The Dreaming Girl

Every time the DreamWorks logo rolled before a film, I felt a small tug of wonder. A boy sits on a crescent moon with his fishing line dropped into the clouds. It is such a simple, generous piece of imagination, and it stayed with me for years. This piece is my answer to it. I turned the boy into a girl, a young one, and I did not let her look down. She looks up, toward the stars.

At first I painted her in a dress. Then I changed my mind and painted it over with plain shorts. Who wants to wear a fancy dress while sitting on the moon? Let her be casual. Let her be at ease up there.

She is mixed in every sense, a blend of ideas and materials. The base is a thick tabletop board, one inch deep, painted black. Over that went the acrylic: the girl, the moon, the clouds. Over the paint went the nails, driven along every edge I wanted to trace, and then the thread, pulled tight from point to point. The string does not bury the painting. It answers it, lifting the shapes off the surface and catching light the brush could only suggest.

Some of the thread carries a fine strand of real silver. It is stiffer than cotton and far less forgiving, and it glitters only when you move past it, which is exactly how moonlight should behave.