Sources of Inspiration 5/5: Death

7 Extinction Events ©2006, 7 x 7 x 3 inches.
This book is about the extinction of the dinosaurs, but also about my own personal extinction. It's the one that matters the most to me.


7 Extinction Events
I have always thought a lot about death. As I get older, it gets more real to me, and makes a bigger appearance in my art. I wonder where we came from before we were born, and where we go when we die. I sometimes envision a starry landscape. I see a vast world, with small houses, or temples, here and there on the hills. The stars wheel slowly overhead. From a distance this world would appear to be one tiny point of light. It is small enough to hold us all as the atoms of one being, yet large enough to hold our spirits, with great spaces between us.



Man Moon-Go ©1989, 4-3/4 x 3 x 3/4 inches. While reading "On Dreams & Death" by Marie-Louise von Franz, I found this quote: "Many people made a doll to serve as a substitute for the corpse. The Chinese made one from a loincloth and called them Moon-Go." A few pages later she quotes Origen: "the spiritual body (which it is believed we reincarnate into) will be of a divine nature - the whole of us will see (will be eyes) the whole hear, the whole will serve as hands, the whole as feet."


Fish Messages, © 1992. 2-1/4 x 5-1/2 x 1 inch.
Fish for me symbolize both birth and death. Sometimes I imagine a giant fish that gives birth to the universe from her mouth. Everything flows from her, and then everything returns to her.


The fish who swims in the sky, ©1993. 3.5 x 6 x 1.5 inches.
I also see fish as creatures who can go places we can't go. They could bring back secret messages or information that would help us, including information about the before-life and the after-life.


The fish who swims in the sky
Inside are guts. The last page is a silver outline of the body. I thought of it as the spirit of the fish.

Sources of Inspiration 4/5: The wish to create tools to aid me in life

Dream Focusing Device, ©2007, 8 x 5.5 x 6 inches

I would love to have tools to solve the problems in life that are so vexing. How can I remember more dreams? How does the moon work anyway? Wouldn't it be nice if there was an instruction manual for all of life? Why are we here? You can look it up in the index.


Instruction Manual for the Moon II, ©2005, 2.75 x 3 x 2.5 inches.


Instruction Manual for the Moon II

Sources of Inspiration 3/5: Found Phrases

This is part of a series on my sources of inspirations. There is an index here. These posts are greatly expanded from my 8 minute talk for the Conceptually Bound show.

Sometimes the text taken from books and titles of articles will spark the idea for a book. I find it pays to keep a collection of these phrases, both as inspiration and possible book titles.


Comet Found, ©1987, 2-3/8 x 3-1/2 x 1-7/8 inches
The title, and the text inside this book came from an article in the science section of the San Jose Mercury News titled "Comet Found to Have Heart of Darkness." I envisioned space as a river of stars, flowing from the mouth of a fish, the source of all life.


Comet Found
This was a very early book. I lightly scratched the text in the border and stars on the formica pages.


Astronomers Say, © 1998, 7 x 4 x 1/2 inches (closed).
This book came from an article in the paper titled "Astronomers Say They Saw Space Mirage."


Astronomers Say
I am fascinated by star charts. All the star names were made up by cutting up text from the article and putting words back together. The ones that sounded appropriate became the star names.


The Distance of the Moon, ©1990, 2 x 3-3/4 x 1-3/4 inches.
This book illustrates a story in my all-time favorite book, Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino.


The Distance of the Moon
I used phrases from the book on each pair of pages. This one says "She was the color of the moon." I have read this book 6 or 7 times. The imagery is very spacey, cosmic, and poetic.

My favorite unused quote is from Farok, a character in "Dune Messiah" by Frank Herbert. I'm hugely paraphrasing here: Farok sees the ocean for the first time. He says he went into that water one man, and emerged another one. Then he says "the universe is unfinished, you know." Somehow this quote has been in my head for years, but hasn't become part of anything.

Sources of Inspiration 2/5: Childhood Memories

This is part of a series on my sources of inspirations. There is an index here. These posts are greatly expanded from my 8 minute talk for the Conceptually Bound show.


zero to twelve, ©2007 4 x 2.5 x 3.5 inches (closed).
There are so many things I remember fondly from my childhood. Many of them seem to have informed my art-making urges. I have always treasured things I find, on the street or in creek beds. The penny and old bottle cap above have such nice patinas. You can see a cicada through the window above. There were cicada in Ohio, where I was born, and where my grandparents lived. I remember hearing their buzzing sound, and seeing their exoskeletons attached to trees. They seemed very mysterious to me. At times these early memories rise up in my mind with a force that surprises me. The numbers on the plastic protractor and the dial (below) refer to charts, maps, time and distance.


zero to twelve
Of course I was fascinated by dinosaurs. And we frequently played pretend games like cowboys and Indians, or Daniel Boone, depending on what movie we had seen on t.v. To start a project like this, I get out all the things that seem related and spread them out. They can dictate the size of the book, and whether the general tone is funky or jewelry-neat. I usually start with one or two interior pages and work out from there. I like to react to things as I go along when I'm making a book with lots of found objects. This makes a nice change from the meticulous metalwork, which is mostly planned out in advance. It's also a chance to indulge in some nostalgia. I still miss the landscape of the midwest, the rolling hills, deciduous forests and the fireflies and crickets.


