In my dream last night, I was an artist. This is big news for me because it’s the first time this has ever happened.
Every time I sleep I am met with a half dozen wild and memorable dreams, but until the last few years they were exclusively set in the situations of my childhood. I would dream only of people I hadn’t seen in decades, caught in the mazes of buildings I hadn’t been to since I was a kid. It wasn’t until my early 30s that I found out that many people dream about current things in their life.
I’ve heard that you know you’re fluent in a new language when you begin to dream it in, and so I wondered for years if I was not yet fluent in the ways my life had changed, not yet fluent in now. But that’s probably reading too much into it.
One of the most helpful things I’ve learned about dreams is that we can think of them as thoughts, which are, at any time of day, powerful and unpredictable, while still just being thoughts. They are not right or wrong, not really ours or not ours, simply the constant downpour in my our minds.
So when I dream about the past I notice ah, I’m thinking about the past and then do what I can to move on into day, this day, December 9, 2022, where it’s cold out and my small dog is sleeping on my lap and I am an artist writing a letter to you, my stranger-friends. And this is easier today than ever, because last night I was thinking artist thoughts. How lucky.
So I woke up and made this sketch of the winter forest after the fires. There’s something about the snow being there now when it was an impossible inferno before - the relief, the loss, the slowness. Do you feel it?
-Brit
last day to ship for xmas is soooon / free shipping
USPS says the last day to ship for a dec 25 delivery in the US is in a week, so if you’ve been thinking about treating someone you love to some art (your own selves included), now is a great time to swing by the shop.
To make it easier, use ONTHEHOUSE this week and we’ll cover standard US shipping for orders $30+. Thanks for all your support!
When I dream of places I know, it is nearly exclusively of the schools I went to and my parents' house. I moved out of there 5.5 years ago. I relate to your feeling of not being able to be in the present in my dreams. Thank you so much for your art <3