I have always loved the work of Max Ernst and wondered how he created the beautiful textures in his paintings. Seeing his work at the Surrealism and Magic show in the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in 2022 took my breath away. I learned that he painted canvas with oil paint, covered it with cellophane or something else, then pulled the cellophane off to create the textures. This process is called decalcomania.

The Guggenheim show was part of the 2022 Venice Biennale’s exhibition titled the Milk of Dreams, from the title of a book by Leonora Carrington. She along with other women Surrealists including Remedios Varo, Dorthea Tanning and Leonor Fini were among the artists shown. Unfortunately, women were rarely mentioned in my art history classes, so I loved learning more about these extraordinary artists. Only recently have they begun to receive  credit for their contribution of Surrealism.

I’ve always played with automatic drawing by finding images in scribbles. Since seeing the Surrealism exhibit, I have been experimenting with other automatism techniques the Surrealists used. Recently, I had so much fun making a small sponge painting, I decided to go big. Covering a large sheet of black paper with blobs of paint, I embellished images I saw. More and more arose. As a side effect, new ideas have found their way onto my possible paintings list.

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It seems I have a bad case of pareidolia, the tendency to see faces in everything. My kitchen appliances smile. Animals and faces appear in wood floors. Strange beings look up from the loops of my bathmat. Since working on the large sponge painting, I’m seeing faces everywhere. Pareidolia has been triggered big time.

Psychiatrists used to say that pareidolia is a mental illness. Thank goodness it’s now seen as normal. Paul Klee, one of my favorite artists, had pareidolia, as well as a number of other artists. Similarly, Leonardo Da Vinci had apophenia, the tendency to see connections between unrelated things. He looked at stains on walls to get inspirations for landscapes. I’ve got some of that, too. When I’m flying, the drone of jet engines turns into choral music.

Surrealists believed that using automatism techniques is a way to connect to the unconscious. Is that where the beings in my painting come from? As a seeker of connection to the greater reality, I have added playing with automatism techniques to my practice of dreamwork. You might find that experimenting with these techniques takes you to a dreamy state where new ideas arise.

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