Paul Laffoley
(b. 1943, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

THE FETAL DREAM OF LIFE INTO DEATH
21 1⁄2 “ H. x 21 1⁄2” V.
Oil paint , acrylic paint, letters, India ink, on linen
2002

This painting describes aspects of the fetal dream [ the most primitive of all dreams] that I sustained during my hospitalization which lasted eleven months. The dream occurred in the night between July 18 and 19, 2001. The dream was induced by an attempt to overcome morphine addiction which happened as a result of trying to control the pain of five operations on my right leg while I struggled to decide to have said leg amputated since it was possessed by a demon in the form of osteomyelitis: an infectious bacterial inflammatory disease of the bone: Pseudomonad, any of a genus of gram-negative rod-shaped motile bacteria including some that produce a greenish fluorescent water-soluble pigment and some that are saprophytes or plant or animal pathogens. Eventually my leg was removed to the After Life . Translation : I now have one foot in the grave.