Monday, April 11, 2011

Family project - 1

This is the underpainting for a mural in the new bakery, in the company of my family.

My parents own a Dutch windmill, which is still operating thanks to the tenacity of my grandfather. It survived industrialisation, poverty, bad luck (accidents happening to its owners) and fire.  It lies next to the border with Germany (with whom we were at war a few decades ago). But the countryside is truely lovely, and the mill finally is starting to flourish, thanks to renewed eco-consciousness, and the take-over of my youngest brother.
Recently a new bakery was built in the mill, where the mill's flour is turned into bread. I was invited, to make a mural in the bakery. I wanted it to become extra really good, and I've been breeding on it for weeks, trying to figure out something good.

Reconciliation with my background has been an ongoing process over the years. As a teenager I was a weird little punkrock girl who wanted to go to artschool (in a region where there was no music or art present at all). My grandfather, the miller, firmly believed in me, even when I looked outrageous. The rest of my relatives had serious doubts. But I went, thanks to the government system of scholarship, and I've been doing art ever since (with variable succes levels and in between having kids, but I kept on it - I'm still here). About my family: they never stopped supporting me, even though they didn't have a clue to what I want from life. I don't mind - they care about me, and if I ever would get to kill somebody, they'd hide me.
Family stuff is a bit like fertilizer - sometimes it smells bad (after all it's dung), but it sure helps things grow.

One huge painting of me is in my parent's house already. Now I'll be doing the bakery. I'm halfway the project, and it's turning out well so far. The mill has always been the eye-apple of my grandfather. Even at his very old age, when he didn't reconize his relatives' faces anymore, his consciousness would clear up when you'd tell him about the mill. That he'd know and remember.

I'm sure the bakery would fulfill his big dream. I guess that's why this project is so important to me. I've been wrestling with the design for weeks, and I think I'll take a major step in my artistic development by making this mural. Who would have thought that fifteen years ago...


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