The future is all yellow and grey

Last night my dreams were real fuzzy and seemed to be more about me worrying about stuff than any actual storyline, but there was sort of a post-apolocalyptic/Mad Max theme to the whole thing.

The first part of my dream I had somehow sneaked onto, or cheated my way into a space station, where I was somehow pegged as an astronaut even though I wasn't. It must have been very far in the future though, because this space station was like a compound and everyone was very "whatever" about the fact we were in outer space. There was even a three-level parking garage (why they needed cars there, escapes me). It was really gritty and dirty looking inside and all the equipment was grimy like it was supposed to be a trash hauling ship, but it actually was a scientific research facility.



For some reason I had to go out into space to gather samples and I was sent into the garage with a tall guy (who I think might have been Vince Vaughn) and he handed me a really homemade looking astronaut helmet, which looked sort of like a motorcycle helmet but it was brown, all scratched up, and held together with what appeared to be rubber cement. I kept commenting that I didn't want my face to collapse in vacuum. The tall guy assured me it was safe but I didn't believe him.



The scene changed to my parent's house, I think I may have been on leave from the space station or escaped from it or something, I was very nervous though. My friend Choho was there and he had brought me a cream colored down comforter that had blood splattered all over it. I was very concerned my mom would see it and kick us out of the house. I really didn't want to leave because outside was weird...I think most people were dead and the environment was unstable or something. It was really empty looking and everything was grey and yellow and seemed abandon. I was lying on the floor wrapped in the bloody comforter with the bloodstains on the inside to hide them and my mom was nagging me to do my laundry but I didn't want to get up because she would would notice and think I killed someone.



There were also a segment of me driving around in a big rickety monster truck with floodlights on it. The streets were all very grey and grid-like and I was watching myself drive from above so I could see this. I think I was in Roseville and I was sort of lost, or worried about where I should go next. There was something about a speakeasy shack with ragged scraps of fabric for the door. I think it was supposed to be the post-apocalyptic version of the West Bank Social Center for some reason.

Some jobs I just shouldn't do.

Almost this whole dream was set super early in the morning when it's grey/blue out, before the sun comes up, except the very last scene. I think it cycled through multiple days. It was really all over the place, lots of little flashes of weirdness that I can't remember. I'll recount the clearer parts.



The first thing I remember is working as a waitress in a restaurant that was run by Kristin (from Secrets of the City). It doubled as a sort of gift shop, but all that was in the gift shop area was a table with rows of colored cookies in plastic bags tied with ribbons and a counter with an old cash register. Each row had a different design of cookie; there was one of a sort of mangy-looking duckling, but it was a photo that had somehow been transferred onto the cookie, one was in the shape of a cupcake that was blue and purple with red stars on it, one was a sprig of lilacs (also a photo transfer). There were really cheesy greeting cards (the kind that have, long cursive inscriptions that say things that make grandmas cry) and colored, thin sponges intermingled between the cookie bags. Kris was like, "I have to make more of these cookies, people love them!" but I tried to one and it was rock hard. I also couldn't figure out how to work the register and Kris was like "didn't you used to be an accountant!?"



The scene switched to me waiting tables in the restaurant and doing a really terrible job. I just kept wanting to go out on the porch (which was randomly the porch and front yard of a house I used to live in in St. Paul) to work on my laptop and do more important things than bring people beignets (which was all the restaurant served). The patrons were all 20-something hipster kids that read newspapers and acted really pretentious. One couple was laughing at me and questioning my qualifications as an arts and entertainment writer because they had heard I moonlighted as a postal service worker -- which in the dream was somehow true.



The next segment featured me at my grandpa's house (he's been dead for over 15 years, but I can still remember his house perfectly, and how the sunlight looked filtering through his living room windows, specifically) but it was also still the porch of my old house too. My friends Stephen and Susannah were there, and they were waiting in a porch that was in front of another porch, and I changed my clothes in the second porch. Stephen was riled up about something and had to talk to me and barged in while I was changing and for some reason, I held a full black garbage bag in front of myself to hide my nakedness and was all "get the hell out, Stephen!!!" but he just kept talking. Susannah tried to come in and dig in the bag to find me an outfit in it, and she came up with a blue dress that I tried to get on while still holding the bag. Then I think I woke up...


There were parts about me playing video games, and there being busted wicker furniture in our yard which I was appalled by, but my roommates thought was really cool. Also, I think in the dream everyone wore glasses.

