Dreama Blankenbeckler

Rooted in a life of wilderness and spiritual visions, the work of self-taught artist, Dreama Blankenbeckler, unfolds as dream-mythic landscapes. Archetypes wander, animals guide, and the subconscious takes form in Chagallesque pastels. Reminiscent of the surrealist characters of Leonora Carrington, the innocent faces of Madge Gill, and the playful anthropomorphic creatures of filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, her watercolor paintings fall in the tradition of Art Brut and dream interpretations of Jungian psychology. Expressions of inner worlds are rife with symbolic resonance, such as pilgrims, angels, owls, and orbs that collide and morph into one another.  

Born in Logan County, a former coal mining area in Appalachia, West Virginia, Blankenbeckler came of age during the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s. During this period of her life she lived communally and off-grid in a one-room Mendocino cabin without electricity or running water but overlooking the Pacific. A single mother, she raised and homeschooled her only son while navigating chronic pain due to severe scoliosis.  

She received her master’s in clinical art therapy from Goddard College and later used her training to teach creative therapy and work with people in the hospital. She treated seniors and people with disabilities, and children, using painting, clay, collage, and sculpture. Eventually, her techniques to heal others inspired her own artistic process, where she says, ‘I start with a doodle line and then I let the angels guide me.’ 

Post-COVID, she began painting her visions daily.  Now based in Santa Fe, her work continues to evoke a liminal space—equal parts memory, myth, and the sacred terrain between life on earth and the afterlife.