Flower of the Sun

End of Summer 2010

The Sunflower is maybe the most used symbol for the Sun & also a symbol that everyone understands. For Dutch people the Sunflower represent the Sunflower fields in France and therefor their holiday full of Sun in France.

Vincent van Gogh made his Sunflower paintings while waiting for Gauguins arrival. He used them to brighten up the yellow house. Vincent was drawn towards the Sunlight and followed it to France. In many of his letters, he writes about the beautiful yellow aura the Sun creates around objects and how he tries to catch the light in his paintings. In his Sunflower paintings the Sun shines in the oils. It's bright and you almost feel the warmth coming towards you.

"Fifteen minutes of freedom" watercolour on paper, 2006

When I had a home with a garden, I always planted Sunflowers. You always want to have the biggest in your neighborhood and when the summer ends the dying Sunflowers bring life in your garden with a lot of different birds. I made one painting with Sunflowers in it called "Fifteen Minutes Of Freedom". My bird Batik was just living with me and escaped several times. The first time he escaped, he escaped for a total of 15 minutes and ended up balancing on the blinds. This image of his short freedom was so sad and I made this watercolour about it.

"Sunflower on the broken stone ground", Natural-dyed batik by Batik women of Jeruk (Lasem)

I remember sitting next to Koen in the car and seeing this big pile of dirt with on top a bright and happy Sunflower. I ask Koen "Where do Sunflowers come from originally?". We both didn't know and I forgot to look it up.

The Sunflower is a typical plant, it can grow on any kind of soil and turns his head towards the Sun. It's a strong, yet delicate plant. It's not only known for it's beauty, but also provides us with food & oil.

I always like it when subjects interests me and even more if I find synchronicity. The Sunflower, which reminds us of Vincent & the Sun, was first introduced in Europe by the Spanish sailors in 1530. Before that the Sunflower only grow in South and North-America. Around 1000 BC the Sunflower was domesticated. The Incas honored the Sunflower, for them it represented their Sun god. Big statues of Sunflowers and ornaments where found in their temples. The priests wear a crown that looked like a Sunflower.

The Sunflower is a much used subject in art, and maybe it should be a symbol for art and especially the artist. We grow and flourish under any kind of condition. Our ground maybe malnutrition, but we always turn our heads towards the future and better times. Art is not only beauty, it can also feed your mind and fill your thoughts. Let the Sunflower be our symbol for the survival of art and artists!

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Wrote this blogpost in December 2010 for my virtual art residence. The work I started making, inspired by Vincent van Gogh & staying in a "virtual caravan", is almost finished & full of Sunflowers. It's interesting for me after almost a year of working on this painting to read what inspired me to make it and everything I put in it this last year. I even planted Sunflowers and had to wait for them to be big enough to finish the painting.
This week I will share two more blogposts from my residence also about this work. It is almost finished, but it's still not finished at all. Becoming curious? During PindaKAAS Light I showed a preview of this work in progress, see blogpost "PindaKAAS Light in Tilburg"

A quest in Delft part II

Room in 19th century style with furniture from the 17th century and a painting by Paul Tétar van Elven

I promised to find out more about how Delftware influenced Batik Belanda (see blogpost "Batik Buketan") and how our Delftware got influenced by the Chinese porcelain (see blogpost "A quest in Delft"). I haven't really found out much, only made a lot pictures of porcelain from Paul Tétar van Elven's collection. One thing I do know, I have to get me one of those porcelain sets myself. What a beautiful images are created on a plate. I can't imagine eating from it. They all tell little stories, which is similiar in Batik. But much more figurative and more like a comic almost.

Before telling more about the documented porcelain, I start with the scenery there placed in. The Paul Tétar van Elven Museum was once the home of the 19th century Academy painter and art collector Paul Tétar van Elven (1823 - 1869). Finding alternative places where Delftware is on display, this sounded as one of them. Next to the collection of his work: historic pieces, portraits and copies of the Old Masters, he had a large collection of oriental and Delft pottery.
The rooms of the house are decorated in the styles of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The museum boasts one of the top 100 best preserved interiors in the Netherlands. Some parts of the interior are authentic and some parts, like the wallpaper, are specially designed for this museum.

