Paper Structures

I long have been fascinated by and explored the world of night dreams––my own and those of family and friends. Dreams, like poetry, myth and fairy tales, speak to us in the language of image, symbol, archetype, and metaphor––and often come as nonlinear narratives to puzzle, mystify, and challenge. The practice of transposing dream narratives into artforms––while leaning into their metaphoric language, creative imagery, and archetypal symbols––can be affective, clarifying, and instructive––or, perhaps, even more powerfully, can help dreamers creatively “just be with” and/or be open to the nonlinear, irrational, mysterious, and magical. For many years, a fascinating theme has recurred in my dreams that involves encounters with wild animals while walking on a forest path. Inspired by the silhouette illustrations from fairy tale books of my childhood, I have adopted the medium of paper-cutting as a way to bring my dreams to form. As a way to illustrate the dream-story and to dialogue with its metaphors and archetypes,