The art that dreams are made of

I didn't remember any of my dreams last night, but I think one of them, at least, had to do with making cakes. This probably for two reasons: 1. I fell asleep last night watching Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which has one of the cutest cake/shoe scenes in it, ever and 2. I had a meeting last night that involved discussion of a cake-related photo shoot.

Anyhoo, my friend Teri posted this pic on my facebook wall this morning, of some graffiti in Atlanta, which in turn inspired me to post some pics of some of my favorite "dreamy" local artists.


The next image is by photographer Xavier Tavera who is one of my absolute faves. Xavier has an exhibit up at the Weisman Art Museum right now that you should go check out.


This one is by local lovely D.C. Ice, who does slightly creepy, but delightfully girlish illustrations and paintings. The image below is one of hers that I own. I also just bought one of her etchings for a friend last night at the Look Art Below Gallery.


Jennifer Davis is a local fave, with her candy-coated illustration, painting and mixed media works. Definitely the stuff dreams are made of.


The image below is one by Miles Mendenhall that I own. His paintings are deliciously scary in a cartoonish sort of way. Miles doesn't have a website but here's a link to an interview with him. ps-sorry for the crappy pic.


I did a post on Alex Kuno last week, but here he is again, just for good measure. Look for Kuno's illustrations to go along with some of my dreams on this blog soon!



And finally, we have Deuce Seven, the graffiti king of Minneapolis. Deuce pops in and out of gallery settings but his real love is painting his "stories" where he's not supposed to.


I'll do this more often, because there are a bazillion dreamy artists that I love in this city, but right now I have to get ready for a full day of photo shoot, an entertaining/wine convention, a fancy dinner at the Ivy Hotel, and finally, a horror convention. Hopefully my day will inspire some decadent nightmares!

Triple Dream Score

I dreamed super intensely last night. I woke up twice and opened my laptop to write down what happened and then fell back asleep.

Dream #1

The first dream consisted of me living in two connected rooms (#701 and 702) at a hotel where a Jamaican bellboy would spout off weird philosophy to me, and I was scared of him because I thought he knew too much (too much of what, escapes me). My sister lived there too, or was staying with me for awhile and was going sort of mad. She took like 20 pregnancy tests and left them strew around the bathroom, then my Dad came over and saw them and was like "what the hell!"



The scene changed to some sort of apocalypse scenario that was somehow my fault. There were four "super beings" that were trying to destroy the world, and I had unleashed them somehow. I had Juleana with me and somehow we managed to re-contain three of them in these rotating rusty metal cylinders that somehow psychically put them in a trance state. The only one that was still on the loose was my friend Paul, who was wearing his Halloween costume (the one he really wore on Halloween) and he was the most evil one (he's not THAT evil in real life mind you, hehe).



The dream ended with Juleana and me riding in a rusty metal circle thing that was also some sort of army vehicle along a dirt road. Paul was on the top of a mountain in the distance and kept telekenetically throwing rotten dead bodies with small bombs in them at us. I think we might have died, because I woke up all violently.



Dream #2

In this dream I lived in a hotel too (a different one) and I was having a party and a raffle for all sorts of weird stuff, one of which was a sort of toga/saari type thing made out of iridescent green organza that everyone really wanted. One girl, who none of us really liked fell down and did a sommersault and her whole dress came off and everyone pretended like nothing happened but I laughed because I thought she was a jerk.



It turned out that my boyfriend in the dream was an alien boss and his mission was to put as many people on earth under mind control as he could, without them knowing it. He didn't put me under mind control though, because he liked me. He demonstrated at the party by putting everyone in the hallway and tying a big red ribbon around the group of them, then he made them all fall asleep and the ribbon came undone. Glory from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer was one of them, and my bf was like "watch this one wakes up faster than the others" and she did, because, well, Glory has super powers on the show.



I go into the basement laundry room to draw the raffle winners out of a shoebox. I had crunched the entries into little balls of paper. I overheard a discussion going on in the next room between my bf and the main alien overlord, who was Benecio del Toro. They were in a long room that was decorated very Grecian, and it had a long narrow pool in it, lots of marble, and potted plants everywhere. The overlord wanted to put me to sleep but my boyfriend said I was cool, and not to.



The scene changed to my boyfriend and I going to bed, and I was about to get in when I heard a chiming noise coming from under the bed, where I found a pair of old dirty men's briefs that were somehow making that noise. When I questioned my boyfriend he said they were his and apologized profusely, because for some reason I was really mad about it.



