In 1989, at the suggestion of his analyst, designer Larry Vigon began to record every dream he could remember. He wrote each into an 11 x 14-inch sketchbook, along with an acrylic painting inspired by the dream. The result, over time, is an astonishing body of work, represented by the selections in this beautiful full-size facsimile volume. After seeing advance materials for the book, a writer in Graphis magazine said it "preserves the intimate presentation of the original warts-and-all artist's notebook—with words scratched out in first-draft fashion, blobs of ink, traces of transferred paint throughout, all the glorious imperfections. Unmediated as it is, Vigon's work functions like a form of meditation. At the same time the quality of the painting is that of finished art, so we experience the journal as a kind of heightened sketchbook of the unconscious." 74 color illustrations.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Vigon's dream journal will remind the reader why dreams are experienced privately. An award-winning commercial artist whose clients have included Frank Sinatra and Dreamworks, Vigon began writing down his dreams and creating art inspired by them at the behest of his Jungian analyst, though these reproductions of journal pages, replete with a wide array of imagery and sumptuously inky text, fail to provide any context in which to understand or appreciate Vigon's abstruse self-indulgence. In Vigon's dream land, Brad Pitt is his analyst, he has sex a lot, hangs out with George Harrison and Paul McCartney, is disappointed in the guest room Jerry Seinfeld provides him and is witness to all sorts of miraculous events (an information booth becomes a hot dog stand, for instance), though why any of these things would interest the reader is unclear. If Vigon's dream narratives put readers to sleep, his images may wake them up: Intriguing paintings of anguished characters with plastic beady eyes, skillful cubistic forms and blurry images suggest a tortured psyche. Of the many well-executed devils, a particularly lively one tempts the viewer with his wild, affable gaze. A querulous hunched figure sits contemplating a dark scribble, but other faces and figures tilt the book's balance to the mediocre. Vigon has talent, but only his closest friends and associates who have some context for the man and his work will appreciate this project. 74 color plates
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Larry Vigon is a world-renowned graphic designer and co-founder of the design firm Vigon/Ellis. Beginning his career designing record albums for Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, Bonnie Raitt, and hundreds of others, Vigon has influenced virtually every form of print, broadcast, and interactive media with his design for such clients as IBM, Epson, Sony, DreamWorks, and The Los Angeles Opera. He lives in Los Angeles. Marvin Spiegelman is a prominent Jungian analyst whose recommendation resulted in this book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Vigon's dream journal,
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This review is from: Dream: A Journal (Hardcover)
Very personal stuff. This is a friend of mine. We went to Art School together. His artwork is not only appropriate for his journal but very interesting and some of it very beautiful. The book is a work of art.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Raw Dream Journal of an Artist Jungian,
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This review is from: Dream: A Journal (Hardcover)
On a sunny Saturday last winter, I met Larry Vigon in his Los Angeles studio. He opened his journals and talked about his personal creative process. "Within my work there's none of the self-consciousness that comes with more formal painting. This is just for me."
The form of the artist's sketchbook subliminally leads us to consider the work as a series of quickly captured images from life, or in this case from dream life. At the same time, the quality of Vigon's painting is that of finished art, so we experience the journal as a kind of reified, heightened sketchbook of the unconscious, and in this context the images successfully deliver the power of the archetypes they depict. This impression is reinforced all the more by the warts-and-all presentation, with words scratched out in first-draft fashion, blobs of ink, traces of transferred paint throughout, all the glorious imperfections that situate us at the point of creation. There is a real pleasure in viewing this work in its original state and it can be almost overwhelming. Vigon's images animate the writing and the writing anchors the images, in a kind of perfect equipoise of the surreal. Originally, the journals were intended to be seen by no one except his analyst. Gradually he began showing them, and now finds great pleasure in sharing them. "I finally want to get this out into the world and show it to people. I think it's worth it, but it's taken all these years to build the body of work and the skill level." The journal remains an extremely satisfying exercise of his talent, apart from any therapeutic or career-oriented considerations. In fact, the journal includes more than just dream-derived images; it also contains quite a few free-association paintings, some of which have evolved from telephone pad doodles. Often, a dream narrative randomly collides with an image lifted from another stratum of the imagination, generating a kind of self-created exquisite corpse effect. Some-times these accidental pairings seem strangely apposite, for instance when a painting of a stuffed rabbit, wearing an expression of carefree dementia, stands across from a graphic description of manic sexual activity. Vigon doesn't edit. The intensely personal and sometimes disturbing content of the dreams comes through unfiltered. "Working as an artist I can't edit the good dreams, the bad, or cut out the sexual stuff-it's either all or nothing. When you're not afraid to show yourself, your artwork becomes more accessible, real, and human." Unmediated as it is in that sense, his work has moved beyond its therapeutic function to a point where he sees it now as more akin to meditation, a form of meditation available to anyone without regard to literary or artistic ability. "There's something the 20 minutes or so it takes to write down a dream and reflect on it," he says. "That period of introspection before you face the world is time well spent."
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