Detail of new imitation painted fabric wall decoration

The library walls are covered with gold-gilded leather from around 1700 (see picture) and imitation gold-gilded leather made from paper from the 19th century.

This gold-gilded leather is a wall decoration made of tanned leather (calfskin),pasted with silver leaf and covered with a golden-colored varnish.
When in 1628 a Dutch gold-gilded leather maker got a patent on making relief into the leather, new designs got popular like floral motifs, birds and cherub figures.
The same development happens in the Hindelooper motif, but much later according to my research I did so far.
In "Volkskunst der Lage Landen" the Hindelooper designs got more bold and filled with floral motifs, birds and cherub figures in the 18th century.
They believe that the Hindelooper folk art got influenced by the presents of the Dutch East India Company, more about that in my previous blogpost "Checkmate".
The funny thing is that the Dutch gold-gilded leather was transported to China and Japan. Maybe it was adapted to their preferences or maybe it was already based on asian motifs, I do not know.
In the 18th century, the much cheaper, wall decorations on fabric made it difficult for the gold-gilded leather industry to compete. The same is happing in Indonesia with Batik at the moment. Cheaper, printed imitation Batiks from China are taking over the market. It's difficult for Batikworkshops to compete, because the hand-made fabrics are much more expensive to make and therefore more expensive to buy.



Imitation gold-gilded leather made from paper from the 19th century

Paul Tétar van Elvan porcelain collection



Delftware tile with a painting of a Heron in the staircase to the loft

Chinese "Familie Rose" porcelain from the 18th century

Chinese "Familie Rose" porcelain from the 18th century

"Amsterdams bont"

The most interesting objects in the museum where in a cabinet on the first floor. These object weren't documented or studied, because there were "less interesting historically and of less quality". That figures, I go "ooh" and "aah' and the "experts" didn't even bother. The museum is run by volunteers and they are very kind and happy to give information. The volunteer couldn't tell me much about it, but she believed that most of the porcelain in the cabinet was "Amsterdams bont" and was used to eat from, instead of showing them of in a cabinet.

"Amsterdams bont" is porcelain imported from China and then (re)painted in Amsterdam. Also blue-white porcelain was repainted with a additional decoration. It was more expensive to do this in China, so they made it in amsterdam. The images are similar to the ones on the Chinese porcelain. "Amsterdams bont" is easily recognizable due to the second thicker layer of paint.

I like this "Amsterdams bont", because it has a childlikeness way of painting to it. The "experts" call it "lack of quality" I think, but I think it's now very interesting how and why they changed the authentic porcelain into a bolder, not coloring within the lines, Dutch porcelain. The bird on the plate above transformed into a Great Tit. They have this bird in China (I think), but I find it unlikely that they used him instate of some exotic bird to paint on to a plate. And here the Great Tit is one of the most exotic, in both character and color, birds we have.

"Amsterdams bont"

pigment for painting porcelain



Imari from 17th or 18th century

Imari from 17th or 18th century

Chinese "Familie Rose" porcelain

"Amsterdams" bont bowl

Japanese Imari porcelain

Imari from 17th or 18th century

Because I can't tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese Imari and worse the "experts" also can't tell the difference, the pictures with only "Imari" are from China or Japan.
The Imari history is a bit difficult. Who copied from who and why, started again with the Dutch East India Company. They bought porcelain from China and Japan, and of course where business is done, the best price wins. So Japan and China competed to sell their porcelain.

"We do not know what Paul Tétar van Elven thought about the colonies and other cultures. He properly saw the situation mainly from a commercial perspective. A woodprint from 1857 shows a parade in the streets of Delft of foreign students playing Gamelan. He was aware of the Indonesian culture, but he probably preferred Beethoven."
-freely translated from a review about an exhibition at the Paul Tétar van elven Museum


