DREAMing About A Tom Petty Tribute-Triptych
Hello, Friends. Welcome back to the Blog.
You're probably wondering why I decided to illustrate Tom Petty(s).
Well...
A few months ago, I had this weird dream about him. I was taking a ferry ride with Tom and his wife (among a crowd of other people that either didn't recognize him or didn't care he was there.) I'm assuming we were all traveling from Staten Island or maybe Jersey. We were headed to either Manhattan or Brooklyn... I know. Really specific, right?!
Anyway, he and his wife snuck away off to the bathroom to smoke some mary jane. They were coming out snickering as I walked by. I informed Mr. Petty that it was legal to smoke marijuana in New York now and he didn't have to sneak around to do it. So, we smoked more mary jane on the top deck overlooking the water and islands of New York City for the rest of the trip.
Though these next few things weren't specific in my dream, my brain implied them (you know how your brain fills in the gap sometimes like the DNA of a Jurassic Park Dinosaur? Like that.) It was raining when I got off the Ferry. It was assumed that I was invited to the concert that Mr. Petty would be playing in NYC that evening. I'm certain that my dream self attended that show. I wish I could have seen that dream-concert. I woke up shortly after getting off the boat and wondering where my umbrella was. lol.
This was such a strange dream, and it came out of the blue. When I have dreams like this, sometimes it makes me think of a scene from Linklaughter's Waking Life. There is this cafe and two women are seated at a table and one of them is discussing the theory that when we go to sleep and dream, we are actually astral projecting ourselves into the land of the dead; the spirit world. It would be wild to have met the actual spirit incarnation of Tom Petty. So much cooler than meeting a living celebrity. lol. Maybe. maybe not. *shrug* I don't know if sometimes we visit the world of the dead when we dream. Anything is possible.
Pee Wee's Big Adventure (Warner Bros.)
So, I was curious as to what it meant (via modern dream interpretation.) Every time I consult the esoteric world for answers for myself, I ALWAYS feel like Pee Wee in that scene (from Pee Wee's Big Adventure) where he consults a fortune teller on the whereabouts of his missing bicycle. And then, the fortune-teller tells him that it is in the Basement of the Alamo. Thus spurring the plot of the movie into motion and Pee Wee races across the country to get to the Alamo. So I tend to feel like I'm looking for answers in a place that doesn't exist because there never was a basement in the Alamo. It's still a fun journey, either way.
Photo of Tom Petty (Reprise Records/Sam Jones)
A friend told me that dreaming about celebrities means that something positive and big is looming just on the horizon for me. Which sounds great, but then I asked her, "What does dreaming about dead celebrities mean?" lol. She said she'd have to get back to me. Dreaming about a dead celebrity can represent the anxiety of parts of yourself, particularly your dreams, who may be dying. It depends on what this particular celebrity meant or represented to you. It also means that while there are obstacles in the way of these particular dreams, you will eventually overcome them. SO NOT as nice as dreaming about a living celebrity, but still a nice message. Thanks, brain.
Tom Petty was one of a handful of musical artists I used to listen to relentlessly in my high school years. I used to put him on drown out the world and draw. I would escape into my world through his dulcet melodic tones. It was a great place I enjoyed visiting during those young years. However, let's continue with our dream interpretation...
Smoking marijuana with friends in your dream is a goon omen of intellect and someone smart. It means that you will accomplish your goals and overcome the obstacles that block you. Traveling in a dream represents forward motion and progress in some area in your life. The ocean or water represents our emotions and traveling on a boat usually represents navigating these emotions. Since the water was calm and peaceful and Tom, his wife, and myself were enjoying the view, I believe the dream was sending a big "don't worry be happy" kind of message. Things will sort themselves out. Dreaming about public bathrooms generally means anxiety about how others see you, and the need for cleansing or releasing burdens. Since Tom and his wife snuck there to smoke marijuana, but they didn't need to because it is legal in NY, I would guess this means that I am aware of what needs to get cleared out of my mind and am already working towards doing so. I could be wrong. However, as Hermoine says, "Divination is a very wooly discipline." (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
Dreaming about a concert tends to signify harmony and cooperation with others, that you will be joyful soon and that your work will affect others with a positive impact. Rain signifies just positive and happy feelings about life in general. Umbrellas indicate that you are safe from worry or the difficult issues in your life. However, since I was "searching" for mine in this dream, I am guessing that indicates a continued search for safety from worries about difficulties in life...
