Pipe Dream

My assumption is that anyone reading this is already familiar with the subject of my painting, Aaron Shikler. Many of you will know Aaron for the world-renowned titan of painting he was. Some of you may know him from my portraits of him and other things I’ve written about him as the close compatriot and mentor he was to me. For those who may not be familiar with Aaron at all, the most important thing to know here is that he was my dear friend and I miss him.

Pipe Dream – 40 x 30 inches – Oil on Linen – 2023

Over the last few years I’ve often wished that Aaron could see my new studio. Were he still here, I know that we would laugh over tea and chocolate as we brainstormed far-fetched scenarios that could lead to a new painting depicting inside jokes. I can easily imagine him joking and posing with funny props, as my other friends have, for a painting in my ongoing series. This painting, Pipe Dream, is sort of a collaboration with Aaron. Last year I had a rare, vivid dream in which he visited me. Rare because I seldom remember any more than fragments of dreams and also because I am an insomniac; there is very little time for such a dream to occur.

The dream began (or at least where my memory of it began) with Aaron saying to me, “You must be forgetting me. You never paint me anymore.” That remark is the impetus behind the name tag he’s donning in the image. Where the name tag wasn’t actually in the dream, his sense of humor was such that I could imagine him chuckling and putting on a name tag “for my benefit” if he felt I was forgetting him.

I asked him if he still gets to paint. He said, “Sure! Painting is still difficult but the colors are always there.” In the dream I understood that to mean you don’t have to squeeze out your palette – the paint is everywhere when you need it, premixed in the colors you want. There were palettes everywhere and anything convenient could morph into a palette as you wished. He motioned with his pipe, “And I’ve got my smokes,” he said matter-of-factly. “What more could I want?” Looking around he told me that “Pete (his wife’s nickname) is around here somewhere.” It was very casual, as if I’d just missed her and she’d needed to check on something elsewhere. In the image, his wedding ring is featured prominently to convey they are together again.

I understood that he was “back to visit” from wherever he is residing now. The dream setting was an amalgamation of places. It was partly his home and studio with a chair from his living room, large windows, and lots of pipe smoke (which seemed to be everywhere and wafted from some of the paint on the palettes). It was partly my current studio with dark-stained wooden walls, my three cats, Ernestine, Frances, and Gretchen “Owl” present, and some elements that have featured prominently in my recent paintings; a monster finger puppet in the vase of paintbrushes and the cat paper chains that I’ve used as a visual theme. It was also partly an unfamiliar place that seemed more ethereal and not expected to be understood. In this dream studio he casually played with my cats, laughing as he teased them with the paper chains. His family shares a deep love of cats and we’d often share memories of our respective beloved felines. In the left of the image, Ernie is smoking one of Aaron’s pipes, the sneaky arm grabbing at the paper chain in the lower right belongs to the darling imp Frankie, and the barely-visible eye peeking out from under the draped fabric is that of my dear Owl.

Much of the dream felt like any other visit. After catching up he said, “OK. Show me what you’re working on.” His facial expression I’ve depicted in the painting is the one I saw many times while he was studying my paintings before giving me his critique. The brushes he is holding, extinguished in this realm, are depicted smoldering because while he was here those brushes were “on fire”. Some parts of the image represent aspects of memories for how they fit into the dreamscape. The turtle suspended by a string is based on a work by Utagawa Hiroshige and is an homage to the Japanese wood block prints that Aaron admired. He didn’t have that particular image in the various woodblock prints that hung on the wall over his kitchen table, but the turtle was a good vehicle to represent the love of Japanese artwork as well as one of the palettes from the dream. The Oriental vase of brushes represents the assortment of blue and white decorative items that we both had in our respective homes and studios.

Finally, he told me that he had to get going and said, “We gotta go visit the kids.” I turned around and there was more smoke, the paper chains multiplied, and then it was over. It felt so real that I had to check with his lovely daughter to see if there was a chance she had also had such a dream, but she had not. As I suspected, it was all in my mind. Though it was wonderful to imagine that he’d actually paid me a visit, it was a pipe dream (with actual pipes). I wrote down every detail I could remember and began sketching the idea for the painting. There were many details in the dream but it also seemed somehow unfinished. It was strange yet normal, disjointed yet comfortable. I wanted to depict the dream with the paradoxical atmosphere I’d experienced. Even though it was my subconscious, I wished I had asked him so many more questions.

I painted roughly eighty percent of the image rather quickly and then the canvas sat untouched for nearly a year. I suppose I was hoping that if I didn’t finish the painting, he might “visit” again to chide me into action. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Now, all this time later, it still feels like that dream was a real visit. I finally convinced myself to complete the painting and enjoy being in the studio “with Aaron” again. With a little luck, maybe we can attend a show together again, too. And, of course, on the off chance Aaron can see this, he should know he’s always welcome to visit again any time. I’ll keep the tea and chocolate ready.