The Story Behind “When Turtles Dream”
This piece came together not through conscious intention, but through play and exploration.
“When Turtles Dream” photo transfers, acrylic, color pencil, ephemera & dried pressed leaves on cradled wood panel (20×24”)
I keep many small natural specimens in my studio, and from time to time I’ll spend hours arranging them into different still-life compositions. Usually I begin with a vague idea, something I’ve been holding in my mind, and then I start pulling things out, one by one. Before I know it, my table is covered with tiny natural objects, and I’m playing with them much the way a child might play with toys. There isn’t much forethought at that stage, just curiosity, movement, and attention.
That’s how a pair of dragonfly wings ended up resting on top of a tiny, dehydrated turtle.
Once that image appeared and was photographed, I paused to really look at it and ask myself why I found it so captivating. What it was saying? That contemplation is where the title came from: When Turtles Dream. What could be more contradictory than a turtle—an animal we associate with slowness (though that’s not always true)—suddenly being able to fly, to maneuver with the lightness of a dragonfly? It’s fantastical. Impossible, even.
And yet, that impossibility opened a door. It made me wonder what, in my own life, feels equally unrealistic or far-fetched. What are my dragonfly wings? What new ways of seeing or being might I be daring to imagine? It’s that space of wonder, the willingness to dream beyond what seems practical or probable, that gives this piece its strength.
Another important aspect of When Turtles Dream is that it was created on top of an earlier artwork. This is something I do fairly regularly in my mixed media practice on wood panels. Sometimes a piece will sit in the studio long enough that I realize I’m no longer satisfied with it. I may like parts of it, but not the whole. One of the gifts of working in layers is that I can simply begin again, adding a layer of gesso, thicker or thinner, and building new imagery on top of what already exists.
The evolved piece carries a deeper sense of history and memory. Much like our own minds—at least mine—where memories layer over one another, sometimes obscuring what came before, but never fully erasing it. That layering of dreams and memory, of past and present, is part of what gives this work its quiet power.
When Turtles Dream is currently on view as part of Heart Rhythms, a three-person exhibition at Jane Gallery in Sacramento, alongside the work of Judy Knott and Judy Coates Perez.
“Heart Rhythms” at the Jane Gallery in Sacramento.
Heart Rhythms
February 1 – March 15
Jane Gallery, Sacramento
Open Saturdays, 3–7 PM
Second Saturday receptions until 8 PM
(Located next to the Limelight at Alhambra & J Street)
When Turtles Dream is ultimately an invitation to pause and ask yourself what impossible dream you may have quietly set aside. What feels too unlikely, too impractical, or too far outside what you’ve always known? What might happen if you allowed yourself, even briefly, to imagine a different way of moving through the world, your own set of dragonfly wings? In making this piece, I’m reminded that wonder and imagination aren’t indulgences; they’re essential. They’re how new rhythms begin.
For collectors, When Turtles Dream offers more than an image, it offers a daily invitation. Lived with over time, the piece becomes a quiet companion, gently reminding us to hold space for imagination and for the dreams we may have learned to set aside. Its layered surface mirrors the way meaning unfolds slowly, revealing itself in moments of reflection. This work is meant to be lived with, not rushed, allowing the viewer to return again and again to the question it poses: what impossible dream might still be waiting to be imagined?
