ABSTRACT

Deepening & Expanding Dream Images Through Painting/Collage and Poetry, A Guided Process-Art Technique.

Patricia Myers
E-mail: anavami@cruzio.com

Website: http://members.cruzio.com/~anavami

Patricia Myers has a BA in Fine Art, a Masters Degree in Creation Spirituality from the University of Naropa and is a certificate candidate at the Marin Institute for Projective Dreamwork. She has worked with her dreams through the artistic process for over twenty-five years. She teaches creative process incorporating metaphor, dream, and dream-art work at Studio Anavami in Santa Cruz, CA., where she also facilitates dream groups,

Summary of Presentation

Deepening and Expanding Dream Images Through Painting, Collage, and Poetry. That we are wired for image making is evident in our nightly dreams and the visual dominance in the cognitive process of our thinking, remembering, and imagining. Working creatively with images from our psyches is a powerful way to become more conscious. In this two-hour workshop, participants will focus on a dream image to be explored through guided painting, collage and poetic writing. By consciously accessing our images we create personal meaning that empowers, and heals our lives.

Learning Objectives.

As participants explore a dream image through process art they will find that it is not necessary to be highly skilled or even artistic in order to create satisfying and meaningful images. This process opens the dream content to yet a greater depth of meaning as well as informing and integrating the conscious making process through a non-linear modality. 

Evaluation questions:

The evaluation questions proposed for the participants are: Can you see how additional information is available in dream work by exploring a dream image through creative process? How do these techniques expand and deepen images from your dreams? Does this process help you to gain confidence in amplifying dream images?

Abstract 

: Deepening & Expanding Dream Images Through Painting/Collage and Poetry, A Guided Process-Art Technique. Art is a meaning-making process that expresses and explores images of the psyche and therefore dreams. Process art in this context focuses on opening to the deep source of those images in relation to a central dream image. Participants will be carefully guided to engage in the process of the moment with little concern for the product, which becomes the vehicle to investigate ramifications and nuances of the dream. Because it takes time to develop trust in the creative process, collage offers immediate personal imagery acting as an equalizer for artistic skill, for those who need that support.

All of the artwork and writing will center on a dream image that each participant will choose in the beginning of the workshop. We will do a meditation to bring the image into body awareness and anchor it in a way that it can be returned to easily. In the first exercise participants will be guided to quickly tear out pictures from a variety of magazines. This will be followed by an exercise to edit these pictures and arrange them around the painting paper. In the guided painting session, with the use acrylic paint on paper, there will be the option to incorporate collage as well. Guided writing will develop the image further with more associations. At the end there will be time to honor the work and to share any insights.

I accept and uphold the ethical statements of the ASD, which I use as a teaching assistant at the Marin Institute of Projective Dreamwork and also in my private practice.

DeEpening & EXPANDING Dream Images 
Through PAINTING, COLLAGE, & POETRY.

Participants will work with meditative music in a playful and supportive atmosphere to by-pass the critical mental process. They will be guided through various engagements with the paint, paper, cutout images, and poetic writing.

1. Introduction to Process Art.
1. The success of process artwork is measured by engagement in the activity rather than the end product. (I will be available to coach anyone who has trouble.)
2. It is not important if you like or dislike your piece, for the goal is to be in the flow of the moment. You are creating a bridge to make new understandings. (With practice more satisfying images do arise.)
2. Meditation on an image from a dream.

1. Relaxation exercise to focus on the dream image through the energy field of the body.
2. Guided visualization to anchor the dream image in the body, to be able to return to the core feeling through out the session.

3. Warm-up exercise of quickly tearing images from magazines that relate to the central image in any way. Below a sample of promptings. (We will begin by looking at the magazine upside down.)

1. Tear out colors that relate to the dream.
2. Tear out textures that express what you experienced in the dream.
3. Tear out something that could be hiding in the dream.
4. Select some shapes, objects, animals, or people.
5. Cut out, and arrange selections around painting paper.

4. Exploring the Dream Image Through Painting with or without Collage.

   A sample of the guidelines are:

1. Return to the dream image through the body’s energy field.
2. Choose a color and brush size that relates to what you see, hear, feel, know or sense in the body from the mediation.
3. Create a gesture that arises from the body sensations.
4. What pattern would support this gesture?
5. With another color make a shadow that expresses what is hiding.
6. Let one of the magazine images suggest a color, texture, or shape without trying to paint it.
7. Outline something in a contrasting color or fill in a space.
8. Let your intuition guide any additional color and marking.
9. If colors and shapes begin to remind you of something, coax it into an object, animal, or person. 
10. Put a magazine cutouts into your wet paint. It is OK to paint over part or all of it.
11. Put on the last touches even though you are not finished.

     

III. Expanding the emerging image with poetry.

A. Focusing on the painted/collage image, participants will be encouraged to write the first thing that comes to mind without censorship, responding with a line or phrase. Below is a sample of the promptings:

1. What dynamic best describes your image? (Examples from the polarities of: expanding/contracting, growing/fading etc.)
2. Note a contradiction in your painting.
3. What fragrance or smell is triggered?
4. The title or line from a song, movie, or book that comes to mind.
5. What in your image brings up something from your childhood?
6. What animal comes to mind? What is it doing?
7. Write a prediction.
8. What vehicle would you use to get around in your painting?
9. What larger story in your life is this a part of?
10. Choose a line to repeat as the first and last line.

B. Quickly rewrite the poem changing it in anyway.

5. Return to the painting
1. Include information from the writing without destroying an image; transform it instead by adding and subtracting a bit of color at a time.
2. Take a moment to consider how the original image has changed.
6. Closing
1. Time for sharing painting/collage and poems and any realizations.

Garrard, Ana Lora, An Invitation to Dream, Tap the Resources of Inner Wisdom. St. Paul, MN: Lleweliyn Publications, 1993.

Mellick, Jill, The Natural Artistry of Dreams, Creative Ways to Bring the Wisdom of Dreams to Waking Life. Berkeley, CA: Conari Press, 1996.

Mindell, Arnold, Dreaming While Awake, Techniques for 24-hour Lucid Dreaming. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2000.

Taylor, Jeremy, Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill, Using Dreams to Tap the Wisdom of the Unconscious. New York: Warner Books, 1992.

Tolle, Eckhart, The Power of Now, A guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Navato, CA: New world Library, 1999.

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