Waiting for Dreams — When a Painting Finds Its Person
Some paintings wait.
They sit quietly in the studio, finished but not yet gone, as if they know they haven't arrived at the right place yet. Waiting for Dreams was one of those paintings.
I created it over two decades ago as part of my Dream Series — a body of work that came from a personal journey. At the time, I was holding dreams that felt lost. Not abandoned, exactly, but distant. Out of reach. The series was my way of sitting with that feeling honestly, of putting it on canvas rather than pushing it away. Each painting in the series was an act of faith — a quiet insistence that what we carry in our hearts doesn't disappear simply because life gets hard.
By then, I had long given up on so many of my dreams. Some I had set aside. Some I had quietly buried. And some — like playing the violin — I had forgotten entirely. Not pushed away. Simply forgotten, the way you forget a song you once loved until something plays it again and the whole feeling rushes back.
Parts of me that I had let go to care for others, to please others. Parts of me that didn't seem relevant to the world, and sometimes to family. They didn't disappear. They simply lay dormant, waiting for the right season.
And then something happened that I hadn't planned and couldn't have predicted. The first painting of the Dream Series appeared — not laboured over, not thought through. It simply came through my brushes, as if it had always been there, waiting for permission. It was my first attempt at painting the figure in oils. To be honest, I was astounded. I didn't know I could paint like this.
I called it Jacob Dreams — Jacob being my maiden name, and a place where so many of my dreams had been left behind.
These paintings are large. That was never a conscious decision — it was simply what they needed to be. As if they had been suppressed for so long that when they finally came, they burst forth. They couldn't be contained in something small. They needed room. They needed to be seen.
And the dreams kept returning. At 40, I remembered that I had always wanted to play the violin. I had always loved its sound — the way it could carry both sorrow and joy in a single note. So I found a teacher. And I learned to play, even though I couldn't read a single note of music.
Waiting for Dreams was perhaps the painting which I connected with the most during the series. Born in the season of remembering, of daring to want things again.
Over the years, she travelled. During my time living on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, she appeared in several local exhibitions — shown, admired, and always returned. She always came back home to me, and I always welcomed her. There was something right about that. As if she, too, was waiting. As if she knew her moment hadn't come yet.
And then, recently, it did.
It has gone to a dear friend — a woman of courage and grace who has walked through her own season of struggle, holding on to hope for herself and her child. And now, at last, she has a new home. A place of her own. A place where she and her son can begin again, and live the life she always knew was waiting for her.
I heard a gentle whisper in my heart, I knew this painting belonged with her.
Because she, too, had not lost her dreams. She, too, was simply waiting for dreams.
That is the thing about hope, it holds its ground until the moment is right. Until the door opens. Hope is redeemed, dreams revived.
I am so grateful that this piece, born from my own season of waiting, has found its way to someone who understands it from the inside. May it grace her wall as a daily reminder: dreams are never gone, they are always there, waiting.
I hope you have enjoyed this story. And I hope, more than anything, that it stirs something in you — a memory, a longing, a dream you once held and quietly set down somewhere along the way. What is it that you have forgotten? It may not be lost. It may simply be waiting.
The Dream Series was painted over two decades ago and represents a personal chapter of Judith Rose's artistic journey. Original works from the series are held in private collections around Australia, with a few still held in Judith's own private collection.