The end- almost

I had to pack up two years worth of stuff in my studio space today because our program is painting/remodeling the space. I didn’t want to have to do this until the actual end of my stay here, but I guess I should really start adjusting to the fact that even though I will be in Doha for roughly six more months I’m really just in a place of transition.. wrapping up the space helped me identify some of the more meaningful things I have collected during my stay. I was even pleasantly surprised when the flowers I pressed more than a year ago fell out of one of the textbooks I was packing into a box.. I pressed them because they are the same blossoms I grew up with in Kuwait.

I know most people don’t need tangible manifestations of their experiences with people and places to retain a sense of them, but I do.. and its incredibly important to me to hold onto these things as witnesses of my life narrative, or something like that 😉

peace, love, and cupcakes,

LM

Day 36 – Pangea

The continents are closer now than they’ve been in millions of years, why doesn’t modern design reflect that?

Day 44 – Notes 01

Some days it feels like I am getting somewhere, others like I’m getting nowhere. I’m really hoping just the fact that I’ve spent two month considering my topic every single day will help me in the end.

Day 47 – Mother

Obviously not all the work I am doing for my thesis is sketches and experiments, a great deal or it is reading and note taking. I’m really liking my new notebook. Above are the notes I took from a book that focused on the very first and most important relationship in most peoples lives; their relationship with their mothers. Everything I’ve read on the topic is fascinating. This isn’t the first time I’ve been interested in exploring this relationship either, clip here to see my photographic project on the same topic.

Day 49 – Mind Map 3

To Belong. (Oops, Strawberry took a few bites out of it before I got a picture taken..).

Day 57 – The Dream 1

 

The following is an email that I sent to both my counselor and one of my closest friends at 3:57AM on April 25th. The only edits I made were to correct spelling, and add a few missing words.

 

I just had a nightmare..

I was with a group of people that were trying to catch a person who wanted to kill me. We were asking around for clues and details.. He was obviously a very sick person, it wasn’t clear why he needed to kill me (somehow this part seemed very important, why was consuming my thoughts instead of who was he and how do I find him). Through investigation my group found proof as to who the person was, it turned out that I knew him, and I knew why he wanted to kill me, and that he has tried to kill me before, but I couldn’t remember him. So one of the my friends took me to the side as the man was walking up the street we were on, approaching us, but before he was close enough to see he told me that I knew the man, I didn’t believe him, he told me that I knew what he looked like, I didn’t believe him, then he told me that I knew why he wanted to kill me.. But I still couldn’t believe/remember, so he gave me prompts to remind me of what he looked like “his hair was grey, wasn’t it?” my friend asked, “yes it was” I answered, not even knowing where the answer was coming from. “he was tall, with broad shoulders” he asked, “yes he was”.. The picture my friend was painting was so clear in my mind, so real that as the man approached it all made sense that it was him, when he finally was almost inches away from me (he was walking right past me, like watching, but not ready to kill).. I blurted out “it’s him”. My friends gathered around him and pulled him to the ground, apparently he planned to burn himself alive after killing me, he was cover in gasoline. But he couldn’t ignite the fire.. not because he couldn’t physically do it, but he was crying to himself about something.  My friends were trying to create a spark, they wanted him to die accidentally as they were capturing him. I didn’t want him to die. I kept wondering why he wanted to kill me, I felt sympathy for him. I wondered if I deserved to die, if he had a valid reason. He was obviously mentally disturbed, he was crying to himself about something. I was so convinced that he must have had a valid reason, that I had possibly hurt him somehow,  that I kept picturing in my mind that lighting him on fire would be like lighting my baby sister, I could see her face catch fire and burn. I wanted to defend him from my friends. I needed to protect him.  They couldn’t understand, even though i explained to them how i felt.. they just kept trying to cause a spark. The images of my sister burning were too painful to keep seeing that I woke up..

In the dream I wasn’t me, I was a man. And my friends were not friends I know in real life. But I could feel these things to be true..

The worst thing is that I feel like this dream is about myself. That the man who was trying to kill me is the sick part of myself that’s always trying to hurt me. That I feel so much sympathy for that part of myself. I worry that it’s sickness has a valid reason to want my destruction.. My friends and counselor have been trying to point that part of me out through clues, and now that I’ve found her they want to kill her, but I want to protect her.. I have to protect her.

 

I believe dreams are a means by which a person can understand their unconscious mind. They are important to me, and they often inspire my creativity.