Daydreaming in Vintage Fabric: Sun. Moon. I.
I made a piece for a show called “Daydream Doodle” at Orcas Paley. Peter Gaucys, the curator writes: “In honor of wandering minds, wild tangents, and the exquisitely incomplete. Orcas Paley’s fourth annual group show celebrates the “unofficial” outputs of creative practice. Join us in mapping an exploratory space where ongoing experiments and nascent intuitions get their moment in the sun.”
My doodle is inspired by a conversation with an elderly neighbor in 2015. Buddhism means “awareness,” he said. “It’s not about God. It’s about nothingness. Stars! Moon! I! All are the same.” The corners of his eyes crinkled up as he laughed at this extraordinary cosmic revelation.
I recently found a record of our talk in an old notebook, just as I was thinking about how to represent doodling as part of the creative process — and being awake to the mysteries of intuition. Sorting through fabric scraps, I found remnants of things once shiny and new: the lining of a custom handbag, a favorite pair of striped overalls, designer denim from Barneys, a sari from a trip in India, a velvet flower from a 1920’s ballgown — plucked from a steamer trunk in Perth. These fragments have been joyfully recombined in tribute to friendship, connection, and deep universal truths that are so often beyond words.