Sleep Patterns

For my entire life, I’ve always had vivid dreams at night. As an adult, I began having recurring dreams, so I decided to keep a dream journal for one month in the summer of 2009 to see what kind of patterns emerged. After recording my dreams night after night, I noticed that each dream seemed to fit into one of four emotional categories. While laying out the book, I divided each dream into a group based on the primary emotion I felt during that dream and then associated a color with that emotion. The categories were: Red- Anger/Frustration, Green- Happiness/Contentment, Purple- Excitement/Anxiety, and Blue- Confusion/Sadness.

I felt that quilt imagery was appropriate for this book on two levels. For one thing, I enjoy sleeping and dreaming underneath a quilt, and for another, quilts are traditionally made with scraps of cloth sewn together in much the same way that my dreams are composed of scraps of memories and thoughts that I’ve compiled throughout the day. The book has been printed on both sides so that it can be read as a traditional codex form, but it can also be unfolded to hang as a quilt with the full-color sides visible.

Design, imagery, text, and letterpress printing by Amy Pirkle of Perkolator Press in the fall of 2009. Printed from linoleum blocks and metal type in an edition of 20.

Edition of 20
$250