Creative Dream

Mr Grumpy slammed the front door shortly after seven this morning (he was going out for the papers), waking me from a truly remarkable dream. Now, I know other people's dreams can be very boring, so feel free to go off and read the news headlines, check your bank account or play your favourite online game.

Still here? Sitting comfortably? Right, I shall begin. It started with an invitation arriving in the post from an art gallery called the Ivin Gallery. (Does it exist anywhere in the world? A quick Google couldn't find one.) I went along to the private view and came face to face with an intense, powerful and quite nightmarish painting. Using colours that have always made me shudder - graveyard ivy green, putrescent pink, dead pig sweaty grey, the vast canvas portrayed figures from classic mythology mingled with characters from Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatter, Red Queen, Caterpillar, White Rabbit, writhing in a William Blake-ish hell and painted in a style that was like Breugel on acid. It was horrible, yet wonderful.

Then I was introduced to the artist, who looked more like a sharp-suited adman than a paint-splattered genius. An nondescript man in expensive tailoring with short hair and glasses behind which twinkled brown, intelligent eyes. He spoke quietly as I asked him what had inspired the painting. Suddenly, I was in full interview mode, like I used to be years ago when, working for Beat Instrumental Magazine, I talked to the likes of Marc Bolan and Yes about how they crafted their sounds. We talked of the creative processes of writing, painting and music, then something incandescent happened between us and suddenly he was holding my hands and about to kiss me and asking if I was prepared to leave everything and run away with him, even though he was over twenty years younger than me! (Yes, wish fulfilment, I know, but it was far more a meeting of minds than of bodies.) I said yes. He said we knew where we stood now and he promised to give me a painting. I said make it a small one as I didn't have a big enough wall. We exchanged contact details, then simply stared at each other, knowing each other perfectly, linked in by whatever magic causes people to be able to create a painting, a poem, a novel, a symphony. It was a truly uplifting dream in every way... till Mr Grumpy spoiled the ending.

There may have been a connection with my daughter's father, who was/is an artist. Or the dream could have sprung from a discussion I had about my late friend Louise's artist husband yesterday. One way or another, art was on my mind and it's incredible how a dream can flower from a word seeded into the mind during the day.