Mara Jevera Fulmer's Blog

Monday, March 7, 2011

Above: One of my pages in my sketchbook for the Arthouse Coop’s Sketchbook Project 2011 tour.

Dreams… Tropical Lagoons

Participating in the Arthouse Coop’s Sketchbook Project, I’m continuing to share some of the contents of my sketchbook which is now part of the traveling exhibition. Visit their website for more info on where the exhibit is or went to. As mentioned earlier, dreams became the interludes between responsive drawings created on many of the pages. 

Here is the third one:

Below: My sketched incarnation of my dream of diving in the lagoon by my vegetables on the seawall.

Lagoons, Coral Gates and Vegetables. Written November 27, 2010. © Mara Jevera Fulmer

Dream… I have been sitting on a ledge of a salt water lagoon, my feet dangling and toes just able to reach the water. Not much flora around the edge of what seems like a mostly concrete manmade space. A plastic grocery bag of vegetables sit beside me. There used to be more but they are mostly gone now, except for some large dried hot flattened gourd-like veggies that look ok from one side. But seen from the other side, there are maggot-like creatures crawling from small holes in them. 

I am angry that they are unusable even though I really didn’t know what to do with them anyway. I see the store manager across the water and wave him over. He’s a heavy set man with dark hair. He clucks his tongue and shakes his head when I show him the veggies. Then he hurries away. I think he is going to get the produce manager. 

I sit on the ledge, my feet dangling in the water as the sunlight sparkles on its surface. Keith comes to stand beside me. Across the lagoon I see the same heavyset guy and wave. He starts walking faster looking away from me. I change my wave to a shake of my fist in anger. 

Keith asks why and I show him the maggot veggies. We turn our attention to the water. I jump with my white shirt and shorts on. Sarah is there and she reminds me to put my bathing suit on because there is someone coming. As we tread water, I deftly change into the 1-pc yellow bathers without ever revealing my breasts. Sarah teases me on my skills. 

The store manager walks up to where I’d been sitting and ends up chatting with Keith. I decide to dive and hear the water splash against my ears, sounds of silence accept for the deep gurgles of the sea. I swim underwater a little ways until I am looking at an underwater opening, like a large sewer pipe but there is light on the other side. Filling most of the space growing from the top down is a large fan coral, glowing edges in golden oranges. 

Someone I can’t see hands me my regulator and I put it in my mouth to breath. I turn and see Keith beside me. He points to the small opening below the lower edge of the large coral and the top edge of another smaller fan coral growing from the bottom edge. I reach out to measure the open space left with my hands. I move my hand – now held the same width as the space – to my backside and indicate to Keith that I could not fit, at least not without breaking the coral. 

We decide to swim onward away from the coral gate. The waters get quickly shallower and we emerge from the sea upon a sandbar, still finding ourselves in the midsts of the concrete manmade lagoon.