world 1490

Dream      082908

Drawing      world 1490

Dreamer     Crystal Gandrud & George Perec

Cats and Mice and Dogs

A dog raced down the sidewalk killing cats.

Part I (dreamt in the morning)

Lulu, my cat, was on the floor in the living room. I realized she had a mouse in her mouth. I tried to get the mouse away and save it but when she opened her mouth a mouse-sized Lulu came out…and then another. Then I saw that there was another full-sized Lulu as well but it had the same feel as the mice Lulus.

Mayhem as I tried to make sure the real Lulu didn’t kill the other three Lulus.

I didn’t know where they went.

Part II (dreamt in the afternoon)

A dog raced down the sidewalk killing cats. One, two. He came to a third cat that already had a necklace of blood and I felt that I must save it. I interrupted the dog somehow and the third cat was saved.

I was relieved.

Commentary: Perec’s Dreams 24 and 70

24. September of 1970, French writer Georges Perec dreamt: ‘On the ground, cats. At least three. Tiny little balls of fur. I shout: I said loud and clear that I won’t have that cat here! I take one of the cats, walk to the door, and toss it out. Then I notice that between the floor and the door there’s a space large enough for a small cat to enter. Anyway, the house is an utter mess.’

70. May of 1971, French writer Georges Perec dreamt: ‘I agree to take in a cat. Who is this cat? (complicated genealogy…) Where will he relieve himself?’

114. April of 1972, French writer Georges Perec dreamt: ‘After a long trip, maybe, I return to Belvy (or is it Dampierre?). My whole family is there. My cat is sleeping in a corner of the room. I am quite surprised to see a second cat (much smaller and striped) in another corner of the room. I go to sit and I step on a third cat; this one is much larger. I don’t believe that this third cat really exists—come now, that’s impossible!—but it jumps up and scratches my face.’

 

Georges Perec (1936 - 1982)

Georges Perec (1936 – 1982), photo by Anne de Brunhoff

Commentary: our house in France has an ancient red linoleum flap under the kitchen door down to the basement. The cat slips under it from time to time and returns hours later cloaked in spider webs. Pleased.

 

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Dream of the Drawing for Everything alchemies dream-like things: images and texts and films and sketches and philosophy and half-thoughts and visions and moments and fragments of all kinds. Resting and exploring here may deepen your relationship with the oneiric and, therefore, all apparent reality. Resting and exploring here may augment your psyche’s healing tendency—as Jung called it—through highlighting and delighting in humanity’s hallucinatory creations. (Without them, after all, neurologists assure us we would go starkers.) It is time there was a potentially infinite, intimate museum to what cannot be seen. Welcome to the museum.

Dream of the Drawing for Everything is some of the collaboration between artist Nuala Clarke & writer Crystal Gandrud. Our work arises out of what dances on the edges of perception and our collective attention gravitates to the dream-like nature of human experience. We have been in collaboration since 2010. Our merged practices of visual and textual art unfold on a continuum, as part of an interconnected series evolving over time. Both performed “Fair Shouldered One” (a book which is not a book) at the &Now Literary Festival in Paris, 2012 and installed “Between Spaces”, a Yeats inspired dreamscape at the Hamilton Gallery, Sligo, 2013. Most recently participated in the Find Arts Project in Castlebar, Ireland. Our public art installation of words and images printed on linen, “Woven Found”, hung on Castle Street. The project won the best commissioning practice award from Allianz Business to Arts, 2014.

Nuala Clarke

Nuala Clarke, visual artist, lives and works between Co. Mayo and New York City. Educated at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, she moved to New York City in 1993. In September 2007, she received a fellowship to the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Mayo and began returning to Ireland from NY to work every year. Clarke has been represented by Boltax Gallery, NY since 2005. Recent shows include, Amid a Space Between: Irish Artists in America at the SFMoMa Artists Gallery, San Francisco, (2012); to Tremble into Stillness, a WB Yeats related show at Hamilton Gallery, Sligo; RHA invited artist; and A drawing for Everything, Ballinglen Arts Foundation (2013). BLINK, a public art installation at the Westport Arts Festival, Co. Mayo (2014). Upcoming shows (2015): Impressions of Yeats, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo; Of this place, Sligo and Madrid.

nualaclarke@gmail.com

Crystal Gandrud

Crystal Gandrud, writer, lives in New York City and Normandy, France. She holds an MFA, Creative Writing and a BFA, Classical Theatre. Recent publications include “Yeatsian: Numberless Dreamers,” The Encyclopedia Project, 2014, “Here,” Lost Magazine, and “Idiom: Woodbird Flies Early,” The Encyclopedia Project. Her dissertation, “Murdoch: the Mandala Maker,” was presented at Kingston University’s Iris Murdoch Conference (2006), London. At the most recent Murdoch Conference, she performed a multi-media excerpt from a work-in-progress entitled “The Forgotten Man,” inspired by Murdoch’s philosophical writings. She is under contract for a memoire entitled “Astonishment: A Litany of the Uncanny.”

gandrud@actuallyorange.com

Tell us your dreams. Dreams are accepted by the editorial staff on the basis of aesthetics. That said, there are certain topics that will not be considered. Extremely violent or pornographic dreams will not be accepted on any basis so please do not submit them.

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