Chanel Fall/Winter runway show, 1990

Portrait of the Joaquina, nee Tellez Giron y Alfonso Pimental, 10th Marquesa de Santa Cruz as the Muse, Euterpe, 1805, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Still life, plucked turkey and pan with fish, 1812, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I list things out. 

I lay there in the dark, huddled under my covers as the minutes tick past, thinking of all the things I have loved, my dreams about the future, my redeeming qualities. Sometimes I feel better after listing the things I like about myself. Sometimes I sigh as I list the qualities I want in my future partner. Sometimes I start to despair as I list out my favourite characters, a sense of sadness welling up knowing I’ll never meet them.

These lists usually vanish into nothingness when I wake up the next morning, stumbling around in sunlight. But at night, when everything is silent and it’s 3:30am, the lists help drown out the thoughts in my head, and my mind drifts, little by little, off to dreamland. 

Water Girl, 1895, Charles M. Russell

Saint-louis Seen from N'dar-tout, 1889, Edouard Riou

Ferdinand Leaping from the Ship (fragment of ‘The Tempest Act I, Scene 1’), George Romney

Portrait of M.V. Shishmarev, 1827, Orest Kiprensky

Tantalus, 1799, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Part of the Façade San Michele Lucca, 1845, John Ruskin

Bronc for Breakfast, 1908, Charles M. Russell

Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864, Edouard Riou

High mountains with chamoises, 1849, Arnold Bocklin

Sioux teepee from Volume 1 of ‘Travels in the Interior of North America’, 1833, Karl Bodmer

Agrippina with the Ashes of Germanicus, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Image of women and an exotic pet, 1869, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Arable land corridors in the early spring., Arnold Bocklin

An Earthly Paradise, 1891, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Portrait of Countess Yu. P. Samoilova and Her Ward Amacilia Pacini Leaving a Ball, 1842, Karl Bryullov