Daydreams is a painting I know little about except for the approximate date it was painted, the early sixties, and the title. I first saw it as a very poor quality small colour photograph she included towards the back of one of her early portfolio books. Recently, I came across a very good Kodachrome transparency that despite being some sixty years old, showed the painting with excellent color and fidelity, reproduced here.

I think the painting is an experiment, a test of a new direction or possible approach my mother took as she was getting frustrated with the limited number of portrait commissions she was able to get at this time. This is further reinforced by her completely novel signature, “C. Aldridge Benson”. She often felt stymied by the very sexist attitudes about female painters from the mostly male juries for most exhibitions at this time. She recounted that their typical attitude was that it was good hobby for the misses but nobody could expect a women to have a career as a professional painter, it just wasn’t done. Here she is using her middle name to give the signature a masculine ring to it, despite the fact that she was never very fond of that middle name.

I think the day dream in the image is about how things could look if the objects and people in reality were solid black like a shadow but their shadows were in turn full colour reflecting their dreams.