Monday, March 12, 2012

page 646 - Hopes and Dreams

I set a deadline for myself to finish this project. June 16, 2012, Bloomsday and a day before Father's Day. Right now that means completing 1 and 1/2 pages a day, which takes me around two hours, because the text is so dense. It's the first time the project has felt a little burdensome. I don't allow myself to work on any other drawing until my Ulysses quota is finished, or unless I know I have time to get to it before the day ends.
Now, having set this deadline, and having told people about it, I feel pressure. Because I feel pressure, my anxiety about what will become of this work is invading my sleep.
The first dream I had was classic anxiety stuff. I dreamed I was going to have a launch of the project at a museum before an audience of high powered curators, museum-goers, friends and family. At least three hundred people were waiting. I was running around like a lunatic, upstairs from the crowd. The plan was for me to lie (or is it lay) naked surrounded by a circle of gloves. But I knew I could not do that. Me, naked?  I realized I needed clothes but all I could find were old, too large overalls. My assistants (if only) were telling me I could not wear overalls and I insisted I could. Then we started looking for all the gloves, which had gotten out of order, grown furry (?)...well, let's just say this dream did not end well. Everyone important had left. It was a total failure.
The next dream was much better. In that one (last night) my curator friend Judith told me she had set aside a room at the RISD Museum for my first show of the gloves. I was shocked and elated and grateful.
Neither of these scenarios are going to happen. I can't imagine what will happen. It's been a long long time since I have done something where I can't visualize the outcome, at all. It's scary and thrilling. It makes me feel a little like I felt in college, when I attempted things that were beyond my reach.
And all this pressure is coming from inside me.
I do know that I shall finish on or by June 16.
And I am having a party.
And I am excited.