Wa(l)king Dream

Oil on Canvas, 1985, 28"x36"

For many years, since when I was a child well into adulthood, I had a recurring dream of someone walking, and the sound of the footsteps coinciding with my heartbeat which I could hear with my ear pressed to my pillow. There was a cobblestone or brick sidewalk, a wrought iron fence, and a slightly foggy moonlit atmosphere.

One year I was working quite a bit in Framingham and commuting quite frequently from Atlanta to Boston. Instead of staying in hotels all this time, I rented a room in Back Bay. Some nights, after getting back from work, I would take a walk around the Back Bay streets. One particular night I noticed my footsteps, the sidewalk, fence and atmosphere all matched the dream, and decided I needed to paint it.

This is something I wrote about it at the time:

Cobbled shoes on hurried feet

Clop a cobbled walk

Past garden plots

And through shadows

Cast of wrought iron

Fences and moonlight

At the pace of a heartbeat.

There is a wisp of moonlight you can see glancing off the forward foot. The cobalt blue used for the figure dulls the image against the brighter ultramarine moonlight and deep shadows, all contrasting with the inherent color of the brick.