Dream Associations

Dream Bird 18"x 11"

As a few of you may know, I have long been interested by the ideas of dreams, memories, and thought. This was a large reason I decided to specialize in the Neuroscience field while attending UCLA. I wanted to know how they worked. Sadly my friends, there is not clear answer, so without a fulfilling scientific reason for their mechanism, I am back creating art revolving around their personalities. The Dream Bird is a product of the animal assignment from James Fish's collage course at UCLA extension. The only guideline we were given was to make it 3D, an animal, and to use our imaginations. So let me introduce you to the Dream Bird. He is a metallic blue to hide in the night as you sleep. When not on the job, he sits on your grandmother's candle holder. Here he is just about to take off for the night. His wings spread you can see the association of a dreamer: images of childhood, connected to barn houses, trinkets, birds and pin up women.

I am interested in how unlikely images are associated with each other during a dream. When something you saw briefly was stored in your subconscious and then comes out fully in a dream. The images a printed on tracing paper and shrinky-dink paper and connected with colored wire or thread. His wing bones are made of chop sticks and colored with bronze ink while his body is crayola air drying clay painted with acrylic. White feathers pipe out of his head and wings to give him a more bird-y look. I wanted viewers to see him and devise their own reasoning for why the images are connected they way they are. What is the story of this dream? How do you interpret it?