...weird dream, huh?...
So, as a nod to the universe and the muses, for bringing this vision (whatever it may mean,) to me, I decided that I would draw my favorite incarnations of Tom Petty from over the years of his career. Who knows. It could be bad luck not to. I picked out particular songs and videos that both caught my attention and for better or worse are irremovable from my memory or past. That's the MTV generation for you 😉
DON'T COME AROUND HERE NO MORE
Who doesn't love the visage of Tom Petty in the role of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland? I remember being so intrigued and simultaneously a bit disturbed by this music video when I had first seen it. I adore the song itself and it gets semi-regular attention on my playlists and personal radio.
The original inspiration was a romantic encounter that producer David A. Stewart of Eurythmics had with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. Stewart explained that the title's phrase was uttered by Nicks. She had broken up with Eagles singer and guitarist Joe Walsh the night before and invited Stewart to her place for a party after an early Eurythmics show in Los Angeles. Stewart did not know who she was at the time but went anyway.
When the partygoers all disappeared to a bathroom for a couple of hours to snort cocaine, he decided to go upstairs to bed. He woke up at 5 a.m. to find Nicks in his room trying on Victorian clothing and described the entire scenario as very much reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. Later that morning, when Walsh came by to find Nicks, Stewart heard Nicks throw Walsh out, saying "Don't come around here no more."
According to Nicks, the song was originally written for her album Rock a Little, but she declined it after Petty performed the vocals for her, feeling she could not do the song justice.
Alice eats a cake given to her by Stewart and tumbles into a black/white-patterned realm similar to the "Mad Tea Party" scene from Alice in Wonderland. She experiences a succession of bizarre events, culminating in her body being turned into a cake and eaten by the guests at the tea party. The video ends with Petty swallowing Alice whole, burping softly, and wiping his mouth with a napkin.
This will always be a song, video, and incarnation of Tom Petty that stands out for me. It was a lot of fun to draw him as the Hatter, combining two of my favorite things; Alice in wonderland and Tom Petty. I wanted to stylize the caricature of Petty in my drawing, even by my drawing standards. I wanted to make it wacky and crazy for what it was representing. Playing with proportions and scale is what is called for when illustrating something out of Wonderland. It's part of taking the concept into execution. It certainly helps if that's part of the fun of a particular illustration.
MARY JANE'S LAST DANCE
This incarnation of Tom Petty is probably one of the most memorable ones of his career. I remember being so creeped out by the images. Petty portrays a mortician's assistant who steals the dead body of a beautiful woman (played by Kim Basinger.) He brings her home, dresses her as his bride and has dinner with her, and dances with her. It is so very macabre. He then drives out to the ocean and walks through a cave to reach a rocky shore, all while carrying her dead body still in its bridal gown. He then releases her into the water where she floats away. The very end shows her opening her eyes, which echoes a previous shot of Petty himself on an embalming table opening his eyes.
The scene in the video featuring Bassinger wearing the wedding dress in a room full of wax candles is loosely based on a passage from the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations. The plot also has similarities with the French movie Cold Moon. Petty seems so charming that he's able to "pull off" such a creepy series of events without disgusting the audience. The song also really helps as it is an AMAZING song. One of my absolute favorites.
"She's got to look really good, or why would he keep her around after she's dead? I thought Kim Basinger would be good. I'd probably keep her for a day or two, let's go see if she would do it. You can make a joke about it, but you have to act a bit to be dead. It's not easy."
