TH EPL A N E TS This is an ongoing series of acrylics paintings, one planet per painting, each one as close to the truth as I could get it. What I mean by 'the truth' is... For the last three months or so I've been having dreams of planets. These dreams seem to only happen when it's daylight out; when I'm sleeping alone with no one else in my apartment; and after I've had a few cups of Oolong tea. Those factors all may be incidental but I've started journaling in detail so that I may re- create the conditions under which I've had the dreams, because I'd like to keep having them. I realize that eventually they may stop completely, a possibility that saddens me but also makes me immensely grateful for each one. These aren't just run-of- the-mill dreams, the kind where you sit back as an observer and just kind of witness events as they unfold. There's something really intense about them and my interactivity with them -- even though as far as I can tell, I’m doing nothing. These dreams seem almost ‘electrically- charged’. They're definitely similar to lucid dreams, only more.... real. Just as I’m awake and aware that a lucid dream is just that – a dream – I’m awake and aware that the planet dreams aren’t just dreams. I know in my heart that these magical orbs are real, they exist somewhere, but not in our Milky Way galaxy. When I wake up, I feel a buzzing in my very core, and down my spine, like I'm still connected to whichever planet I just dreamt about. The feeling dissipates as I ‘come to’ (a phenomenon some call ‘dream hangover’) and in about ten minutes it's completely gone. And then I feel a kind of sadness in knowing I'll likely never see that particular planet again, so I get up and paint it, right away, so that I won't forget it. For this reason, I have a weird, anxious attachment to each painting. They're not just pictures to me, they're like snapshots of memories. Again, they may just be acrylic on canvas to others, but to me, they're so vivid and so real that I even get goosebumps or break out in a sweat when I remember them. Despite this physical distance between us, I feel a massive almost 'magnetic' pull towards each planet, but only right after I wake up. After many nights of lying awake thinking about them, I came to understand that somehow there must be a way, an invisible shortcut, to travel between any two points in outer space. I'm not a scientist, I can only speak from my experience in having these psychically- and emotionally-charged dreams. But for lack of a better analogy, it is as if my soul is connected to my body by a sort of netting, a metaphysical fabric that resembles fishnet stockings, that shifts to allow me to explore, away from my body as I sleep. I'm actually a skeptic at heart. I only believe in things which can be explained by cold, hard science. That being said, there's a lot that we have yet to understand, scientifically. But just because we haven't drawn the road map yet doesn't mean the road doesn't exist. And I believe sometimes it’s the mystery of not understanding, that makes something beautiful. I number each planet in the order I dream about them, and I even name them because I think it gives them more personality and makes it easier for me to keep track of them in my mind. If you ‘adopt’ one of my planets, however, you have every right to re-name it and make it your own. It’s your call. ‘Enjoy! C e c e l i a V e rm i ll i on W a tt s