Fishing grounds

Living at walking distance from the North Sea we are used to see water. Lots of water. However, all this water is supposed to stay behind the dunes. And, lucky for us, usually it does. A helping hand, also known as the 'Deltaworks', is our trustful, mechanical friend in the never ending battle against the sea. 'Water management ' is the official name.

Despite all knowledge, there's a lack of management experience in controlling another, heavenly, source of water: rain. More and more the amount of rain falling down in short periods of time, troubles local water managers. Floods in the U.K. were the latest evidence of human incapability on this matter. Today we had our share of fun. Rain kept falling down for hours. Within half a day our garden had an incredible, natural make over. I finally had what I always wanted: a pond in the garden. Or a bit of garden in a huge pond? Everything was flooded. The fish geek inside of me yelled 'Hurray! Time to buy myself some fish'.

At the end of the day it stopped raining. The water was slowly absorbed by the ground. The only place left for fish was inside my mind.

P.S.: made a little painting on flat rock (15x15 cm). Painted both sides: one black and white; reverse side in color.

The invisible touch

Do you have one? In your bathroom? An air refresher? We do. Not a regular 'toilet-spray' but always 'left-over' fragrances. You know. Fragrances you get for your birthday, but honestly never will use. Fragrances are so personal. To give one as a present you either must know that person better than yourself, or simply know what he or she usually uses.

In the bathroom it doesn't matter. Anything will be better than...well, you know. No need to explain this, do I? Unfortunately those left-over bottles of unwanted perfume are mostly of unknown brands, bottled in unfamiliar small bottles. Often the kind of spraying cans of which it's hard to tell where the opening is. Thus..risky business. If you can't tell where the opening is, you may be spraying the unwanted odour into the wrong direction. Never happens you say? Don't ever say this to me; the king of mixing up left and right contact lenses. The number of times I ended up walking down the street carrying my left contact in my right eye and vice verse are uncountable. Wouldn't be so bad if I my contacts were almost compatible. But they are not. Left -1.5, right -5.75. Ouch! Mixing up lenses causes a mysterious misty vision. And those freaky fragrances? Of course: sprayed it right into my eyes!

Love you to the moon and back

The incredible privilege to be accompanied by your granddaughter, a two-year-old - or one year and eleven months to be more accurate - is hard to explain. The unstoppable questioning includes everything we see, and don't see as a matter of fact, on our way back home. The mind of a two-year-old is hard to understand, even harder to follow as their vocabulary is limited. Merely words. Endless, repetitive strains of words. Most of them unknown to me, but apparently completely logical to her. Chitter-chat on the highest level.
'Dink?' she says, looking at me with two big, innocent eyes.
'Dink?' I repeat her question. 'Oh...Dink!' I say laughing to her. 'You mean Drink!' and I hand over her juice.
Immediately she throws the cup upon the street. An endless game: give her something and she instantly throws it away. Giggling with all her undeniable charms. Meanwhile producing sounds which represent a kind of language to her. Only to her. None of us can understand her. Till she says: 'Moon'.

four PM. Despite the cloudy day, there's still some sunlight managing to break through those clouds. But a moon? She looks up at the sky. Now we all see it. A sickle of the moon in a piece of clear blue sky, right between the dark clouds.
'Yes love, the moon. Good for you!'
Now she's proud. She has noticed something we had not seen. And she even knew the right word. This calls for a celebration. The final five minutes of our walk back home are filled with only one word. One monotonic sound, cheered by a proud child. 'Moon, moon, moon!'.
Moon it is.
Love her endlessly.

Speeding Tag

Ah those fabulous days we used to spend in Paris. The mural of Keith Haring, mentioned in my previous blog, was a nice surprise. The graffiti painted in unexpected places no less than a surprise.

Several artists have found their challenge in painting their Tag upon high buildings. Crawling upon the rooftops may have added another kind of adrenalin kick. The risk of being caught by the police seems to be far less compared to their colleagues working 'down town'. That is...I've seen a few Tags upon vans which surprised me. Not that they bewitched me by their beauty. Common letters spray-painted upon old vans are not exactly the summit of creativity. Just imagined a few street artists running across the traffic to paint their Tags upon moving vehicles. Working top speed. Risking a ticket for illegal graffiti and speeding...

Note: Originally I already made a similar drawing (and blog text) a few years ago. This early entry will be published in the next Skredchbook!

Hold the line

He didn't make it. Keith. His life ended at 31, while I turned 53 today. Keith Haring, a popular legend. Went to see the exhibition 'The Political Line' at the 'Kunsthal', Rotterdam, a few weeks ago. First time I ever saw so many of his works in one place. Sure, I've seen a couple of his serigraphs, even a few originals at art fairs. But none of them as big as the ones in this exhibition. Well, actually I have seen one bigger painting. A mural at the ....Hospital at Paris which I've seen a couple of times during the days we regularly visited Paris.

Somehow it always felt as if he could have been my brother. After all he was born in 1958, only five years older than me; and only two years older than my real brother. Keith's life dramatically followed another line than mine. In his artwork he preferred the clear line. Simple drawn lines, creating figures which were repeated in many of his drawings. The political line was there, but to me it felt most of the artworks exposed at the 'Kunsthal', revealed the thoughts and daily philosophies of a daydreamer.

Here's where my personal interest meets Haring's ideas. But also where we differ. Instead of a range of figures, I prefer to create a drawing in which a full story is told within one figure. A pictograph if you like. As birthday present I was presented a handmade copy of one of Keith's drawings today, hand colored by my two year old granddaughter. A sign I cannot ignore. It's about time to pick up the line.