The Georgetown Scroll

Last night I woke from an unusual dream.

I had discovered an ancient scroll, rolled up like the parchment manuscripts archaeologists sometimes uncover after centuries beneath the earth. I was carefully cleaning it, studying its surface with great curiosity. As I looked more closely, tiny scribblings began to appear, as though hidden messages were slowly revealing themselves.

That was all.

There was no voice explaining its meaning. No dramatic revelation. Just the quiet experience of uncovering something ancient and precious.

When I awoke, I realized that perhaps my subconscious had been responding to a conversation I had only recently been having.

For some time now I have been thinking about exhibiting my one-hundred-foot-long acrylic painting depicting scenes from in and around Georgetown. The work measures roughly 100 feet by 3 feet, and the greatest challenge has never been painting it. The real challenge has always been one simple question:

 

How do you display something that long?

Yesterday I spoke with Ben Ronjen about the possibility of exhibiting it in the Co-Ex space at Hin Bus Depot, directly opposite his shop. Ben thought it was a wonderful idea, which encouraged me greatly.

Then came the dream.

It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps I have been thinking of it as a painting, while my dreaming mind sees it as something else entirely.

A scroll.

A scroll is not meant to be consumed all at once. It is unrolled gradually. It tells a story as one journeys alongside it. It invites patience rather than haste. Perhaps that is exactly how this painting wishes to be experienced.

The little scribblings that appeared on the ancient parchment also stayed with me. They reminded me that every work of art carries meanings beyond what the artist consciously places there. Time writes its own commentary. Viewers add their own interpretations. Even the artist continues discovering new things long after the final brushstroke.

 

Perhaps that is true of life itself.

Looking back over the decades, I see that my sketchbooks, journals, paintings, photographs, blog posts, and memories are all fragments of one long scroll still being unrolled. None of it stands alone. Together they tell the story of a life spent searching—not for fame or fortune, but for understanding.

Whether this dream was merely the mind sorting through recent thoughts or something more mysterious, I cannot honestly say.

What I do know is that I woke seeing the painting differently.

It is no longer simply a very long painting.

It has become, at least in my own heart,

 

The Georgetown Scroll.

Wallahu A'lam.

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