Dream #3

I was driving out of town with my sister to see an art show of Chris Mars (the drummer from the Replacements who is also an artist in real life) and my friend Robyn is driving separately. The show was far away at a nature center in the country and we had to take a million weird freeways to get there.

Real (and awesome) art by Chris Mars

Once we got there, my sister kept wanting to leave to go see her kids because it was Christmas and she had bought them costumes to wear on Christmas morning. On was a green and red cheerleading uniform (in the dream she had a 13 year old daughter that doesn't actually exist) and a gingerbread man and snowman outfit for the little ones she does actually have. My sister's hair looked really gross and greasy and I asked her why. She said that her hair is really static all the time so the trick is, is to put urine in it so it doesn't stick up. Robyn left in a stranger's car and I brought my sister home.



The scene changed to me driving around Highland Park golf course, then I was at the Mall of America suddenly because I was supposed to by presents for my sister's kids but for some reason I didn't. Robyn called me and said I needed to help her because she left her car at the art opening and there was something bad in it that the cops would find so we needed to go back right away. I got her and we went back, but we forgot the keys to her car, so we got Chris Mars to break the window. For some reason I had parked my own car like half a mile away on the shoulder of the freeway and a bunch of other cars had done the same thing. My other friend named Robyne (not the same one) was sitting on the hood of my car applying lipstick and was all sassy, saying "some bitch ass cop tried to give you a ticket but I talked him into giving everyone else a ticket instead"



Then there was something about me going back to my parents house and it was Christmas and me not having any presents for the kids, and trying to play it off but not succeeding, and being considered the asshole of Christmas.

A shout out to the cod-piece

I can hardly remember my dream at all last night, all I've got in my mind is a visual of someone wearing a homemade cod-piece with white pillow fluff and scraps of brown leather taped on it. The person was trying to sell me a movie script.

And while the pics below looks nothing like the cod-piece in my dream, I just thought they were hilarious....and creepy. ENJOY.

Inside Karl Lagerfeld's Compound

I'm having a hard time remembering my dream last night. I'm remembering it backwards I think.

Somehow I worked for Karl Lagerfeld, I think I was his publicist or something. His office was a big, non-descript compound that was all metal from floor to ceiling and lit very dimly and coldly. Everything was gunmetal grey. My computer was on a big, long metal table in a room lit only by a window that was outside of it and down the hall. I spent the morning Googling Karl Lagerfeld quotes so I would know when he was in a situation where he might say something offensive. I went in the lunch room that was another big, dark metal room lit from outside and no one was there. Karl came in and said "People here don't eat lunch, dear."



There was an event happening in the same cold metal building, I think it might have been a wedding reception or an industry event, and I was in charge of wrangling the photographer. I hired my friend Juleana to do it (she's a writer in real life, but I wanted to teach her to be a photographer too in the dream) and I followed her around telling her who to take pics of and she was getting annoyed with me. I think we were shooting for Metro Magazine, but Juleana didn't want to write down the names of people we were taking pics of because she said we knew them all but I didn't know anyone. When it was time to eat, the meal was a big elaborate salad bar, complete with sneeze guard.



There was another piece about me living in an apartment that was a hybrid of my apartment from 3 years ago and my apartment now but the outside looked like a big castle. I was standing on the road outside of it and my neighbor had brought an abstract metal futon frame that looked like a sculpture and leaned it up against my gate, leaving a pissed off note saying that I put it by her garbage and it wasn't fair. I think my neighbor was the mom from Edward Scissorhands.



There was something else about an intricate Indian pattered fabric that was maroon and red and gold. It was cut out like someone was going to make a corset out of it but it wasn't sewn yet. I don't know where this was going because I was rudely awake by my cat knocking a full glass of water off my night stand.

American Vampire Idol

Last night's dream was vampire themed. I watched like 5 minutes of a Japanese vampire movie last night called Blood: The Last Vampire, so maybe that's why. I'm also involved with the planning of the Voltage: Fashion Amplified 2010 show and elements of that are in there too. I think I woke up and fell back asleep a couple times but the vampire theme was still there.

The dream started off in a space that was part carpeted church basement, part my parents kitchen and part the Vision Models office space. We were holding interviews with vampires to see if they were worthy to join us for whatever we were doing (which I never fully understood throughout the entire course of this dream). Anna Lee from MNFashion was helping me judge them and it was set up like American Idol for vampires, and there were hundreds of them lined up outside. I don't think they did anything very interesting though, they just told us why they thought they should be allowed to join us.