Myself as my grandfather, made of crickets, grass and rain about 5 inches high, ©1987
Although we moved a lot, I have always felt Ohio was home. We visited my grandparents there as often as possible. I often think about the line of people who precede me. Not only as genetic ancestors, but as people who have contributed to my view of life, even if it's just to react against them.


Myself as my grandfather, made of crickets, grass and rain
I am fascinated by the old layered medical diagrams. The second layer here is a large gear, which I used to represent the spirit. I'm thinking of myself as a cog in a much greater mechanism. I am connected to my ancestors by gears and we are also connected to many other people. The whole world is a large mechanism that has many interrelating parts.

Dreams as Inspiration 1.1/5

I keep thinking of more I should have included in the last post. How did I compress this into 8 minutes for the original talk? Many of my ideas about creativity come from a class I took years ago with Jacqueline Thurston at San Jose State. She's very good at helping artists find their own personal imagery.


The Findings of the Expedition to an Unknown Land by Ludmilla Paulsdotter ©2005, 8 x 7 x 3 inches.
How do I use the dreams I have recorded? My main goal is to think about them frequently. I hope this will allow me to "see" my ideas in dream imagery. I love the way things change in dreams: a car becomes a bicycle, a baby becomes an adult, night exists in the middle of the day, a wave becomes a dinosaur, which becomes a large hill. I can fly, glide, float and swim through the sky in my dreams.


I watch for recurring symbols, interesting images, and words or phrases that strike a chord. My current list of dream symbols includes: bears, dinosaurs, books, people as trees or books, houses, the stars, cars, boats, a girl made of leaves, a woman with sticks for hair, maps, stars, the moon, other phenomena in the sky, sea creatures including fish, caves, and water in many forms: streams, lakes, the sea.


Occasionally I dream of a completed book or a painting. Sometimes I'm actually making something, but more often I just see it somewhere. This camera-book was a hypnopompic image. Although wikipedia says the hypnopompic state and it's twin, the hypnogogic state, are decidedly different, I find them both great sources of imagery and odd words. I would love to make this book.

I also keep a list of what I have been in my dreams. I'm not sure if this relates to art, except to reflect parts of my mind. I have been a pirate, a troll, a monster, the deposed ruler of a small country, my son, a spy, several nationalities, from outer space, a time traveler, a little boy, a man, a bear, a thief, a fish, a medieval serf, Robin Williams, and a man living around 1800.

I used to have a book by Patricia Garfield called Creative Dreaming. It was very helpful to get me started, but I haven't really kept up with current ideas in this area. I don't pursue lucid dreams, although I have them occasionally. I prefer to have images arise out of my unconscious, and to allow them to have their own meanings. I like the feeling that my mind is a vast unexplored land that I can just wander in. I don't want to chart a path, I might miss something really good.

Sources of Inspiration 1/5: Dreams

Sometimes people say to me "I'd like to get inside your head for a day, how do you get your ideas?" My 8 minute talk for Conceptually Bound 3 tried to answer that question. I have greatly expanded it into 5 blog posts. Each post deals with one way I find inspiration. Most of the books I use to illustrate these posts were included in the two CB shows I have participated in. The exceptions are Bear With Me, included in this post, Dream Focusing Device and Instruction Manual for the Moon II, included in post number four. All the books are linked to my website, where you can see them in more detail.

My dreams are my main source of inspiration. I try to write them down every morning. I go through periods of not being able to remember them, and periods of remembering 3 or 4 in a fair amount of detail. Every night before I go to sleep, I say to myself "I want to remember my dreams when I wake." and "I want to write down my dreams when I wake." I use an inexpensive Mead 9.5 x 6 notebook and a ball point pen.

In the morning I write my dreams as soon as I wake, using the first words that come into my head. I also make at least one quick sketch. It helps to keep my eyes closed most of the time, to see the images I'm trying to remember. It's important to honor the dream, by reporting it carefully and not judging the content. I have had a few alarming dreams, where I commit crimes, but I pay more attention to my feelings during the dream than the actions. It's important to keep these dream records private, at least in the beginning. Parts of my dreams are revealed in my artist's books, but there are parts I reserve for me. After a period of having the most mundane dreams you can imagine, a crisis in my life, or a book or movie, will spark dreams that have meaningful content. It's also sometimes possible to remind myself that I want to have interesting dreams, or dreams about a certain subject.


We can see by starlight ©1998, 8 x 8 x 1/2 inches.
This book illustrates an all-time favorite dream. My son and I are riding through the landscape in a car that changes into a bicycle.