Trying to find out more about Batik, our folk art, different traditions, I can't avoid a certain subject no longer. We, Dutch people, got pretty good at it. This time of year when "Sinterklaas" and his Black Piets are running around the streets, it's not a popular subject, but also a very popular one: Our history and what we did with it. Most of it is based on ego, and never anything good can come from actions based on ego. Reading and trying to read around it everything comes back to the same starting point, the same base, the one thing we share. The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: "Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC").
At Secondary School, HAVO, I graduated with the profile Culture and Society, also known as the fun package. In my fun package was geography, history, art and art history. Our history exam was about the Dutch East Indies. I didn't liked how it was taught to us. Our Golden Age, our fame and glory, all the ego, wanting more, wanting what wasn't ours to begin with. I thought it was very black and white. It was about the profit and never about the loss. If mankind had a more exploring nature then one that wants to conquer, our history would have looked a lot different.
But it doesn't, and we can keep trying to ignore it. We can't keep saying how the traditions we have, the things we make, the (folk)art are all genuine. Trying to hide our past, trying to avoid the subject. Feeling ashamed about it, putting history in a one sided light.
I don't really know a lot about the VOC time and I'm connecting the dots from my point of view. So if I'm historically wrong, or just wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me or help me with more information. I have to learn more about this part of my history. The things on my path, Batik Belanda, Delftware, Hindeloopen, and I even think the flowercarpets, have this history in common. It changed it, it created it, it blossomed from it. People did terrible things and on the other hand people created beautiful things. Somehow and most of the times these two are connected and the arteologist inside of me has to discover what those connections are.

Tripping over temporary carpets

"Wood Circle" by Richard Long at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven

Wednesday I visited GLOW in Eindhoven with my mother. Because I still hadn't see the real "Wood Circle", I told my mother that if we were on time we should visit the Van Abbemuseum. I was convinced we wouldn't make it, but my mom is very determined. So four minutes before closing time we entered the museum and could still see the "Wood Circle".
I'm happy to say it's a beautiful, strong work. It's a bit crowded, I think the work needs more space. And seeing photos of the work in the woods, it feels a bit artificial indoors. But never the less; the flow, the feel and the mark he leaves is very strong, even indoors.

Detail "Wood Circle"

GLOW, International Forum of Light in Art and Architecture. This year was already the 6th edition with the theme ‘Illusion and reality’. The city center of Eindhoven turns into a forum of interventions, installations, performances and events based on the phenomena of artificial light.
We walked around the TU area and saw some nice strong projections and installations. We were walking back to the station when this work by "We make carpets" caught my eye.

"Glow carpet" by We make carpets at GLOW in Eindhoven

WE MAKE CARPETS consisting of three designers, Marcia Nolte, Stijn van der Vleuten and Bob Waardenburg. They use mass products like plastic forks, paperclips or band-aids (see photo below) to make temporary carpets.

Band-aid carpet at BKKC in Tilburg till 12 January 2012

For GLOW they used "glow in the dark" pebbles. At first I felt they could be competition for my work. It's a nice carpet, but also plain. Their designs are very graphical and they base their pattern on the material. This makes the shapes you can make limited. I wouldn't use a material that determines the pattern. With rice, lentils, beans, but also leaves, nuts, sunflower seeds and corn, I'm free to draw and create the pattern I had in mind. But on the other hand I wouldn't mind being challenged by using a man-made-mass product for a temporary carpet.

Because I make carpets I would like a collaboration with We make carpets someday.

Checkmate

"Folk Art brings joy and therefore has to be seen. It's like a free bird, descending next to us, bringing us a little miracle."
- Hil Bottema

In my previous post "What kind of Boerenbont are you?" I found out that the new Boerenbont collection has an interesting pattern in it. The Gingham pattern was brought to Europe in the 17th century. That the word Gingham is based on ging-gang, or genggang, which means "striped" in the Malay language spoken in places such as Malaysia and Indonesia, where it is believed to have originated.

Reading in the book "Volkskunst der lage landen" last night I came across a description of a typical Hindeloopen interior back in the day. A fabric is used to decorate the windows & mantelpiece, it's called "Oost-Indisch bont" (East-Indian bold)...

Under cap made of Oost-Indisch bont, Hindeloopen

Well you'll never guess, it is the Gingham pattern and its even used in the Hindeloopen traditional clothing. I was reading that the Hindeloopen style of decorating furniture and all sorts of object (their Folk Art) changed a lot from the 17th till the 19th century. It is thought that Hindeloopen style was influenced by the East India Company. The VOC had a storage place there. They brought object like porcelain with them from their journeys. From India and very likely Indonesia the VOC imported fabrics like the chintz and the Oost-Indisch bont. How the paintings by the Hindeloopen are influenced by the fabrics or porcelain I don't know, but I'm planning to find out.

