Dreams do get real sometimes

It's been a while.... In the meantime I becam editor for a new small enthousiast magazine. So I write a lot. Getting back to this blog I say something funny,
Because in the meantime I actually work in a studio with a view on the cloud factory of Amsterdam! A great view, much like the one below. 
It's a funny old office building, you can't put out the lights, there's a sensor in the ceiling and the lights go on automatically when you enter the room. It's a little far away from my house, which is doable but not ideal.
 It's a nice place but 'anti-squat', which means I can be told to leave any minute, with a two-weeks notice. That's not good, it remembers me of times where I had to leave a place I loved. So when I could get a steady place near my house, I took it. My new studio will be ready in June. So, I I will leave this place again, but untill then I'll enjoy it to the max.

Homeland of the soul

This summer I visited a friend in the south of france. Her family owns a small mountain farm of ancient building, my friend has spent holidays there since early childhood. For her, it's her second but real home. I felt it too, and I seemed to have found a new notion of home, on that mountain.

There are several kinds of home. Family places naturally are home. Especially the place where one is born will always feel like a welcoming place. It comes pretty close to the homeland of the soul, the place where one is warmly welcomed and may exist on every level, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The middle home is the home one creates in adult life, running your own job and family. It expresses your creativity, and the way  you see yourself in public. Some need two of that, like one of my friends who lives in a too small appartment in midtown, with lots of noise pollution. She has a cottage one hour away from the city, where she can feel at home in the weekend. 
But the homeland of the soul is hardly found in material life. It's in a mood, a presence, in being allowed to have time to enjoy whatever it is you really like. Stress and formality kills it immediately. I promised myself  this year, to learn reduce stress and to keep contact with this land no matter what the cost.
This summer I found it floating in the air,  halfway the mountain,
 
My friend really helped me by inviting us. The house is ancient - natural leystones were built into a stairs, and the walls were so thick that niches could be  built in to store pots and other things. Right out the window there was a view into a vally, on to another mountain. After the rain, one could see the clouds hover up directly from the trees.
When walking a little about the house, I found a porcelain doll. I actually recognized myself in that doll... it had two long braids (I had those for years), and a traditional dress of red, white and black, much like my own. That doll was put there just for me, it seemed.
I left it by the road, clearly visible, to see if anyone would reclaim it. After a few days it still was there, and I took it home upon departure.

The land of the soul is attached to this doll. I keep it by my bed and have it remind me never to live like a tired workhorse again.


It inspired me to start working on my own home again. I've been painting my bedroom windowdoors, and will create a place to sit there, away from the living room where the TV is. 
Art can't do without inspiration, and there's no inspiration without replenishment, which can only be provided by a true home for the soul.

Beaux arts in Dijon - great museum

medieval art

Dear all, if you ever travel across France, please visit Dijon. I booked a hotel there only to take a pause in the 14-hour drive from southern France back to Amsterdam - but it was one of the best experiences in my holidays. The museum of fine arts was right across the hotel, free of charge, and clearly arranged by people who know what painting is about.

There was some very nice medieval art, of which a special feature struck me: the humanliveliness and story-telling qualities of the works. It made me feel like: the people of this time live like shadows, compared to the full soul-life of the medieval inhabitants of Dijon. (OK, maybe it says something about me as well, after all I was on holidays).

Niche with Egyptian eyes

But the best part for me was the attic with modern paintings. There were a lot of "lesser" works from great masters, but the choice of works seemed to tell a story about the development of painting, as seen from within, from a painter's point of view. Unexpected things were to be seen, like a scene from an egyptian tomb, bare underpaintings and other deviant works of the great masters, but also a very nice Redon. It was really inspiring, never I was in a place where I felt painting is actually understood. For art students this museum really is a treasure-cabin. I really felt like I was understood and inspired, the museum felt like a place to dwell for the creative spirit.
About the egyptian scene up here - no artist was mentioned. It was a hole in the wall, with the sculptures of a polar bear and two snails, and two Egyptian eyes on sticks. I'm not good at french but the text was like: "lifelike reconstruction of scene from egyptian tomb".  Very puzzling, because it looked like a great surrealist artwork, and it was situated between other early 20th century work.

