Gift Season

Gift Season... Along with the wind and the rain thoughts of ‘The Lists’ trickle into my head. What would who long for, what would I wish. With all of the plastic whirling around our heads and all utter nonsense we so seem to need it appears to be a challenge to make the giving season a nice one once again. But it is possible! You can ask for donations to plant a food forest or for the Green Wall in Africa, you can ask outgrown good and clean wintercoats for a good cause in your community but you might also give home made jam or socks you knit by yourself! If by any chance you’re no part of the handy crowd there are several people that make beautiful things. They work locally and take care of the environment just like you do and they pay taxes, just like you. Your money won’t flow into the deep pockets of Amazone and Bol who keep some people wealthy and underpay the rest. For the sweetest mirrors you can go to SophieLanham.com, for the funniest bags to SashaWendt.nl, for lovely graphics to ErnaKuik.weebly.com and for sculpture here with me for sure. And, don’t forget, when you buy art from a woman, you’ll get more for your money’s worth! hashtag#buyart hashtag#beauty hashtag#gift hashtag#woman hashtag#life hashtag#beautiful

clockwise; work of Sasha Wendt, Erna Kuik, Saskia de Rooy, Sophie Lanham

Good art is everywhere

I’m browsing through a catalogue of Documenta 1992. Loads of art, it was great to be there. And I am part of this, even if a lot of people don’t see the value of my work, I’m making the art-world as well. I am looking for one of the tiniest and most touching pieces of art etched in my memory, an egg in a glass of water with a sailing boat floating over it. Small. Vulnerable. You might think it insignificant. It tells about dreams. I do not hear all these things while I watch this sculpture but I feel moved and beauty and vulnerability. It is a sculpture to be overlooked easily. Like many things in life, small things are easily missed. The world of the moment (perhaps this is the same in every era) roars down on us over all things important it seems.

For me art is bringing us back to the things that are usually hidden in our heart. So we might feel once more what is really important.

‘You always have to start anew’, 1991, Belu-simion Fainaru

Irresistible offers...

Sometimes I get an offer; a gallery really likes my work and I can take part in an exhibition in Hamburg. It will last for a month, the fee is € 659 (ex 19% VAT) and the commission will be 20% of the selling price. So to get an idea of my profit I calculate when I get even. A work or some works with the total value of € 1200 will have to get sold (I don't know what VAT to consider doing this). The costs for the fee, the 20%, bringing and getting the works (700 km two times) will be covered and I'll have earned € 34 for a sandwich and a coffee on the way to and from the gallery. None of my everyday costs will be covered. My studio rent, the clay, firing the kiln. Let alone living or feeding my kids. Some days it is hard not to be very cynical.

In love with clay

Last week a colleague of mine wanted to know how to make a clay flute. She is about to teach in an art and music project on an elementary school so making an instrument seemed nice. We made a little lesson of it. After some technical things like making two pinch pots, a balloon with those, adding a nozzle the moment to get some sound when blown on was there. Physics for sure, and so much fun! When you have followed all the rules, done the do’s and left out the don’ts and you blow the nozzle and a sound arises, an earthy tone, sometimes with a lot of false air (sounds like the wind), that moment is magical. I love this about clay. We humans have been using it for thousands of years. To eat from, to store in, to make music with and sculptures. Ritual objects, sinks, toilets, eggshell porcelain teacups and toilet pots, we live in in and drive over it (brick), all with clay! An extra advantage is that it is earth and it will be earth. When it breaks you can fill the road with it or throw it in a ditch without trouble to human or animal. And yes, I like skull ocarina’s.

Raku fired skull ocarina

Art Lasts...

Today I was taken by surprise by someone that bought a sculpture I made, 8 years ago...She is still enjoying it. Such a lovely message! Thank you for the compliment singer and musician Ineke van Doorn!