Chintz ('sitsen') is a floral motif cotton fabric imported from India by the VOC. At the Tropenmuseum they have a very nice example of it on display.

In 1675 the Dutch East India Compony (VOC) began importing brightly coloured chintz ("sitsen") from India. In the Netherlands they started to make imitations. This jacket ("jakje") is from the around 1817 closed cotton print factory "Overtooms welvaren" in Amsterdam.

More about Hindeloopen in the blogpost "Traditional Dutch".
More about Boerenbont & Gingham in "What kind of Boerenbont are you?".

Follow this line

"A Line Made by Walking" (1967) by Richard Long

"If you came across this circle (Wood Circle) in a forest, you will know: Someone was here, this temporary structuring is the evidence of it."- Annabel Kuperus

I ordered the book "WOW" a few weeks ago. The proceeds went directly to the "Save an artwork" project. How is it possible to save an artwork AND get a very nice publication is beyond me, but I'm very happy with it.
In the book different people tell what they see, feel and think about the Wood Circle and why it's so important that it had to be saved. Fortunately they saved it, so you can enjoy the real deal at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

Olav Fakkeldij tells about another work by Richard Long, "A ten mile walk" (1968). This early work by Long is a walk in a straight line through meadows, over hedges and walls, through the forest and swampy grassland of Exmoor, England. Apparently the walk is very surrealistic, while climbing over a hedge, following the route, you'll see a gate just a few meters away. Halfway the walk the line exactly follows a primitive dam. It has to be planned like that otherwise you had to walk through a lake, so it's not just a straight line put on a map.

Book "WOW"

Richard's way of changing nature (by using what is already there), leaving a mark, making a route. A path, a walk, which you can follow and get closer to the artist, reminded me of the works I saw at the Museum of contemporary Aboriginal art (AAMU) in Utrecht. AAMU focus on modern Aboriginal Art. By supporting local artists in making permanent work, they keep their heritage alive for the next generation. The traditional Aboriginal Art was mostly very temporary and it wasn't preserved.

"Camel Creek/Gernawarliyany" (2005) by Paddy Bedford

"Indigenous Australian art (also known as Australian Aboriginal art) is art made by the Indigenous peoples of Australia and in collaborations between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians . It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, wood carving, rock carving, sculpture, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting."
From Wikipedia

In 1971–1972, art teacher Geoffrey Bardon encouraged Aboriginal people in Papunya, north west of Alice Springs to put their Dreamings onto canvas. These stories had previously been drawn on the desert sand, and were now given a more permanent form. The dots were used to cover secret-sacred ceremonies. The well-known dot paintings are actually a kind of maps. The Dreaming dot paintings stand for the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating. While creating the paintings they enter the dreamtime and let their hands "write" down what the ancestors tell them.

What the painting mean is not for us to know, but research showed that some of the paintings are actually maps. The paintings give a top/bird view of the landscape. Looking at the paintings with this in mind you can see how some dots create a river and maybe the other one is a line you should follow to get safely to the other side.

The works mentioned above are both very interesting paths to follow!

More about Richard Long on www.richardlong.org
More about AAMU on www.aamu.nl

What kind of Boerenbont are you?

Article "Hoe bont ben jij?"/ "What kind of Boerenbont are you?" in the Viva, background wrappingpaper made bij Lief!

To start with, I helped save an artwork. A little bit of it at least. The Wood Circle by Richard Long is going to stay at the Van Abbemuseum in eindhoven. More about that in a later post.

Reading the Viva (Dutch magazine for grownup girls) I came across this quiz "What kind of Boerenbont are you?". Boerenbont is definitely a candidate for a Tradional Dutch blogpost. So here it is.

