Dreams turn to art

Three Wairarapa women joined Featherston artist, naturopath and anthropologist Tania Williams on Wednesday to explore their dreams and learn to paint by painting their dreams.

Ms Williams, who has been analysing her own dreams for most of her life, ran the workshop at the Featherston Community Centre.

"This morning we talked about our dreams and I helped everyone analyse them, so the painting is a consolidation of what we talked about.

"Everyone's been doing some great work and it's been very enjoyable."

In the Western world, she says, we are taught to "believe in logical thinking", while indigenous people "take their dreams very seriously".

"Indigenous people use their intuition a lot more than we do and view the world in a more holistic way.

"Dreaming is a very pictorial thing, because our mind uses pictures to dream, so by painting, it helps to emphasise the meaning of the dream and helps us work out what it was about."

Trish Clifford-Marsh, who went along to the workshop, says the painting side of it was what attracted her.

"It's been really good, really different. I signed up more for the painting because I've never painted before, and it's been fun, and the dream part of it is also quite interesting.

"It's good to do something a bit different."