N a n c y    R i c h t e r    B r z e s k i

 

Nancy Richter Brzeski has come to art by a roundabout route. Born in N.Y.C., raised in Pittsburgh, PA, she received her B.A. at the University of Michigan, her M.A. in Sociology at the University of Chicago. She lived in Oslo, Norway for four years and worked as a research associate at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo. Her interest in dream-inspired art developed in Northern California, where she settled in the late '50s.

She has participated in eight international juried art shows arranged by the Association for the Study of Dreams. Her installation, "High Flyin' Bird," and the Holocaust collage, "Margit Trattner," were exhibited at Mad River Post, a San Francisco video facility, during the summer of 2000. They were later on loan to the San Francisco Zen Hospice house on Page Street where she did weekly volunteer work for one year.

Other examples of her work may be seen on her website:
www.nancyrichterbrzeski.com 

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I have been making Dream Art systematically since 1983. I have used art as a means of understanding my dreams and sharing them. I have always tried to be true to the mood and message of the dream. I feel very grateful to all those ASD people who have encouraged me, especially Richard Russo, Fariba Bogzaran, Rita Dwyer, Ann Sayre Wiseman, Gayle Delaney and Loma Flowers, Jeremy Taylor, and Joanne Rochon.
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"You Can't Take It With You"

This slide represents a preliminary sketch of a larger collage that is in process. It is the dream of an old woman whose family of origin and dearest friends are already "on the other side." It contains the main dream images. Though the context is personal, it addresses everyone nearing the end of the journey and facing death.
"Kwan Yin (The Face of Love)"

This was one of many sketches I made, trying to recreate the vision I saw at the end of a "soul retrieval journey" in Robert Moss's dream workshop at Esalen in September 2000. It came from the mysterious source from which all dreams come. It is my gift to this war-torn, terror-ridden world.

>From my Esalen notes:
"I saw a kaleidoscope of wonderful colors and strange patterns, changing every time I blinked my eyes. Intense colors. Lemon yellow, golden yellow, orange, red-orange, jade green, blue-green, and an incredibly beautiful deep violet. The whole rainbow. I felt overwhelmed by the intensity and beauty of those colors. I saw the sun, and wondered if it was the sunrise or sunset? I sensed a huge face very close to mine, though I could barely see it through the thick fog, saw only the eyes half-closed. I thought, "Whose face is it? My own? Mother's? Granny's? The 'face of God'?" Later that day I said to my soul-retrieval partner, Marirose, "Maybe it was Buddha's face." She said, "I saw the same face."

 

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2002 ASD Dream Art Exhibition

19th Annual International Conference for the Association for the Study of Dreams
June 15 - 19, 2002
at Tufts University, Medford, Boston, Massachusetts

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