Dream: A Journal

Vigon's dream journal will remind the reader why dreams are experienced privately. An award-winning commercial artist whose clients have included Frank Sinatra and Dreamworks, Vigon began writing down his dreams and creating art inspired by them at the behest of his Jungian analyst, though these reproductions of journal pages, replete with a wide array of imagery and sumptuously inky text, fail to provide any context in which to understand or appreciate Vigon's abstruse self-indulgence. In Vigon's dream land, Brad Pitt is his analyst, he has sex a lot, hangs out with George Harrison and Paul McCartney, is disappointed in the guest room Jerry Seinfeld provides him and is witness to all sorts of miraculous events (an information booth becomes a hot dog stand, for instance), though why any of these things would interest the reader is unclear. If Vigon's dream narratives put readers to sleep, his images may wake them up: Intriguing paintings of anguished characters with plastic beady eyes, skillful cubistic forms and blurry images suggest a tortured psyche. Of the many well-executed devils, a particularly lively one tempts the viewer with his wild, affable gaze. A querulous hunched figure sits contemplating a dark scribble, but other faces and figures tilt the book's balance to the mediocre. Vigon has talent, but only his closest friends and associates who have some context for the man and his work will appreciate this project. 74 color plates