There were other museums as well, of the sculptor Francois Rude (french pronunciation...), a famous artist in the more classical style, early 19th century. Some work of his is in the fine art museum as well.

Dijon has a special atmosphere. In the middle ages, it was the capitol of the huge Burgundy empire (now I understand the color name burgundy). In my language, the term "burgundic" is also used for the best and super-rich meals.  The town center consists of a few dozen streets that are all equally beautiful. The houses are very rich and beautiful in their design, the town looks very much like this typical medieval fairy tale film decor - but it's real. This look must  have inspired the shop-owners, because there's a special kind  of design to be found in Dijon: the friendly kind of alternative fairy-tale and fantasy stuff that really warms the soul. But also the regular classy shops (like Pimkie, Kenzo and other designer stuff) were very nice. And in between there were shops with seemingly equally good designs, only with prices much lower. The shop on this picture was about cats and the fairy-tale design I mentioned, clothing of brands like Bohemian, and some nice sculpture as well.

We didn't have time for the rest of Dijons culture, that was a pity. I did look through the flyers for film, theater and opera - very promising. There was a lot being programmed - theatre, opera and art-house movies that draw a smaller but more refined public. It seems as if Dijon is the hidden cultural capitol of northern France. Paris is nice, but too big for the artistic soul life. Art and Cultural creatives who are just a bit too gentle to survive in a big city, seem to find a good place to dwell in Dijon. 

Art Fair

Just visited Amsterdam Art, an international art fair. Once again I saw that quality and content in art defenitely are two different things...

I spoke with one of the artists (Astrid Koeppe) she showed some high-quality and poetic abstract drawings. 
 I mentioned I liked the fact that the interest in agressive and perverse art seemed to have faded, as there was not much of it to be seen anymore. She said: "That's because it was already sold."  Auch. Too bad, I was wrong.
This was a decent gallery, coming all the way from Germany... I hope they'll be back next year.
I spent a long time in this booth, at this wall with small drawings. This artist transforms a perception into a small-scale drawing, using simple means in color and form, in simple media like charcoal, ink, pencils etc.

I guess I liked them so much because it's kind of the same thing I do in my snapshots, but in a totally different form. She alters perception, and when looking at her drawings one can sense the process in which it happened. One sees traces of plants, a whale, a head or face. But one sees what she, or her artistic system, made of it. It's an after-image, a reminiscence. This is what gives the work a true intimacy.
I just liked them so much. Check some older wor of her here:
http://www.astridkoeppe.de/index.php?id=5
The ones I saw were brandnew, and haven't been put up on her site yet. 


There were one or two more artists who made my visit worthwile. But for the rest: I admit there was not very much there that I liked. I even left the catalogue on the table - there wasn't one picture in it worth taking home... Maybe it's me. Still I had the feeling last year was better, and  to me it was as if the promising signs then were overgrown this year, with more of the old. I don't know very well either, what  needs to be done to give art a new purpose. Sometimes I think the developments have been speeded up way too much, and that it only takes time before individual artists will realize the full potential of contemporary art. Sometimes I also think that we're miles behind on the real pace of historic development.
Science and technique has developed lots and lots further than we did as moral creatures. The gap is so big, that it's starting to cause a raise in awareness. But moral development seems to be happening anywhere except the art world. We artists can barely reach up to the technical levels of science and industry, and moral development really is an extra handicap on the way of 'getting there' - that point where an artist has reached a unity in his technique, and the 'thing' he or she has to offer.
But technique on itself is only a shell, it can't give our lives meaning or purpose. Only we can do that. For my own life and work, I more or less know how. But even then I'm unable to tell others. Still I know there's a universal quality to the meaning of life. There has to be. If there isn't, all effort is pointless.

I don't know. If I ever see the light, I'll let you know.

