stop becoming and be

`......Jasper Johns couldn't find his unique artistic vision until he dreamt it in the form of a large American flag. Salvador Dali and his colleagues built surrealism out of dreams. Today Lucy Davis chief architect at a major firm `dreams her extraordinary designs into life .In film "Twice I have transferred dreams to film exactly as I had dreamt them" confides director Ingmar Bergman; so have Federico Fellini, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Altman and John Sayles. From Mary Shelley's terrible nightmare that became Frankenstein, to Stephen Kings haunting dream as a little boy, which lead to his first best seller, countless writers have consulted the Committee. Musicians from Beethoven to Billy Joel and Paul McCartney have whistled the Committee's tunes.

In science many dream of winning a Nobel prize, but physiologist Otto Loewi worked with the Committee on the medical experiment that earned him the real prize….'

Born in South Carolina during the Depression Jasper John's artistic aspirations led him to New York where he painted for several years without finding a unique voice.

In 1954 he resolved to "stop becoming and be an artist". His inspiration was a dream in which he saw himself painting a large American flag and the next day he began exactly that project later entitled flag. A lengthy series of flag paintings followed which established Johns as a major artist…Johns later told an interview "I have not dreamt of any other painting. I must be grateful for such a dream......"

The Committee of Sleep, D. Barrett, page 1