-Tom Petty (on why he thought Kim Basinger would be a good choice for the corpse)
"Now that was one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life. It was classic, wasn't it? He was a doll, and he was so sweet and asked me to do it, and both of us are extremely shy so we just said three words to each other the whole time. I'll never forget how heavy that dress was! And I had to be dead the whole time. You know, it's really one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life because I had to be completely weightless to be in his arms the way I was. It won all those awards, and the kids love it—even today!"
-Kim Basinger (on making the video for Mary Jane's Last Dance)
I chose to illustrate Petty in the final moments of this story. I liked the idea of him walking into the water and surrendering the body into the ocean; surrendering to nature. I wanted to exaggerate the outfit he was wearing because it reminds me of an outfit a reverend would wear. Particularly, that of Reverend Cain from the films Poltergeist 2 & 3. Whereas Petty is not as evil as Cain, there is certainly a dark side to this character. I mean, who steals a body to have as their living doll? It's insane. It's scary. It's crazy. But also, there's something poetic in the way that Petty does it that makes you not mind it or not focus on it as much.
I intentionally made the corpse the negative space in this illustration. They really were a footnote to what I wanted the illo to focus on, which was him. I tried a version of the illustration with a figure in his arms and it was really "too much." So, I took it out completely leaving a blank space where she would be, only defined by 2 lines. I felt this was more successful.
Another great connection to my dream, in choosing to illustrate this Petty incarnation, is its ties to marijuana, often nicknamed "Mary Jane." While most music had to "code" things in the early 90s, lest you be "canceled" (before canceling people became a thing,) Petty could never outright admit that this was one of the meanings of this song. But the coded overtones are quite obvious.
-Mike Campbell (Heartbreaker's guitarist)
YOU DON'T KNOW HOW IT FEELS
I think every teenager in the mid 90 takes this song as a personal anthem proclaiming that no one would know how it feels to be them... and that would be a true statement, looking back now; not just for the teens, but for everyone. While many of our experiences in life are shared ones, all of our brains and feelings experience "same events" quite differently. So it is a rather clever observation of Mr. Petty to sing that "you don't know how it feels to be me."
I love Love LOVE the video for this song. It features Mr. Petty, more or less, stripped down to a basic hat & hoodie: guitar and harmonica. The "world" then spins around him with a variety of curious scenes. And no matter what is going on, even if a building is being knocked down, the "world" still moves on and Mr. Petty just continues to sing his song. That video/song has always stuck with me. So I knew that the last incarnation I would draw of him would be of this. MTV, I'm sure, would feel proud of how they affect generations of visual artists in these ways.
Again, the song is a direct reference to marijuana. "Let me get to the point. Let's roll another joint." While I wanted any background for this little triptych-tribute to be rather minimal, I am considering coming back to the idea of illustrating this video in its entirety, a looooonnnnnnngggg piece showing all the "scenes" that spin by Mr. Petty with him in the center of the long rectangular illustration...
We'll see...
I'm done with them for now and am leaving this dream for a while to go work on other things. It was a fun project, again akin to some of the illustrations I used to do for Illustration Friday. I suppose that the one-word topic that would have accompanied this tryptic would be "DREAM." I hope the muses are happy with my little tribute and that my subconscious brain is satisfied with what it inspired me to do. I am personally pleased with how they turned out. They are exactly what I wanted them to be. Fun visages of my favorite Tom Petty's.
Childish Sweet Dreams by Sergery Nivens
Dreams are funny things, aren't they? Tell me some of your most recent and interesting dreams, friends. I'd be curious to know. I'd especially love to see something that you made that was inspired by your dreams. I like that weird and interesting connection our universe gives us, in that regard: to dream. to create. As always, thanks for stopping by and letting me ramble about my art for a bit. I hope you all have a great week.
Until next time, friends,
Keep dreaming, keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing, and most important of all, keep making art.
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