Many years ago, my friend Dona requested a Native American dreamcatcher for her newborn’s crib. I thought it a nice idea for a Jersey child, and searched the shops of Madrid, NM, to find one made locally. Previously I’d not paid dreamcatchers much mind, as they are plastered all over New Mexican souvenir shops in every pastel color imaginable--New Age tchotchkes for the tourists.But not all that long ago, the Ojibwa tribe began creating dreamcatchers not to please the tourists, but for their infants, to seize any nightmares or other harm that might be floating through the air, much as a spider's web intercepts whatever flies into it. The Ojibwa intended for good dreams to pass through the center hole to the sleeping person, while nightmares would remain in the web, where they’d perish in the light of day.
In Atlanta, an artist by the name of Ola Bad has been visiting some places that the homeless sleep and sketching dreamcatchers. He then returns at night and photographs them sleeping beneath his drawings. He ultimately plans to create a show about empathy and homelessness. While I view them as guardians of the night, to him, the dreamcatchers represent empathy and gratitude—being thankful for the food and shelter we have.
“My hopes,” he says, “are to get a show built around a series of these and donate half of what I make to the specific person in the photo."
Wooster Collective ran a nice piece on this:
http://www.woostercollective.com/2010/12/ola_bads_dreamcatchers_in_atlanta.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/olabad
