Dream Box / Bed Box

Dream Box / Bed Box - 2005 - wood, fabric, net, glass, paper - 23 x 11 x 7

This box - structure holds four dreams I had in the 80's. I sometimes feel compelled to preserve fleeting moments in time - moments in my life as well as obscure moments in history or literature. I don't know where that comes from. A fear of being forgotton? A form of self-preservation? I'm not sure. I prefer not to psychoanalyse. I never really know what thoughts were in my mind until after a piece is finished. That's when I begin to understand.




Four glass viles holding the dreams rest on a white tufted mattress. I removed one for the photo.



Dream - One

I was playing chess with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

My head was resting on Gertrude's fat, bare arm

My chess pieces were carved and polished granite

One was missing

I thought that I would buy one to replace it and present it to them as a gift

We finished playing and decided to go to a Greek restaurant to eat Spanakopita.



The silouette of the bed reminds me of an 18th century pinball machine - if such a thing existed. 



Dream - Two

I was in a museum with a tall, thin man with grey hair and a white beard

We were there together but didn't know each other well

We stood in front of a painting that resembled a Vermeer

It was of a peasant woman wearing a long dress covered by a long white apron

She was grasping a rope that hung from a trap door in the ceiling

As we looked at the painting it came to life

The woman pulled hard on the rope and the trap door opened

Light streamed in and we could see bright blue sky and puffy clouds

People began to come up to my companion and congratulate him on the painting

"Thank you," he said, "it's one of my favorites."

"That is your painting?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I am Georges Braque."

Dream - Three

I was walking through the woods with three female friends

I stopped to take Christmas ornaments off some low shrubs

My friends called out to me from the top of a hill

They said to hurry; there was a clearing up ahead and an old cottage

I yelled for them to keep going; that I would catch up with them

I put more ornaments into a brown paper bag and then walked up the hill

I entered the abandoned cottage and began to sort through old linens on a shelf

When I turned and looked at my friends they were in different stages of ageing:

The oldest being the first person to enter the cottage

We talked about what I would do in the time that elapsed from their deaths to mine.

On the headboard - an apparition of Boucher's Toilette of Venus



 Dream - Four 

There was a shop on the southeast corner of Broadway and 72nd that sold antique clothes

On the sidewalk in front were wooden shelves with sale items

I picked up a fur hat with a floppy fur brim and a chartreuse hatband and went inside to find a mirror

The shop had many rooms but no merchandise

The wood floor was splattered with paint

In one of the rooms an old man sat at an easel, painting

I told him I wanted to try on the hat and he pointed to a bare wall

I went off to find a mirror

There were many mirrors but they were all either too high or too low and whenever I

tried to look into one my shoes came off

I finally found one the right height. The hat fit perfectly

When I took it off to look at the price tag I dropped it, and just as I caught it it turned into a book with a thick, shiny cover

I opened it and it was an international cookbook and as I turned the pages food spilled out of the book. I stood in a mess of spaghetti, chow mien, and Hungarian dumplings

I wiped off the book and quickly folded it back into a hat so that the man wouldn't know how magical it was and raise the price. It was $25.00

I looked for him. He was in another room now...painting at another easel

"I'll take it," I said.

He examined it inside and out.

"You can have it for twenty," he said.

I left the shop and Keith Richards was standing on the corner.



Back of box is signed and dedicated to Marianna Gambara



       

I dedicated this box to Marianna Gambara, a character in Balzac's short novel, Gambara. I was reading it while I was working on this piece and the description of Giardini's furniture and Marianna's bed reminded me of my creation.

"She had spent the entire morning dusting the strange furniture, the handiwork of Signor Giardini, who had employed his leisure moments making such items out of the scraps of instruments Gambara had discarded. Andrea had never seen anything so peculiar in all his life. In order to preserve the semblance of gravity, he was compelled to look away from the grotesque bed the ingenious chef had fashioned out of the case of an old spinet, and turned instead to Marianna's narrow cot, its simple mattress covered in white muslin, which suggested thoughts at once melancholy and delightful."

Balzac



Boucher's - The Toilette of Venus



Photos, art, text (c) C. Andrako All Rights Reserved 2005, 2011