Family project - 2

Check the local newspaper here!

It's finished - the mural in the bakery of my family.
It was received well -  a local newspaper put a picture of the baker on the front page, with a good view on the mural as well.


I guess it's not because this is such a great mural on itself - the work is good, but that's not the point.
It's the full package that makes it worthwhile. The windmill itself, one of the few ones in Holland that still grind wheat. The baker, who is a very good baker - he had a bankrupcy due to circumstances outside of his power, but his old customers are coming back because they really like his bread. My brother has sown his own wheat on the lands behind the mill, so they'll have a cradle-to-cradle honest product soon. The mill is standing in a very rural, far-away area - it used to be a poor and backward part of the country, but now it's considered a beautiful countryside, people like to make the extra trip to the mill, and the village's  inhabitants feel rich having a  baker again. The mural accomplishes this picture, of a new rural culture and way of living - poverty turned into riches. I went away to develop art, but came back to see it fall in its place. Here's the bakery's website (it's in Dutch)


This kind of work is different from my canvases, it's both smaller and larger than that. Smaller, because this work requires a more serving attitude. The design is often made together with the client, colors are matched to the flooring and furniture, the design is composed and cut according to the client's and the space's needs and wishes. It's not like a direct individual expression, like a canvas can be. For a galerist, this kind of work is really not interesting.


But for me, if this kind of work succeeds, it's larger than the individual stuff: better, richer and sweeter. The quality is more hybrid, more positive and sunny, there's a more general quality to it. I like doing projects like this very much, it makes me grow out of myself. I hope to do a lot more in the future.