Art by Erin Leigh: Colorful Little Houses Mixed Media Collage Series

Remember the magic of summer as a kid?
Playing Capture the flag with the neighbors until the sun went down.
Swimming until I nearly collapsed.
Sleep overs, sleep overs, and more sleep overs.
Playing with friends for hours and hours.

For some reason, when I started this series of colorful houses,
I remembered this hot summer night when the electricity went out
and the whole neighborhood came out to the street and just hung out and talked.
All the kids played together.
Simple and magical.

That got me thinking about all kinds of other dreams and hopes and plans I had as a kid.
Remember vowing to live next door to your best friend and both of you would both have four girls each and we'd all play with our Cabbage Patch Dolls all day? Anyone?

Or remember that water slide form the roof of the house in to the pool?

Or for some reason, and this one was reoccurring...

spending the night in Target and playing with all of the toys all night long.

And sleeping in the round clothes hangers?

And then that got me thinking about the dreams and plans
and hopes I would have as an adult. If I let myself.
And it was actually pretty tough to get in that
imaginative, playful, anything is possible place.
I think it takes practice.

What happens to us as we grow up?

Why do we stop dreaming?

Why do I stop allowing my mind to wander to those places?

And why is it actually hard to get back?

This is a series of my grown-up dreams.
I tried to go to those hard-to-get-to places in my heart and imagination.
And eventually, after a little practice,
it was like play.