Rosehips

"Rosehips"
2.5 x 3.5 inches
Watercolour
SOLD

Sometimes you can philosophize about inspiration, and sometimes it just comes because the colours are pretty....

A Philosophical Excursion into Artistic Materialism

"Artefacts"
Watercolour

Intimate still lifes. I like that as a term for the little paintings I make. It got me thinking, why do I paint things? Things are just things, and they don’t appear to have any special meaning.

I was pondering this as I went for a lengthy walk in the dreary autumn weather today. I had a bag in hand, and it was full of “things”, natural “things” like a stack of different-coloured autumn leaves, a bunch of rosehips, a few pretty feathers. Why this love for things? Am I a materialist? I recalled what Anne Classen Knutson wrote in her article “Andrew Wyeth’s Language of Things” (Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic, by Anne Classen Knutson [ed.]. Atlanta: High Museum of Art, p. 47): “Objects stimulate and nourish his associative imagination: in the studio, Wyeth scatters leaves, shells, and things from his childhood to trigger memories and initiate the creative process.” Now I’m a great admirer of Wyeth, but I do not claim any influence or likeness to him in my paintings, but he too shows traits of a materialist, though Knutson, I think, perceptively pinpoints a reason for materialism in art.

About a hundred years ago, it seems (though it’s really only six), I finished my Masters degree with a thesis on two materialist poets, Eugène Guillevic and Francis Ponge. “La surface du pain est merveilleuse d'abord à cause de cette impression quasi panoramique qu'elle donne…” (The surface of a loaf of bread is marvellous first because of that almost panoramic impression that it makes…) writes Ponge. There it is in front of him, a warm baguette from the local bakery, its crusty exterior slashed and baked to form a golden landscape. It’s just a thing, material, a surface. Ponge contemplates the bread, examines it mentally, opens it verbally and prods at its interior, explores the valleys and crests of its physiognomy like he’s in a strange land. The hinterland of a baguette reminds him of a sponge, and then Ponge ends his walk through the soft and undulating landscape of the loaf abruptly: “Mais brisons-la : car le pain doit être dans notre bouche moins objet de respect que de consommation” (But let’s break it: because bread, in our mouths, should not so much be an object of respect, but one of consumption). The baguette returns to simply being a baguette, a thing, but it has led to the most marvellous associative excursion through a foreign landscape, through Christian symbolism, even. “Objects stimulate and nourish his associative imagination”. Ponge is nourished artistically and literally by the material that is bread.

I can’t say all my still lifes have this depth, but making still lifes is a matter of association. Certain things in my home have meaning, and some have greater meaning than others. I find I can write more about the things that have greater meaning for me.

“Shards” is one of those paintings that stimulates my associative thinking. Blue and white porcelain is of such significance in Dutch society, in my life. I associate it with Indonesia, Chinese pottery, wealth, grandeur, colonialism, the VOC and foreign travels; I also associate it with kitsch, homeliness, small-mindedness, out-dated thinking and kitchen tiles with hackneyed proverbs.

Not an ACEO this time, but a square, tile-sized watercolour.

When You Frame an ACEO...

When you frame an ACEO it becomes a real little work of art. It's no longer just a trading card; it's a work of art to be enjoyed and admired for its minuteness, for the simple statement it makes.

Autumn Palette

"Autumn Palette"
2.5 x 3.5 inches
watercolour
SOLD

I was biking back home from horseback riding last week. It was a beautiful day and the leaves were falling from the trees. I stopped under a tree that had shed a few yellow and red leaves, and I liked their colour so much that I took them home. Together with the chestnuts I picked up a while ago and on my warm-coloured hardwood table they make a lovely autumn palette.

Accidental Still Life

"Moroccan Bowl"
2.5 x 3.5 inches
watercolour
Sold

Sometimes I arrange things so that they form a suitable composition for a still life, and sometimes I just find one. When my husband and I married and moved our stuff into one apartment, we suddenly had three fruit bowls, but they were all nice enough to keep.
Even with three bowls, we sometimes have more fruit and things in the house than they can hold. My Moroccan bowl was filled to the brim with plums, tomatoes, apples, pears and a lemon. Walnuts are drying in the shell in another bowl, and the third holds a pile of papers that we just can't seem to find a suitable place for.

Montreal Breakfast

"Montreal Breakfast"
2.5 x 3.5 inches
watercolour
FOR SALE

A few years ago I took a three-week trip through the east of Canada with my husband, sister, and her husband. Our destination was Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, and we started in Montreal. We stayed in a hostel in Old Montreal; it was a bit shabby and had a congenial hippy atmosphere, though we were clearly getting a little bit too old to be staying in a youth hostel, because the extremely laid-back atmosphere and anything-goes organisation caused us some irritation. For breakfast we went to a most charming café nearby. It was in a New World French style, lovely cheerful colours, home-made croissants, lots of people reading the newspaper on Sunday morning, and everyone with a typical Montreal bowl of café au lait.

Chestnuts

"Chestnuts"
2.5 x 3.5 inches
watercolour
SOLD

It really is fall. The chestnuts have fallen off the trees and the leaves will soon follow. Fall in Holland comes gently and it never reaches the screaming exhuberance of a Canadian Indian summer.

The trees turn shades of light green, orange and brown, and the light becomes muted. Fall is hardly distinguishable from winter here; the seasons flow gently into one another without any excesses in cold or heat.

I painted the last of the chestnuts in the "womb". There aren't even that many fallen chestnuts left: many were crushed in traffic and the rest have been collected. It's funny how everyone collects chestnuts. They really have no use, and there's such an abundance of them and nonetheless, people love to gather them.

Lamp Post

"Lamp Post"
2.5 x 2.5 inches
watercolour
SOLD

Ever get bored at your work? Don't tell my boss, but I sometimes do. I made this little sketch of a lamp post outside my office window in the summertime. Those leaves on the trees are now turning yellow and are about to fall off.

Shards

"Shards"
2.5 x 3.5 inches
watercolour
SOLD

I'm always looking at the ground when I walk, and I find lots of things that way. I find pennies, four-leafed clovers, and once I even found a raw amethyst by the shore. What a day that was!

From time to time I find little bits of pottery and dishware, and I collect the blue and white ones. I have a piece of tile with a tulip pattern and intriguing bits of bowls and plates. To me these little bits of household refuse are like a treasure.

Chapter Two

"Chapter Two"
2.5 x 3.5 inches
watercolour
SOLD

Fall has arrived, the days are shorter, and there's nothing better in the weekend than a good book and a lovely vase of fall flowers.

Flower Still Life

"Blue Hydrangeas"
2.5 x 3.5 inches
watercolour
SOLD


The rain showers of autumn have come and the temperature has cooled in Holland. The hydrangeas I bought at the market last month have dried to a lavender-blue.

Lusitano for Sale on eBay

For sale on eBay:
SOLD