Mr. M: The Exploring Dreamer

Soizick Meister has been painting the figure of Mr. M for many years. In this body of work continues her homage to the surrealists by placing this uncertain, exploring dreamer into contemplative and humorous situations within the British Columbia landscape. Mr. M represents the universal desire to come to know ourselves in the face of the enormity of the world. Mr. M is sometimes melancholy and uncertain, sometimes sentimental — we see memories of childhood made visible by Meister’s brush, revealing a duality of vision many of us share by reaching for our hopes while remembering a simpler past. Mr. M is acutely aware of the beauty of the world around him, both welcoming and sometimes overwhelming. A transplant from somewhere else, he is a traveler in both mind and space, pursuing the sometimes conflicting pleasures of exploration and the wish to put down roots. This book was created from a selection of Soizick Meister’s Mr. M paintings that seemed to tell a story of their own. Text incorporating idioms based on the artwork as well as arcane words ties the story together. Like Mr. M, such word usage is imbued with mystery. The intention is to encourage alternative readings of Mr. M’s journey and introduce the intrepid dreamer to an audience beyond the art gallery, allowing readers to imagine his journeys and adventures, his struggles and searches, for themselves. Students will be inspired to tell their own stories or poems based on the mystical images, and explore rare words to enrich their vocabulary.