Cloud Factory

I love clouds, and cloud factories even more.
Amsterdam lies within the circle of a modest highway (where, in places, one can't go faster than 80 km per hour), and on this highway, there's a cloud factory. Adults know this is the place where the city's garbage is burned, but most kids are convinced that this is the place where the clouds are made. They come out of the pipe, white and fluffy, in a steady flow - day and night.
I'm no kid - I'm an artist. But kids and artists have much in common. We have to be naive in order to be true. Some 'naive' descriptions are just more accurate than the so-called objective truth. Ever heard of that Amazon indian who first saw a bulldozer? He reported back in his village: "I saw a big monster, who made a human being destroy the trees". That's more true than saying that the human actually masters the machine. Because we don't, do we. We don't particularly like to destroy trees - that's just collateral damage, when making profit.

Clouds are like thoughts and feelings. They float up, they change shape and color all the time, grow and disappear, catch the light or spread it. Clouds show that things are real, even if you can't grasp them with your hands. For me as a painter, clouds are a basic thing. With clouds you can create worlds and moods without having to become specific. They give room for interpretation. Sometimes that's just annoyingly vague, but some things cannot be said or painted, only suggested. That's where I use clouds. When you can paint clouds, you can make anything happen.
Clouds are not just air, you know. Often they have a huge electric charge. Air shouldn't be taken for granted either. All the air in the world is one body, that sits on it when you try to open a vacuum jar. Thoughts and feelings are like that too. But more on that on another day.