My two moms run a fabric store here in San Francisco. We buy and show orginal fabric art made by two pale, cute Goth girls. They sign their stuff "The Ashe Sisters", but it may be just an art name--they seem more like lovers than sisters.

We pay them a different rate for each piece. This guy we know, who's a union organizer, gets upset when he learns that--says "You're exploiting them! You should pay them a salary, per hour--don't you know the history of garment-making included terrible struggles to get away from piece rates?"

But their art's so diverse it makes no sense to treat it interchangeably. Can't pay for unique pieces as if they came off an assembly line! Art just isn't shopwork.

Now the Ashes send us their new promotional poster. How strange! They pose with urns of flowers and samples of their cloth draped all over. But they're nude... I guess. Ash-gray, paling to near-white on throat, breast and belly, darkening to charcoal on their flanks and back. Short plush fur, not skin! And now I notice that those odd ribbed fabrics they've draped round them aren't fabric at all: batlike wings!

What ARE they, exactly? I still think they're sexy. But I wonder how much of their grayness is just nocturnal pallor, how much is their species, and how much is a judicious dusting of ash because they like a Goth look?

• My two moms' fabric store: I just read Liza Ketchum's Newsgirl, a kids' book set in San Francisco's Gold Rush. Amelia, 12, dresses as a boy to get in on the lucrative business of selling Eastern newspapers, but her real ambition's to write for the local paper. Her birthmom disapproves of her daughter running around in drag. Ironic since Mom's a feminist who came to California because women have more rights in the new state--like running a clothing shop with her girlfriend instead of a husband. Lesbian pioneers embarrassed by a tomboy kid! That rang true--people are so contradictory.
• Furry nudity: I worked on three dream statues today, a wolf ballerina, a cat odalisque, and a centauroid dancer. They were sexy but rough. Tried to refine them, felt like a failure. My dreams disagree--think they're coming along. Good, just weird.
• Varied pay for varied work: I felt guilty this week for getting so little art done. Yes, I've felt stuck on big projects, but family crises ate up a lot of time too. And you can crank out crafts, but art wrestles with emotions and ideas--and those don't come on a schedule.
• Ash-to-charcoal gray: the climax of Newsgirl is the great fire of 1851 that burned downtown. The survivors were all ash-gray-to-soot-black.
• Action 1: drop the guilt over this slump. Art's not shopwork!
• Action 2: draw the Ashe Sisters in all their batty grayosity.
• Action 3: accept my obsessions: furriness, as well as art. Seek a girlfriend who shares them.
• Why bats, though? I don't get that.

THE NEXT DAY...

Off to a doctor's appointment. The waiting room isn't full, but one patient stands near the door for over half an hour, never sitting down. A tallish slender Southeast Asian girl, she's very attractive, but with the most peculiar face--like the Ashe Sisters, she has an upturned, slit-nostril nose like a pig or a bat!

OK, glad that's explained. I was just sketching from life again... one day ahead of schedule.

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites