Still Dreams

This week many things have occurred that have made me look at my current project differently. When I stated my still lives, I knew how I wanted them to look, and how I generally wanted them to read. While they were each supposed to be their own significant story they started getting jumbled in one another, and it became frustrating that they lost the elements I wanted them to have.  I started looking at more examples of visual dreams, memories, etc. and decided to go with what was in my head. I got the recommendation to look at Arthur Tress’ images in The Dream Collector and my whole mindset on how to portray my dreams changed.

I stated to look at more of reenactments, stage scenarios, and movie stills. When I started making my still lives, I was basing the objects off of the objects that had symbolic meanings for dreams, which combined both fiction and non-fiction scenarios for possible dreams someone may experience. Now I want to solely focus on my own dreams and nightmares by making scenes that reflect my moments of  unconscious.  I am hoping my new approach is a step in the right direction so that I can narrow down on how I want to portray my dreams, while making them interestingly enough to get lost in.

Another highlighting moment this week was finding a clip online from the Arsenio Hall night show. It featured a woman by the name of Ernestine giving a short speech, very poetically describing the average black woman. Her words gave me comfort because for so long I have known the struggle of “sounding white.” For sometime when I was younger I felt ashamed that I didn’t sound black enough, but I didn’t know what sounding black was.  I got picked on from black people for being proper, and praised by other races for sounding intelligent “for a black girl”. It honestly was a very confusing ordeal.  Just something I thought I would share for people who may have never experienced this. Click here for the link-Average Black Girl