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And now to the meat of it. I'm down on words lately... they want to be elusive and I won't chase them, obnoxious bastards.


It was a fairly lengthy dream, and has inspired some interesting thought processes for me. This is the first set of pages regarding the description and interpretation of it. Most of these are collage, acryllic, and marker.



The text of the dream narrative here reads: Someone died or was dying and she was a tall, willowy lady whom we children were surprised to learn ...





Left-hand ruminations on that little passage.



The narrative text is: was a ballerina when she was young. “We children” were definitely you and I, grown up as much as we are now. Perhaps the others were there, I don’t recall for sure. Dad was there. A student of the lady from when she was young came and danced for us as we all sat on a terrace.






Left-handed thoughts on the previous passage. Much of the drawing is left-handed, but I got so excited by it my right hand wanted to help. Pastels used here.

Dream narrative is: Somehow at our wake we, and it was a small we – like 4 people – all got a guaranteed minute of God’s time. We chose the vehicle of our conversation with (yeah, it was a) him. I really like my sky diver on this page.

What the left hand had to say about that.

1/1000th of a Story?

The end papers of my book:

are a stellar spider's footprints across the page, or so I imagined anyway. These are the interior stickers from the same strip as the cover stickers. My first foray with the pastels added the color. They are lovely things, pastels. Deep and rich and creamy and smearable. I've become quite fond of them.

And then, the next page is actually the real beginning.

The right page was the first exercise I did with the Altared Book club. It's a mirror exercise where you draw with both hands, one mirroring the other. It's proven to be a good warm-up for me.


I like the Aztec-y feeling of this, though I rather hope it's not indicative of a violent theme.


The left is my heart and a description of the author: Annalisa - Nick's Mom - Gamer - Dreamer - Reader - Writer - Watcher.


The metallic blue page marks the beginning of the first dream description. I glued the picture, a marker drawing, in the book and it did not have the blue paint in it's original aspect. Varnish and water-based markers are not friendly with one another. And glue isn't terrible fond of the varnish either I believe. Caused quite a tragedy for me on the next spread. My heart was broken and the whole thing ruined, I thought. It was a good lesson in layering and perserverance, as depressing as the whole situation was at the time. I added the blue and re-glued later.


Aside from the desciption of myself and use as an introduction, these first couple of images are not as interesting I think. Better things to come. Hopefully that will be an ongoing mantra for me.


Better things to come.

Beginning

A very fine place to start.

Texture was key for me on the cover. I used a stone work form sticker to create the open weave, web feeling. The base book, a tax law book, had a decent texture to start with - a faux leather - but I wanted spider web.

My first thought was weaving a cover out of dental floss to be attached to the front. Which would have been cool I think, and I may have to use that somewhere else. But on a treasure hunt for artable goodies in my house I turned up those stickers (their intended use is in dollhouse building) and decided they would be a better medium on the cover.

Acrylic paint in reds and blacks was brushed over the top. The title at the bottom is a computer print on full-sheet label. Several coats of satin varnish over the whole thing gave it the finish I was hoping for.

The cover wasn't done first, which is a rather funny thing about beginnings. Seems like they rarely come first.

Precedents

Precedents are out there for how to emerge from a coma; however, as I am certain you can imagine, everyone's coma is quite different and the path to consciousness is unique to each of us.

Are you gorged from the sun and insensible from overindulgence? Are you drowsing through the healing of your grey cells? Have you wrapped your soul in a torpid shell in self-defense?

I've dreamt I had despair oozing from my pores as heavy black goo and I wrapped myself in plastic wrap to catch it, because it was shiny and beautiful like obsidian. The goo hardened between the layers of plastic wrap and it was like I was building a beetle exoskeleton.

Discovering how I sank, I suppose, is part of the way out. The first step for me was joining an altared book club. Sharing my book is the impetus for Spider Tracks. As I get my imaging issues resolved I'll be posting pages and sharing what's behind them.

The precedent, for me, was set by a guiding arachnid.


I'm following the tracks.