Images from Ann Aswegan’s book were transferred onto vintage pillowcases.
During the launch presentation for Impressions on a Dream Canvas, an art exhibit at Pinney Library, Ann E. Aswegan peers through her crimson frames as she asks a room full of dreamers, “Does anyone have an example of a dream that predicted something for you?” I couldn’t help but raise my hand. Swallowing was suddenly difficult as I recalled my own dream.
Toward the end of my five-month study abroad trip in Ireland, I dreamed of walking through the forest with my best friend at my side, a German Shepherd named Oscar. The dream was fuzzy and faint, but Oscar spoke to me. Suddenly, Oscar died. I cried in my dream, and the heavy sobs woke me in my Londonderry bed. During the car ride home from the airport, my mom broke the news to me that Oscar had, in fact, died.
Aswegan, a scholar of dreams, has a gift for unleashing the workings of the subconscious mind. She released the third edition of her book, Awakening to the Song of Yourself: Revelations by Day and Dream by Night, in 2012. While writing the book, she had the dream that inspired Impressions on a Dream Canvas. The exhibit, based on Kristin Sobol’s chapter illustrations, is on display through Aug. 31.
Transformed into iron-on transfers, the illustrations are pressed by hand with a dry iron onto 30 vintage embroidered pillowcases that hang on the Pinney walls (one for each chapter of the book and one for the cover), reminiscent of laundry hanging on a line. Sobol, a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, creates a flowing visual narrative with simple, black-and-white images. The result is comforting and inspirational.
The project took almost three years to create. Aswegan had technical support and graphic design assistance from Cindy Martinelli, a marketing analyst from Cottage Grove who met Aswegan in a women’s group and attended a year-long class connected to Aswegan’s book.
Aswegan’s background includes degrees in creative writing, nursing and health education. She has studied internationally with dream experts, including at the C.G. Jung Institute in Switzerland. She has offered workshops, retreats and classes on dream-related topics for more than 25 years and also provides confidential, private dream consultation services at her Monona home.
“I began recording my dreams when I was 9 years old,” she says. “I have a stack of dream journals about three feet high.”
Naturally, it was an image from a dream that launched the pillowcase project in the first place — the image on a window shade of a girl playing near a creek. “I couldn’t get that image out of my head,” Aswegan says. “There are no limits on dreams, and that’s one of the things I love about them.”
