In May of 2007 I had a chance to exhibit my artwork at the Whole Foods store in Palatine Illinois. I was the featured artist for their “Friday's at Five” for the evening and was set up across from the wines next to the coffee grinder. Sitting at a table creating digital art on my computer in the middle of a grocery store was a very odd and a very interesting experience.

'Imagine What Dreams May Come' is a piece of artwork I began to create as I planned for this event. Like a good novel so many different pieces come together in this image... some are visible, some are just thoughts and feelings... ideas... little threads that pulled together, form this image... I wonder how much will be lost as pull apart some of these threads and share a few of my thoughts about this image and it’s Creation.

A store like Whole Foods evokes thoughts of the environment, organic foods, natural products... as I considered what images I would bring with me to the store and what I would work on there, thoughts of the people who might be shopping that evening got me thinking Green… Green has come to define things that are environmentally friendly. For me it is a new term and I have only recently started considering what it means to me. 'Imagine What Dreams May Come' starts with the piece of Green that is most significant to me and that is the world as it will be for the children.

The base picture I chose came from a trip to Millennium Park. I was with a friend taking pictures. Matt is one person who really has brought the idea of ‘Green’ to the front, recycling batteries, computers and electronics. Riding his bicycle when he can… he cares… and he sets a great example for people like me who might just start to care…

In the corner of this piece of art there is a pair of shoes, mine to be exact. They represent those of us who would rather look down and avoid the gaze of the future looking at us and asking us to see it and care. The background is actually from a picture mountain in Sedona Arizona turned upside down. It’s a nod to a young adult short fiction novel called the City of Embers by Jeanne DuPrau about a city built in a cave deep underground. Wondering if we don’t fix what we are loosing will our children’s children spend their lives in caves or protective shelters and artificial environments that replace the world we know.

I could explain all of the pieces in this picture but there are at least 20 layers that make up this image. There are transparent layers used to create the imaginary and dream like quality in the image. Hidden in the background is a mask, it has different meanings to me, the mask represents the hidden self sometimes hidden only from our own eyes. The image itself was taken in a city filled with a fabricated reality. There is so much packed into that tiny element in this picture, meaning that defies definition and explanation.

The final piece of this image is the Child… This image created several years ago now just captured the soul of the Child who imagines and dreams of what may come. One tiny secret about the child is that the original photograph was taken at the zoo as he looks at the Mold-O-Rama as the wax forms into an Elephant. The same day as the pictures of the Elephant and Giraffe was taken. In the few pieces such as this one that I truly consider art there is a strong and deep element of prayer. My soul searching, trying to understand, wanting to really see.