Early Dutch Portraits I arrived in The Netherlands in 1982 and quickly painted some 50 portraits within three years. But the commissions represented more than just the painting of my patient sitters, they were also a doorway through which I entered into Dutch life and culture. I traveled the […]
Anselm Kiefer Art opens the eyes. And hopefully your consciousness. At Museum Voorlinden I usually experience both and it actually begins with arrival. After bumper to bumper traffic from Amsterdam, narrow residential streets leading to the parking area, a short walk and then WHOOSH….. the expansive vastness of the Museum’s landscaped terrein opens up to […]
Home Back in Holland. But not empty handed…. The physically, emotionally and psychologically draining work of emptying my storage unit in New York is done. Sounds dramatic, but it’s not simply keeping what you want and tossing the rest. This was a final act of separation, from my country, culture and a good deal of […]
Tough decisions Last week I arrived in upstate New York to deal with my artistic past. In 2000, when I returned to The Netherlands not knowing how long I would remain, the contents of my studio in New York were put into storage. Now, 19 years later I am ready to sell, ship, archive […]
Culture on Dutch TV: ‘Close Up’ The cashier at my local organic supermarket noticed my paint-splattered pants and remarked: ‘Ben jij een beoefenaar van de schone kunsten?’ (Are you a practitioner of the visual arts?). ‘Well, lets just say I’ve never fully matured and still spend my days playing with colors.’ I answered. This […]
Mitchell Johnson My plan today was to continue my blog about my recent vacation in France. But as so often happens, life made other plans… A follower of mine and an artist I follow on Instagram, Rob Larson ( rob_larson_artist ) posted a daily series of images recently, with this text underneath: ‘I’m looking at..’. […]
Autun Just an hour west of Beaune lies the city of Autun. Founded during the reign of the first Roman emperor Augustus, the town still bears witness to its past in the form of walls, gates and a Roman theater. Lili and I wanted to share the old center of Autun with our travel companions, […]
Paris Paris elevators are small. For two Americans visiting from San Francisco they appear ridiculously small. Three people with carry-on luggage is often the max. But we managed to get the bags upstairs to my room and headed out for a quick breakfast before departing with the train later that morning for Dijon. It was […]
Elke Sommer Copenhagen. Blue. Definitely blue, but mellowed, softened. Light, in feeling and in atmosphere. Rough, but not too rough, not like ‘Rotterdam’ (ROT! DAMN! A Dutch port, violent, dangerous, dock workers) and of course Elke Sommer, a sexy blonde actress from my teens, whom I always associated with Copenhagen (actually she’s German). Well, so […]
Go with the flow When I went back to work the next day the movement felt choppy. It didn’t have the calligraphic flow across the surface I wanted. Where was the kink in the cable? It seemed the three ‘figures’ in the middle weren’t doing their job, they weren’t moving the eye properly […]