"Boerenbont is a traditional pattern used on pottery from the Netherlands. Translated from Dutch, "Boer" means farmer and "bont" refers to a mixture of colors. The distinctive floral pattern is hand-painted with simple brush strokes of red, yellow, green, and blue. Currently manufactured by Royal Boch in Belgium, the pattern originated as a local craft made by farmers’ wives in the 19th century. According to the Royal Boch website, a variety of patterns have followed the path of Dutch merchants all over the world, from Sumatra to Zanzibar via Goa. It remains a popular pattern today."
-From Wikipedia

A new Boerenbont collection* is now on the market. Its based on the traditional pattern. One style is a simplified pattern with only blue & white (original the Boerenbont pattern is blue, red and green on white). One with a red Gingham pattern as a base. The name Gingham originates from an adjective in the Malay language (the language which forms the basis of standard Indonesian and Malaysian) ging-gang or genggang , meaning striped. When originally imported into Europe in the 17th century it was a striped fabric, though now it is distinguished by its checkered pattern. And the last one, the "bontste" (pied/most colourful/bold) is with a aquacolour blue checkered pattern and over it the orginal Boerrenbont pattern.

Following the steps of the quiz with multiple choice questions like "Is there a floral pattern jumpsuit on your wishlist?" (Hell Yeah, for a year now :)) and "With Carnival I go dressed as?" (I was Lady Gaga this year, so CHECK), "I get a tattoo..? " (I have one and I'm saving for one, so next question), I ended in only 4 steps at "Bontst". No surprise there.


In 2009 I made a screenprintseries based on Delftware & Batikpatterns. "In Holland Stands a House"** (title of a Dutch children song) also has the Boerenbont pattern in it. The concept of the print is that every house in Holland (Holland is the Dutch part above the rivers, North & South Holland) has some Indonesian history in it. A history in roots or a colonial past.

Because I don't believe in coincidence, I think I put this one in my synchronicity list. Now that Boerenbont is new and improved they added the Ginggam pattern. I find out that the Gingham pattern is brought to Europe in the 17th century. That the word Ginggam is based on ging-gang, or genggang, which means "striped" in the Malay language spoken in places such as Malaysia and Indonesia, where it is believed to have originated.
In "In Holland Stands A House"** I used the pattern combined with Batik to show our shared history. And now I know that we have a shared pattern, it's only a checkered one, but still very interesting.

Man attending Friday prayers at mosque, page from the book Batik, creating an identity, on the background Lief! wrappingpaper

* Boerenbont Collection "Bonter"
** Previous blogpost "In Holland Stands A House"

Everything flows and nothing remains

When I was 16 or 17 I read the book "Life doesn't exist" ("Het leven bestaat niet") by Hendrickje Spoor. It's a coming of age story. A fourteen year old girl tries the find the truth of life. She is having conversations with her father, her mother and a drug dealer, who are giving her advice on how to live life. One of the truths she tries out is "Everything flows and nothing remains" ("Alles stroomt en niets blijft"). The book was very important for me and still is, because that sentence still gives me the most sense of how to live life. Not only is it a (big/important) theme in my work, also in how I live.
In my first room in Breda I wrote the words on my wall. A visitor read it and said "That's depressing". I was so surprised, because I don't find it depressing or sad. It's not scary if you are aware of it. If you know that the things, the people that surround you are temporary and that every state of mind or feeling flows, changes, you learn to enjoy the moment more. And memories can never be taken away.
I'm a real collector. I love to own beautiful things (Artbooks, cloths, shoes, bags & jewelry, stuffed animals, especially sheep, furniture) and I'm really bad in throwing things away. I make photos, I started around the same time as I read the book "Life doesn't exist", with disposable cameras. For someone who believes in the temporary state of living, I keep holding on to a lot of things. But on the other hand I always live in temporary houses. In the almost 9 years I lived in Breda, I had eleven homes, of which in one I only lived 3 days and a mobile home in which I lived two weeks, so make it nine. I'm thinking a lot about the house I'm going to live in when I grow up. But I'm already kind of grown up and not yet near wanting to own a house (or able to..).
"Everything flows and nothing remains" is in both my temporary work as my less temporary work (paintings on paper, videos, photos and wallpaper-installations) an important theme. I posted that I would share more about Temporary Art. In the previous post about this subject I wrote about how Temporary Art isn't unsalable Art because it's bought & on display in many museums.
I like to end this post with another very fine example of Temporary Art.

"Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957 -1996) works invest the most mundane materials (candy, clocks, lightbulbs) and common-place processes (off-set printing, photography) with a preciousness and poetry to convey both the rational value of life and its inevitable transience."
-From Art Now

"Untitled (Placebo)", 1991, candies wrapped in silver cellophane

"Above all else, it is about leaving a mark I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that's why I made works of art."
-Felix Gonzalez-Torres