Untitled (recto: One Month/Del Monte; verso: #91)

Art Green recalls: “I read a newspaper article about “Policy Wheels” (also known as the numbers game) late one night on a Greyhound bus [and] it had a strong influence on my decision then to include words as part of my work. To me, the names read like found poetry: Wind, Sea and Rain. Green River, Tri-Square and Dome. Windy City, Subway and Big Town. Old Owl and Speedway.”
These artistic practices seem to be at play in the drawings One Month and Del Monte, which probably derive from word combinations used in the illegal lottery known as Policy. Bettors consulted popular “Dream Books” containing folk numerology keys to common dream images, to translate word-image associations recalled from their own dreams into lottery numbers. This game and arcane knowledge upon which dream books were based dovetail with Green’s interests in the unconscious and games of chance among many other devices that Chicago Imagist artists borrowed from Surrealism and from vernacular culture. Like other works by Green, this sketch illustrates his research into the sacred potential of imagery in the absence of any explanation of its meaning or purpose. (See Smart Museum 2000.9, 1996.60, and 2001.582p-r.)