A Boat Rolled Out Onto the Lake of Dust for a Swim in the Deep End of the Earth

Please take a moment to write down or draw any dreams you remember, whether they were recent or a long time ago.

I primarily work within the medium of oil painting and the style of the surrealist movement. My paintings act as personal psychological investigations, and opportunities for both playful mind-wandering and mindfulness. Although they seem contradictory on the surface, it’s my intention to tie aimless surprises with focused action by using surrealist techniques and by recording my dreams in a journal and recreating them.

Surrealist artists may appear more chaotic than the peace that is associated with meditation. Their work is intentionally unpredictable, often creating interruptions to our thinking or breaks away from our expectations. And yet, through my own interest in surrealism and Buddhism, I have found myself focusing on both mindfulness and automatic processes to improve my life, and I often find parallels between them. While creating paintings of dreams I’ve had or identifying imagery from random splashes of paint, I would meditate beforehand and try to be mindful of my painting process by focusing on the brushes in my hands, the force I applied to the painting surface, and what it’s like to see the world around me. I work most effectively when I get into a focused, mindful state, and that includes an acceptance of the unexpected, surrealist-inspired imagery that I work with.

Although mindfulness tends to be thought of as a form of focused awareness, we can become more mindful of mind-wandering by recalling it and attempting to see when it is happening. Bringing our attention to mind-wandering, we can discover ideas we may have never consciously encountered, which enriches our lives and offers opportunities to consider the reasons for what our minds wander over. Though they may appear unproductive to some, the interruptions of dreaming, wandering, and play are a necessary facet of life that we need to be sensitive to. It’s my intention to interrupt others’ everyday lives for a moment to be mindful in a new way.