The Art of Changemaking

It’s April 1, Maundy Thursday and April Fool’s Day at the same time, and I awoke from a strange dream. In it, my friend Shirley (yes, SB, that’s you!) and I were in an Amazing Race-like marathon, where we had pit stops and tasks throughout the race. The weird thing was that it was held in France, and the pit stops involved churches and bell towers and museums.

The scene that I remember vividly before waking up was of Shirley and me racing through loooong flights of steps inside a church (or was it a bell tower?), which led to a private viewing area of a statue of the Madonna and a priests’ conference room. We had to race through the steps to go to the statue, genuflect or pray in front of it (I don’t know what the proof of having done that task was), then run back out into a courtyard that leads to somewhere else.

Along that next stop to “somewhere else” was what was supposed to be a small museum shop, except that in my dream I saw only the merchandise that was displayed outside the back entrance. The shop itself was a small, nondescript structure made of brick and stone, and out the back entrance were some display tables with keychains and magnets showing works of the late great artist and leader of the Fauvist movement in art (and one of my personal favorites), Henri Matisse.

This last scene I remember quite well: I ran to the merchandise and asked Shirley to kindly wait as I made just one quick purchase. I was looking for a keychain version of Matisse’s Icarus (1947), my favorite Matisse cut-out artwork, but all I could see were the other cut-out pieces rendered into keychains and magnets.

"Icarus" by Henri Matisse (1947) | Image courtesy of Artchive.com

I looked through the keychains hoping to find that one image that I knew and loved so well, but I couldn’t. I could also see the price markings on each tiny keychain, and each was worth hundreds of Euros each. I wasn’t daunted because in my mind I knew that I had enough money to buy that one keychain, but I couldn’t find the one that I liked.

Then two shopkeepers came out, and they were both Chinese. (No political incorrectness intended here!) The male shopkeeper tried to talk to me, but he spoke only French and Chinese so we couldn’t understand each other. The other shopkeeper, a young woman that seemed like the male shopkeeper’s sister, spoke to me in halting French and English, telling me that the shop had already closed and that I was too late.

And then I woke up, with these words ringing in my ears: “You are too late.”

Too late for what? I dread to think of what the real message of that dream could be, and am only hoping that it was some twisted April Fool’s Day dream. For now, however, I want to begin my day–and this new blogging season–with these images from Matisse’s later cut-out works, some of which appeared prominently in my dream:

Henri Matisse's La Perruche et la Sirene (1952) | Image courtesy of Henri-Matisse.net

Blue Nude (1952) | Image courtesy of Henri-Matisse.net

La Gerbe (1953) | Image courtesy of Henri-Matisse.net

The King's Sadness (1952) | Image courtesy of Henri-Matisse.net

Polinesia, The Sky (1947) | Image courtesy of Henri-Matisse.net

So, Monsieur Matisse, what is it that you’re warning me of being late for? And how can I still get to it on time?