Insight is a tough ***

Yesterday I had one of these flashes, where several important chapters of my life were put together in a whole that's finally consistent. I was told about the four paths of Christian " creation spirituality", from the book of Michael Fox ('Original Blessing'). Today I'm in a funny jumble of ideas, that really don't make sense when I open my mouth to tell about them. But I know I found the cornerstone of my personal mythology, and that it will enroll itself from now on.

I guess it's the last chapter of a long time of being invisible to the outer world. I started this trip some fifteen years ago, and have been searching for the trip much longer. I got things going in artschool, did a postgrad, but once there I found books and ideas that led me straight away from the attitude one needed to be fashionable in the artworld. I found out soon enough, but there wasn't much I could do. I grinded my teeth, and followed the quest.

A lot of other stuff happened, the kids came and I completely lost control over my life, I had a gallery and lost it again, and since it didn't matter I just supported another aritst and very sympathetic guru-like figure whose ideas seemed much more important than my own. On the side, I did my own research. And I worried about integrating my research into regular art. Built two websites - one just to categorize and file my knowledge, the other for reaching a bigger audience. 
Secretly I was postponing that one last step I had to take.


I shouldn't be writing this, because I still haven't taken the step.
Will I ever do it. What will it be good for. How do I make money. It takes time, and time needs to fill itself - with either work, or worrying. Life is greedy and doesn't allow room for much more than daily chores.  But still the plant of insight is growing, imperturbable, like grass from the sidewalk. More content will follow soon...

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.

Energy

Here in Europe, 'energy' has become a popular term, when things are discussed from a spiritual point of view. Often it's actually used to indicate a mood, a feeling, someone's intent or a subconscious idea. Stuff like that is hard to explain, and when you try, it usually slips through your fingers and withers into something trivial. But when you call it "energy", you don't have to explain anything: it neutralizes all the content, and even the need to understand that content. At the same time, it gives the message that this intangible thing actually has an effect, and by using the word 'energy' the speaker also suggests one can actually feel this power. All that without having to be specific (which obviously takes an extra thinking effort). All in all, it's really a convenient word.
But I don't like it.
 It's such a material term. It says so little. Energy equalizes concepts like electricity, a mood, feeling, or intent. The latter obviously have nothing to do with household appliances or other machinery. Instead of 'energy', it would be better to call it feeling or intent. The word energy is only used to indicate some form of power. Feelings or intent are generally thought to be futile, the least powerful things in the world. That's an illusion, because human intent is one of the most powerful things in the world. 

A Japanese scientist, dr. Emoto, researches the quality of water. He freezes water in ice crystals (like a snow flake), and judges the quality of the water by the strength and beauty of the water crystals. Tap-water in big cities, or polluted water often isn't capable of forming a proper crystal structure. But when water is exposed to prayer, friendly words or classical music, it actually regains its structure. According to dr Emoto, words and feelings are a powerful energy source, and he made this idea available to lots of people. He also uses the 'energy'-word, but at least he indicates what it means - thoughts and feelings. So I chipped in a prayer when he called for communal prayer for the water in Fukushima nuclear plant. It's still a funny idea that this might actually work - thoughts like that easily wander off to funny psychological areas. We're not omnipotent, we don't do everything ourselves - it's more like angels following our attention, and start working where we put it. But no one should underestimate oneself in this respect. What we think and feel is important. It has an effect on our selves, our relatives and our environment.

I've spoken to people who are very much interested in finding new forms of energy - free energy. They're inspired by scientists like Nikola Tesla, J.E. Keeley, Wilhelm Reich and Victor Schauberger. Often they're into conspiracy theories as well. Once I spoke to such a person. He explained that this energy he was looking for, was not like electricity at all. He expected it to be more like a feeling, a precious thing, like the essence of  your heart. I asked him: "So, would you use this essence of your hart to power that lamp?", while pointing at the lamp over the table. He laughed because of the cheeky question. But I wasn't really joking. 


The search for energy is a lot like a goldrush. Searchers have the best intentions in mind (generally about saving the world), but there's an edge to it: a quest for things, that really should be obtained by hard inner work, meditation, and a fearless acknowledgement of one's own moral status. Instead of math and concepts like "force" or "power". It's all about thoughts, feelings and intent.