Black Madonna (John Dotson’s dream of July 16, 2015)

Moving through configurations of time, I am in a large studio loft—it could be New York—circling through various episodes in the making. I return to junior high school football—I am called by name into a game at my old offensive guard position, prepare for the snap, and jump too soon. However, there is no opposing team. Later I am in a scene in Evanston, Illinois and my college years. I take a vivid jaunt through the interior of the Lincoln Street house—which has been abandoned for years but is intact and accessible now again. The house is massively constructed and still holds many artifacts and shows evidences—very specific marks, indentations, shadows of use in previously lived lives. Suddenly I am stunned to perceive my Black Madonna sculpture laying on a counter top, its easel and other parts leaning nearby. I am amazed that the work has been here all these years, among the many sets and implements—and yet, I have also known this all along, and have a sense that everything is unfolding as needs be, according to patterns that I have always completely trusted.