Pages 11 and 12 of We can see by starlight.
We see a woman with stick hair, then she turns into a bird. I simplified the image on this page. In the actual dream she was hopping around on a picnic table.


Pages 16 and 17 of We can see by starlight.
In the end of the dream, we ride into the stars, so I used the star background throughout the book. In the case of this dream, I have an idea of what it's about, but have decided not to "reveal all." I feel comfortable showing the world the pictures, but several scenes and the complete meaning of the dream remain private. This helps me to remember more detail in the dreams, and allows the dreams to be a dialog between my waking mind and other parts of me.


The Findings of the Expedition to an Unknown Land by Ludmilla Paulsdotter ©2005, 8 x 7 x 3 inches.
This one was originally sparked by a big box of old photos I bought on ebay. When I had them spread out on my work table I realized I could line them up along the horizon line and make a kind of narrative. The project really became compelling when I started including dreamy imagery. Only a few actual dream images are included in this book, but I used dream-like imagery throughout.


The Findings of the Expedition to an Unknown Land by Ludmilla Paulsdotter ©2005, 8 x 7 x 3 inches.
This spread shows the dream that is the heart of the book. People in my family journey in a boat in the sky.


The Findings of the Expedition to an Unknown Land by Ludmilla Paulsdotter ©2005, 8 x 7 x 3 inches.
I like to balance the seriousness of my thoughts with a touch of humor.


Bear With Me, ©2008, 5.5 x 4.5 x 1.5
To illustrate this one, I used dreams, childhood memories and objects from our house that have powerful memories. They all have a bear in them. I dream about bears occasionally. I know they are important in American Indian thought. And I love the idea that they are powerful spirit figures. But in working on this book, I decided for me they may represent my animus. Of course imagery can simultaneously have many meanings that are equally valid.


Bear With Me
In this dream some friends and I are threatened by a man with a bow and arrows. We become bears and walk down a long white hall. I hope the guy won't shoot us in the back. He doesn't.


Bear With Me
Here I used phrases from a number of my dreams about stars because I wanted to include Ursa Major in the book. Just as I finished this book I dreamed about a huge sleeping bear. I wanted to poke it and make it come after me. I wasn't afraid, and as I woke, I was about to poke it.

April 20: I added more informational titles for the books and a better explanation of the talk.

CB3 Panel Discussion and Opening

Last night I went to the Mohr Gallery for the panel talk and opening for Conceptually Bound 3. Each artist determined the subject of their talk. We each had 8 minutes. Slides were projected on a screen. There must have been 35 or 40 people in the audience.

Nanette Wylde, the curator, talked a little about the series of CB exhibitions. "The theme, Conceptually Bound, refers to the idea that the content of the book is in part expressed by the form the book takes." She plans to do more shows with this theme, and is hoping to have a retrospective eventually.

Peng Peng Wang told us how her experience as a Taiwanese-American influences her books. She was amazed by the money culture in Silicon Valley, so the first books she made have $100 bills as covers. Practical Chinese Conversation for Beginners contains cell phones that can be flipped open to reveal text messages in Chinese. They open to reveal an English translation. The book reflects her surprise that relationships begin and end with text messages.

One of Kent Manske's earlier books came out of his reaction to the disaster of 9/11. His more recent work has been more spontaneous and experimental. He uses "picture narratives" to explore things that spark his curiosity.

Melissa Kaup-Augustine talked about Uppercase Collective, the projects she does with her students at the Art Institute of California, addressing issues like war and global warming. If you look through this blog you can see she is giving her class assignments in the blog, and part of the project includes leaving information in the comments.

Lark Burkhart gave a moving talk on combining words and imagery to make books that "say" what she thinks about war on many different levels. Her book Peace Will Grow Through is a plea for people to "release the anger, hatred and fear that make war reasonable, desirable and then inevitable."

I spoke about my sources of inspiration. Basically they are: dreams, childhood memories, a phrase from an article, a wish to create tools to help me through life, and death. I plan to post a "beefed-up" version of the talk to this blog. Stay tuned.


Diane Cassidy, one of the artists in the show and Nanette Wylde, the curator/organizer/catalog creator, at the opening for the Conceptually Bound 3 exhibit.


The show is fantastic. There are a huge number of books, some can be handled with white gloves, which are provided in the gallery. It's a real treat to be able to pick these books up and turn the pages.


I loved seeing so many people standing around wearing white gloves. They are, inexpensive, loosely woven cotton. From a distance they remind me of going downtown shopping in Cincinnati when I was a little girl. Thank goodness we don't have to dress like that anymore.


And the required photo of me, in front of The Findings of the Expedition to an Unknown Land by Ludmilla Paulsdotter.

I was so struck by the range and quality of books in this show. So many different materials, techniques, approaches, and ways of thinking about books are presented. Nanette is very good at picking books. I wondered, looking at the catalog, how they could work in a show. But they do. As you walk from book to book and especially when you can turn the pages, there is so much to experience. You can get a little glimpse into so many different worlds which are unified by a love of books.