"Life in the Water"
~a dream that inspired art~

(In the dream) I wake up and find myself in a greenhouse at B's Nursery, where I used to work! The biggest greenhouse there; a huge yellow fiberglas structure called 'Number 7', right by the nursery retail store. I have been asleep on the ground. I know where I am, but don't recall how I got here or why. I sit up and look around, and am startled to find the entire greenhouse is empty: in fact there aren't even any benches or tables or equipment in it, which make it appear even more vast and cavernous than it usually does. Nearby me, planted in the soil on the ground are 2 long rows of plants with a furrow, I guess for watering 'tho it is dry at present, between them. They're flowers, and they look like large open tulips on short stems. They are not bright: dusty red and pale yellow striped. They have no leaves whatsoever: just the stalks with the flowers all in bloom protruding from the soil. The flowers are so big and heavy on these stalks that many lean over. I realize now that these are my flowers and that I live here! I get up and walk along the row, looking at the flowers for a while. Then coming to the end of the row I veer off and walk out into the middle of the vast space. It is dusty and kind of weedy, although the weeds are mostly short, dry and broken off. As I walk chaff and seeds get on my feet and legs. I wonder why I am here and how it got like this...even 'tho I live here I don't know how this dry barren situation came to be! Suddenly Mr. B. himself walks in the end door, and I walk over to him and we talk but I can't recall now what about. We go over to a water tank beside the wall, one of the large reservoirs that the cooling system in the retail space next door uses. The tank is large (200 or 300 gallons), squat grey metallic like a big watering trough but it has a clear cover. Attached to the underside of the clear cover, immersed in the water are 2 somethings: reddish and they look like big (about 8 in. across) barnacles with a twisted or swirled conical shape and a small opening at the apex like a barnacle. I wonder if they're some kind of wierd water plants, since Mr. B. collects these. I say something about them and he taps gently on the cover. When he does they come to life; open and unfurl like big flowers, waving fringed edges in the water as they hang upside down there. I realize they are some kind of creatures: not barnacles, not anemones ... what are they?.........
............and this is all I recall!

Dream Commentary

Life 'in the greenhouse' is dry and barren now... I'm not sure what the row of flowers signifies, but even they have no leaves, and they are not bright. I don't know how this situation came to be: yes, it snuck up on me and I just suddenly found myself like this! Living in a greenhouse is one thing: living in a dry barren one another! I think this signifies my cactus life has 'dried up". (I have been vending cactus plants for someone at the local Farmer's and Artisan's Market and have admittedly grown impatient with the whole business.) There's life in the water tank though: again with a flower resemblance - the flower symbol is obviously an important one...maybe signifying the possibility of blooming again? There was certainly a dusty dry feel to this dream, except for the end part about the water tank and creatures.

I think I am at the end of my time with cactus - as someone doing business with them, I mean. My recent experiences selling cactus at the Market remind me in a graphic way of why I closed my own greenhouse business here at home a few years ago. Much as I'll always love to collect wierd specimens I should not be selling them: my heart isn't in it! Where my heart is, is in art! The watery realms of feeling and expression. Immediately upon waking I wanted to make art about this dream, and so I painted the 2 small matching pictures shown here in acrylic on 8"x10" canvases, to depict the 2 'beautiful creatures'. I don't feel done with the imagery just by doing these though, and am working on a large canvas with 2 beautiful creatures together, although these beings continue to morph in form and I'm sure they won't look like this when done! When the piece IS done, I'll add the picture to this page.

Questions or comments about my work are always welcome! eMail me at:
LunarisRivera@yahoo.com