Dorothea Tanning:  Something of the sort, yes.  When I was in college, I read J.B. Rhine on his experiments at Duke University with telepathy and extra-sensory perception. I was fascinated.  And I still think that, in an ultra-receptive state you can not only communicate your thoughts to someone else, you can also capture vibrations of the future. The ultra-receptive state in question is so tense, so high, like a subliminal sound, that it takes place in you subconscious (surconscious?).  That's why there is this trivial feeling of surprise when some event perfectly matches a memory.  As for painting -- it's my crystal. In front of any blank canvas I try -- but it is always a matter of great seriousness -- to provoke the apparition.  My own event.  I, for one, can't approach painting otherwise.

     --from “Interview with Dorothea Tanning" in Dorothea Tanning, retrospective exhibition catalogue, Malmö, Sweden: Malmö Konsthall, 1993, p. 59.   This interview was originally published as "Questions pour Dorothea Tanning entretien avec Alain Jouffroy, Mars 1974,” in Dorothea Tanning: Oeuvre, retrospective exhibition catalogue, Paris: Centre National D'Art Contemporain, 1974.