In-Sana Tea: Dove Dream Blend

by David F. Heatwole

“My work explores the fragile boundary between reality and imagination, memory and dream. I draw from personal experience, childhood play, and spiritual searching, transforming them into visual narratives that are at once intimate and universal. In one series, I explore abstract currents, recalling the freedom of early imagination before the weight of adulthood. In another, a character I developed named Arty (Ish is his alter ego when he puts on a gas mask) confronts a world of cube characters who represent conformity and confusion. The In-Sana Tea series pours this inquiry into dreamlike still lifes, where teapots release oceans and windows open into realms of sleep and fractured perception. Symbols, both sacred and everyday, guide my practice, becoming metaphors for questions of identity, faith, cultural inheritance, and the persistence of wonder. Ultimately, my work seeks to chart the shifting terrain of perception itself, while keeping alive the spark of childlike imagination.”