Dreaming While Awake

July 27, 2024


Art has long been called a window into the soul, but perhaps it’s more accurate to see it as a threshold, an opening through which emotion, memory, and imagination flow freely, merging into something both deeply personal and entirely mysterious. When an artist approaches the canvas, they step into a space where reality begins to bend and dreams start to surface, where the familiar gives way to the unpredictable and creation becomes a kind of discovery. In this liminal space, the work often reveals itself not as a deliberate construction, but as a revelation, an enigma drawn from the depths of the mind, the body, and the spirit.

The canvas becomes more than just a surface; it transforms into a portal, silent, blank, and full of potential. With each brushstroke, an artist navigates a conversation between what is known and what lies just beyond reach. Memories, long buried or half-remembered, begin to resurface. Dreams, once fleeting and intangible, find form. The process becomes less about control and more about surrendering to what wants to emerge. Sometimes, the piece that unfolds feels entirely unrecognizable from the original idea. It shifts, morphs, becomes something new, something that speaks back to the artist in ways they hadn’t anticipated.

Creation, in this way, is like wandering through uncharted terrain. You may begin with a map, a vision, a feeling, an intention, but the path quickly dissolves. The work begins to chart its own course, pulling you along with it. There is both thrill and fear in this kind of creation, the same sensation you might feel in a dream you don’t fully understand but can’t pull away from. And just like dreams, these moments often carry meaning that only becomes clear with time.

Some of the most powerful revelations in art are born of accident, a color that bled unexpectedly, a gesture made in instinct, a mistake that opened a door. These are not failures, but invitations. They remind us that while technique and intention matter, something far more mysterious guides the process. There’s beauty in letting go, in watching the work take shape on its own terms, whispering truths the artist may not have known they were holding.

But the meaning of a piece rarely arrives in the moment of making. It takes distance, quiet, reflective distance, to see what was really said. Once the canvas has dried and the adrenaline has faded, the artist can return with new eyes. In this space of stillness, patterns emerge, and so do insights. What seemed abstract now feels loaded with emotion. What appeared random now seems deliberate. The artwork becomes a mirror, reflecting not only what the artist intended but also what they couldn’t yet name.

And the journey doesn’t end there. Each piece is just one part of a larger unfolding, a living archive of growth and revelation. Every painting, drawing, sculpture becomes a chapter in the story of becoming, marking shifts in understanding, moments of rupture or clarity, windows into what once was hidden. The act of creation becomes an ongoing process of self-exploration, one that deepens with time and expands with every new attempt to translate the unseen into the visible.

To make art is to dream with open eyes. It is to stand before the unknown and say yes. Yes to uncertainty. Yes to imperfection. Yes to the strange, shifting rhythm of inspiration. In embracing the mystery, we free ourselves, not only to create, but to uncover. We find meaning not just in what we make, but in what we learn about ourselves along the way.

The next time you face a blank canvas, step into it as you would a dream: curious, open, and unafraid. Let the work lead you. Let it surprise you. Trust that something within you already knows the way. And as the image emerges, half memory, half mystery, know that you’re not just making art. You’re making sense of something deeper, something essential. And in doing so, you offer others the chance to see their own reflections in the shapes and shadows of your imagination.