In her celebrated black cut-paper silhouettes, Kara Walker unflinchingly critiques the violent and racist Antebellum South. But while dreaming about America’s new first lady, the award-winning artist reveals a less scathing side to her subconscious.

Well, the circumstances leading up to the dream were: Last year, I met Michelle Obama in that brief, scintillating, oblique way of patrons and supporters. We shook hands, and I nuzzled in next to her for a quick snapshot—several others were there, vying to be a part of the picture. I look smug, my hand cinched around her waist like a fresh suitor. Holding my champagne and leaning my head an inch away from hers, we are the same height, or maybe she is taller. I position myself as girlfriend, sister, fond acquaintance. I am hoping that she will realize how good I am to know. I make a lame joke. She responds with a knowing look that, I think, means she understands that I am an artist of some repute who could provide the White House with some art—that I could make it “clean.” I even seem to believe this, my hand gripping the future first lady’s waist. Lord.

Cut to two days later. I am in bed, and in the deepest part of the night, my daughter stumbles into my room like a puppy, all gangly and grown outwardly. But a baby, still. It is dark and she is still sleeping. Is she frightened? Lonesome? Maybe both. I wake enough to turn down the corner of the duvet, and she slips into the spot beside me. I still sleep on the left—I like to drive. I immediately re-enter deep sleep.

Dream—this is the dream: Michelle Obama turns the corner into my room, enters. She gently lifts the duvet up over my shoulders, smoothes it down, tucks down the edges a bit. I am enveloped in an aura of peacefulness and rest like I have not felt in years.

The next morning, I am embarrassed at having had a “mom dream,” but find myself telling it anyway, hoping that some kind soul will share my comfort at having a black mother—I mean being a black mother—both. In my studio, I find myself staring into the sun and worrying that the “Black Maternal” is really not a new presence at all in seats of white power, or even the popular American mainstream. The last thing I want Michelle Obama to be is “America’s Mom” for fear that ancient archetypes from Mammy through Lena Younger will predominate her characterization. But this seems impossible; this woman is actually very good at being herself. She’s not a passive-aggressive construction or some pitifully noble bronze. She’s way too smart and sexy for my narrow anxiety. Maybe I am just jealous, and I don’t want to share her with anyone.

A few days later, I have a second dream: The circumstance surrounding this dream was “The Election of Barack Obama.”

I am walking down a red-carpeted White House staircase slightly behind Michelle Obama, who has both adopted me and hired me as her personal assistant. I have a clipboard clasped to my chest and am eagerly awaiting her instruction as we head out to a waiting limo.

Oh my god, I really am regressing. The same warm feeling is there, of being the good daughter, the black girl who is real and here and loved—but this time, I am alert and eager. The dream has the feeling that I am putting my anxieties behind me in order to move forward with the work at hand.