Nowhere near normal

The end is not in sight… Nowhere near… We are at our destination as it seems, at home. That is why I have been working at my mini gallery for the roadside. Here you’ll be able to see one or two sculptures on exhibition and you’ll be able to buy some pieces right away. The ‘Kunstsurprise’ or Art surprise, a box for € 11 with a tiny artwork in it and the Potato whistle for € 20.- plus some other pieces that make excellent gifts. I’ll be honoured to send it to the person who deserves it, for you. In the coming period more things that are on show on the Rembrandt Art Market will be in my shop. Now I’m off to my studio to get the gallery fixed! (You can see it happening on Instagram)

head in the sand

Sometimes you’re living in a phantasy… To be cruelly woken by a call of someone who would like to buy from your webshop to find out he can’t pay… Some things just scare me. So I postpone. And postpone and postpone. Today I pulled my head out of the sand and did what had to be done. Now you can actually buy from my webshop! Hurray!

In these times, when all exhibitions have been cancelled and we are at home, I invite everyone to have a nice look around on my website. If you find something that pleases you, that you would like to own, please feel free to call or mail or app.

If you like something very much but you’re worried about the price, we will find a way to deal with that. Enjoy!

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

This summer

Last summer Joost (Lijbaart) and I were married for 20 years. The camshaft of our car broke on our anniversary and instead of going out for dinner we were waiting for the tow truck service to pick us up. This appeared to be an adorable guy who was taking his (Sunday)shift with his wife and daughters. We got a replacing car and our car was put on a transport back to NL. A few weeks later my bag was stolen with an overload of important things in it. Plus the key of the borrowed car and the key of the borrowed house. I was invited to stay with people I met only that day, organisers of the market I was in. The day after the portrait mask of Frida Kahlo found a home. Again one week later I was travelling to Africa with Under the Surface (Sanne Rambags, Bram Stadhouders and Joost Lijbaart), my first visit to this continent. I saw trees that were doubling as shops, filled with baskets. I saw elephants bathing, lions eat and zebras and gnoe and red dragonflies. I saw Mango and Kapok trees and mahogany and ebony trees and sisal plantations, lasting from colonial times (isn’t our entire world lasting from colonial times?) and a turtle of 194 years of age…I talked about compost and slave trade, about bananas and cashews and got the great music as an extra gift.

Such a great summer.

Cologne 17 and 18 August

The latest heads I made are of insects! The Kölner Keramikermarkt has put out a competition with insects as a theme. It has been great to study insect heads and I will probably not stop making them. Aren't we all living on this earth together? If you are around Köln (or Cologne) or just longing to see some great ceramics and sculptures, please visit my stand nr. 42!  https://www.keramikerinnungnordrhein.de/koelner-keramikermarkt

Kölner Keramikermarkt

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

Stands are terrible things

Stands are terrible things. Boorish blocks, most often with as sole purpose to lift the sculpture out of the ordinary. Away from the table or the floor. A lift without beauty. Many sculptors feel this reluctance and take other options. Brancusi made his stands as the corps de ballet that would lift his solo piece; The Sculpture, into space. Exciting and refreshing to behold. Inspiring. Lovely. As I am not Brancusi, I go for another option, I like to use small tables. Made my me preferably, so I can choose the seize, and because I’ll be at Art Eindhoven soon I wanted some new ones that are easy to transport. Foldable. I was having a stagaire over for the first time, so I thought we’ll try some designing. But, hey, it went marvellous and at the end of the day we had a prototype finished! He was happy, I was happy and almost ready for Eindhoven (have to make 8 extra ones still). Art Eindhoven, nr 29, 13 and 14th of April. If you like to come, please let me know I have some tickets to give away!

Stand with a head

Easy going; Ronald Snijders

The portrait of Ronald Snijders was taking quite some effort. Luckily for me I needed Ronald twice to model for me. To have someone is modeling is always special. We talk about loads of things but it is never small talk. In the intimacy of a work that is born into the clay, we always talk about things that make your life (and mine) worthwhile. Or hard. Or great. Because I want to catch the essence of a person it can not be about superficial things. Ronald is an amazing guy, storyteller, intelligent, living a full life. Musician. He experienced a million things and is very aware of being part of a family, a link in a long history. And surely we talked about being colored or white in this society, man or woman, opposites. In the end I figured out what to do and finished the portrait. We are both very happy with the result and having Ronald over to see his portrait was once again a lovely experience!

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

Belches

Time and time again strange words come of the television. Too painful to remember literally their their scope is; art is for lunatics and at best a hobby. Of no importance. Something marginal. No need to take seriously. Then, when we have a commemoration of something important we gather around a monument… A work of art! To center very important moments we human beings apparently need, literally, a piece of art. When we marry we give our beloved a ring. Things of beauty for important moments, our life is stacked with it. A city is not a good place to be without beauty, without theatre, without a music stage. Life without art is possible but, ouch, without joy. Hurray for art! Hurray for living life fully!

Daughter

I am tidying up my studio. Going through bags of clay, half way dried out with half finished sculptures in between. Then I find a just started portrait of my daughter. It has been there for years, it is my toddler daughter. In the blink of an eye I remember how she felt, the softness of her skin, her remarks, how much I love her and even though the portrait isn’t finished, I fire it. I just found a treasure!