At one point I was taking a break and we were sitting at a table by a window when a young girl vampire came up and got all sassy with me for some reason (I think maybe we wouldn't let her try out?) and I was holding down both of her arms and pushing her away and calling her things like "little one" and "honey child." She was made up like a Latino gang member girl with drawn on eyebrows and she insisted she was the cousin of a friend I haven't seen for 10 years.



The scene changed to an outdoor garden party that looked like the roof of the Calhoun Beach Club but the lower level looked like the Women's Club on Loring Park. My family was there and my sister's kid went missing, but I think he was also my dog. Everyone went into a panic, but then they/he turned up right away. I got nervous about the vampires eating them so I went into the basement to check on vamps we apparently had stored down there in coffins. The coffins were too big and could fit 1 1/2 vampires and I was mad we spent extra money on big coffins for no reason. I began making a spread sheet on my computer about it.



The next scene was in my parent's living room where someone had installed a big LED light cross into their floor and my dad wanted me to photograph it, but they had placed it in a weird area where clutter and baby carriages were all around it and I couldn't get a good shot of it. I demanded they have someone come in and relocate it.



The scene changed again to the Music Box Theater, but it was three times as wide, and my parent's kitchen was part of the lobby. The band KMFDM was playing and a lot of people in local bands were randomly there and also a lot of vampires, but the theater was so big that it looked like hardly anyone was there. Everyone was sitting on the sides and only three people in the middle. I suddenly was worried someone would steal my laptop, which I'd left on the table in the lobby/kitchen, so I went to get it. When I got back I became indecisive about where to sit, but then I randomly saw Heidi Klum and sat right in front of her.



The dream capped off with me driving on Selby Avenue and almost crashing because I kept turning onto one-way streets going the wrong way.

Alex Kuno is awesome

Wonderful illustrator and painter, Alex Kuno, has generously offered to do illustrations to go along with my dreams from time to time -- and Alex's work is definitely the stuff dreams are made of. If you haven't seen his darkly whimsical art at numerous Twin Cities galleries such as SooVAC, Rosalux, and The Gallery at Fox Tax, you must check him out asap! Return to this site to see his work along with my weird dreams -- coming soon!

Peep his portfolio here!

An Alex Kuno painting

An Alex Kuno illustration

It's just like riding a T-Rex

This dream was kind of all over the place. It began with me trying to find a venue to put on an art exhibit, but also a space to throw a big after party as well. I found a warehouse downtown, right on Nicollet & 9th, and the inside was huge but it was completely trashed, with mounds and mounds of ripped up plastic sheeting, cardboard, twisted metal, boxes, a rows and rows of scaffolding. Some of it was waist deep and you had to wade through it to get to the next area. The guy who owned it was walking me through and seemed oblivious to the mess. We got to the very back of the warehouse and he got on this big contraption that looked like an abstract metal skeleton of a T-Rex, with a brown leather bike seat on its back. He could make it go up and down. I don't know what the purpose was.



The scene switched to a completely random place that my friends Jahna, Emma and I were trapped in the basement, but we weren't scared. We were trying to find evidence of something we were investigating. There were a couple of smarmy European guys that were trying to find us and kill us too. We finally got out through a window, but had to go through a little obstacle course of tippy, treacherous platforms and rusty metal stuff above a big black abyss.



We finally got out of that and walked up an alley, only to decide we should go back in. Jahna and I got trapped on a platform that was sliding all over the place and we had to dive through the window. The European guys found us and locked us in a long narrow room where there was only a small loveseat. We fell asleep on it in a weird way, kind of like sardines with our legs woven in a random Celtic knotwork pattern.



The scene changed to me working at my computer and copying and pasting an old Tweet and Facebook status update from last year with links that didn't work, and being mortified that I could make such a mistake. There was also something about a Medieval dress that I can't remember.

Petey

This dream was like a super quick flash, just an image and a slight concept about it. It woke me up on Saturday morning. I had an extreme hangover, which was wonderful.

It's Halloween (which it actually was) and all my friends were scrapping their costumes to wear a mask that was all the rage. It was just two hollowed out skull eyes printed on some cheap cardboard with and elastic band that went around your head to keep it on. Everyone was like "I'm going as Petey for Halloween."