an ordinary part of my own life.
