Grey Dream Project - Part 1

 

Apparently I have been causing a bit of a mystery among my followers for a couple of years which I find oddly entertaining in a strange way. Omitting those in my close circle who are aware of what I'm up to, I haven't said anything on social media besides certain things being 'installments of a personal project'. Welcome back my fellow adventurers so another visit to my humble corner of the world. So what have I been doing behind the scenes that it has resulted in me to keep it mostly quiet for so long? I think before I answer, I should give a bit more context.

In the Beginning

Towards the end of my time in college (circa early 2000s), I would be asked by folks if I would ever consider creating various things such as coloring books or tarot decks. Being the unsure person I was at the time, filled with self-doubt about my own skills, my response was always lightly laughing off the suggestion and pointing out that not only were my art skills not where they should be at that time but I did not have nearly any following where I could get the sales to justify such a project. The comments eventually died down but ever so often over the years, someone would ask.

First Attempt

Fast forward to 2014. My mother had suddenly passed and my anguish needed an outlet. In the past, I would channel my feelings into my work so that I could mold the anger, sadness and hurt I had brewing inside into something positive. This is when I got in contact with
a fellow creator, my dear friend and founder of UnicornWheels Stacy Garrett to try to do a collaboration project. The initial plan was to create an art book combining her photography and my traditional paintings telling the visual story of a guide traveling through dreams. We had a plan and I wrote notes for everything. Things started off well but of course the universe had other plans. Life happened. Between depression, scheduling conflicts with potential models, our combined personal obligations with our own customers, and just relearning to live, the project stalled out. After a bit of conversation, we agreed to stop and if things eventually moved into that direction again, we would give it another shot. In the meantime, anything we had created, we would have for our own personal use.

Decision Made

Through out the following years, I would still get asked if I would ever consider doing my own version of a tarot or oracle card deck. Tarot decks for me have always been very structural with little give. Oracle decks however are much more free flowing. Yes, there's a suggestion of structure and how to use them, but at the end of the day they are more flexible. The more I thought about it, the more I found myself leaning into the idea of maybe making my own oracle deck. Maybe I could do this but it would be so much work and who would even want to buy something like that? There's that self-doubt creeping in again. Let us look at the situation logically. I have friends and contacts in the Pagan and Alternative circles who would absolutely be interested. Folks who have been frequent customers over the years who would be interested. People who know someone who would be interested. But the biggest question is am I interested? Yes. Absolutely yes. By early 2021, I finally asked myself “What do you have to loose by trying?” My sanity? That was already in short supply. I am an artist, sanity was never a high requirement. After so long of doing things for other people, I saw this as an opportunity to do something for myself and if a few folks liked it enough to purchase, I would be thankful but I wasn't going to focus on it. So I put my foot down and said that this was going to happen.

Birth of a Project

So what type of Oracle deck did I decide to attempt? It took a bit of time but I realized that I could still continue on my dream inspired journey but have the cards themselves tell the visual

tale. With that thought, the start of creating the Grey Dream Oracle Deck began. At first, I created a painting that would be somewhere in the beginning of the deck's 'story' and snuck it into a collective body of work I was creating for a solo gallery showing in 2023 at Pence Gallery (Davis, CA). This was mostly to get a feel for how people out in the wild would respond to such imagery. I was already aware that dream related imagery was a hit or miss genre where it wasn't for everyone so this would give me an idea as to how people would recieve an entire body of work. Surprisingly, the feedback was overwhelming positive. With this knowledge, I went ahead and started planning and creating. Of course I needed to also work on customer commissions and handle life but there was a part of me strangely excited over the journey that I've started. 

Progress Report

Now where does this leave me currently on this little art adventure? With my current list of images on my glorious spreadsheet (that I have no idea where I would be without it), I'm approximatly at the halfway point. "What do you mean by approximatly? You have a spread sheet."  Let me explain. With my style constantly shifting and depending on if something is coming out the way I invisioned, there are a couple of the completely images that I need to return to at a later point in time to do corrections on and at least one image that I already have marked as 'need a complete redo'. After having redone two other images, I realized that if I kept redoing old work, I would never progress. So, after much deliberation, I made the decision to complete the entire list and see how things work with each other before doing any corrections. Another aspect of this project that I get to do is, once all of the images are done, write down card descriptions and meanings so that I can make sure that the finished deck can have a companion information booklet to go with it. It has certainly been an interesting learning experience so far, especially with price checking production to get an idea of initial costs, looking into what I would need for digital editing since up to this point I have been strictly traditional, and learning a couple of technicques I had never considered with my work until I tried in order to get the feel and affect I want for certain images. Are you interested in learning more about the Grey Dream Oracle Deck project? I will do my best to bring you along the journey with me so stay tuned!