Photographs, postcards and projects

Found some nice things on the internet this week that I would like to share with you.
First of the project 'Textielpost' on Berthi's Weblog. Berthi Smith-Sanders has a site, www.textile-collection.nl, showing her collection of embroidery fabric like 'merklappen', sharing patterns and writing a weblog (in Dutch).

Textielpost - Spakenburg from Berthi's Weblog

"I like the story behind a piece of needlework. These stories make
fascinating reading and in the meantime valuable information will be
passed on to the next generation. It is my passion to preserve old needlework."
- Berthi Smith-Sanders

Textielpost – India (Gujarat) I from Berthi's Weblog

In June of 2010 Berthi received a postcard from Sardinia. It gave her the idea to ask her readers to send her postcards of textiles from around the world. In return she will send a postcard of Dutch textiles back. It is already a big collection, I really love this project because it gives a direct contact with the readers of your weblog or blog. You can see her received postcards on www.berthi.textile-collection.nl/textielpost/.

Textielpost – Philippijnen from Berthi's Weblog

Next up, the project 'Photo looking for Family' ('Foto zoekt familie') by the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam.

Children of the Indonesian family Van Lingen

The Tropenmuseum is looking for the owners of 350 family-photoalbums (estimated 80.000 photos) they have in their depot. The albums are from families that lived in the Dutch East Indies. They want to give the albums back to their lawful owners and are curious to find the stories behind the pictures.

In 1948 the 'Indisch Instituut' (now the 'Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen') received 30 chests with approximately 1000 private photoalbums from the Dutch East Indies. The photoalbums were found by Dutch military in abandoned houses. Many albums were returned to their lawful owners. In 1950, with the use of 'open viewings, 613 albums were given back. But after that it became more difficult to find out too who it belonged. Now KIT started a new project to find back the families on the photos, more will be revealed about it on their website and on Facebook.

Boy and girl with two members of the Javanese household staff

Another fine project I found is "Spakenburgse Divas" by Hans Lemmerman en Inge van Run. Together they form Het Wilde Oog in which they try to combined worlds that are normally strictly separated.

Design by Marike Kamphuis, photo by Ben Vulkers

In their project ‘Spakenburgse Divas’ they portrayed three traditional costume wearing women from Spakenburg for 12,5 years with photo and film. Corrie, Hendrikje and Wijmpje Koelewijn symbolize a passing time but are very open to new forms of art. The three sisters developed from heritage bearers to perform artists. I really like this project and I will keep following it! And keep you updated!

Exhibition 'Wonderland - through the looking glass' by Hinke Schreuders, photo by Wout Nooitgedagt

Sometimes I wish I was a fashion blogger

On 21 of april 2009 I posted my first blogpost on De reis naar Batik (The journey to Batik).
I started my blog to write about my travel-plans to Indonesia, making a journal about my trip and finding out more about the use of patterns in my work.
As I returned from Indonesia I had so much more to share about Batik (history and now) and patterns (in Batik and in synchronicity between my work and what I came across).
I continued my blog in Dutch. In the summer of 2010 I showed a wallpaperinstallation based on a Batikfabric from Lasem (see last picture) during an exhibition. I named the work in which my bird Batik and the Garuda (Phoenix) takes flight "De reis van Batik"/"The journey of Batik". Because I wanted to share this work with people I met in Indonesia, I wrote it in Dutch and English.
After that, I decided to continue in English (and I'm now trying to work my way back translating and labeling my previous posts).

My English is not so good. I'm learning more with every post I write and that gives me the strength to make posts about history, art and other things that interest me. I'm still trying to find out what I want with my blog. I love reading books and visiting exhibitions, a lot, and my blog gives me a good excuse doing so. It gives me insights in my work and interests I wouldn't have had if I didn't write my posts.

In de Dutch media, due to Fashion week and the new collections on the catwalks, fashionbloggers are everywhere. Being interviewed, giving special workshops on how to pay your rent with blogging, filling spreads in magazines with there original street-styles and such. I have always been a big fan of fashionbloggers, following Tavi Gevinson's fashionblog The Style Rookie for some time now. I always love the self-made fashion-pictures made around the house. Tavi always makes me smile with her wild and sweet combinations of found and made up Fashion. After a while she started to receive items from designers (beginning and already there) and was front-row at every fashionshow. But still she makes her pictures (or her dad does) and she really reaps what she sows in a positive, yet progressive way.



Sometimes I wish I was a fashion blogger, instead of a...is there a title for a Batik loving, history digging, art making Blogger?
It took me quite a lot of time making these pictures and I think I'll stick to my kind of blogging, but I really liked making this post! Because fashion bloggers are hot this season, and so are patterns, mostly tropical, but I also spotted Batik African style fabrics on the catwalks, I made these Batik-fashion-tribute-to-fashion-bloggers photos. Enjoy!

Wearing Batik jewelry I bought in Yogyakarta with a Batik on my head that was given to me by Johanna

Batik, I received as a present from Prita, with my Swarovski black sheep necklace and black sheep-shaped watering can

Batik made by the Srikandi Jeruk Batik Women Group, in Jeruk (Indonesia)

"Veritable Java Hollandais 1875 R" Vlisco on a yellow skinny jeans with white peeptoe-shoes and a bird in a birdcage necklace

Batik from Workshop Mr. Sigit, in Lasem (Indonesia). First coloration, one wash (end result Batik has 4 or 5 colours)

Lavender floors and muddy walls

"54 kilograms of lavender" by herman de vries

Sunday I visited the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede. My friend and colleague, with whom I'm preparing a forrest exhibition for this Sunday, has a small exhibition there with a great series of graphic works (made with stencil and dry-point) under the title "The new land".
I wasn't allowed to take pictures in the museum, fortunately the museum has a good online collection overview with fantastic pictures.

Talking about temporary carpets, Emmy told me about this work she saw there: "54 kilograms of lavender" by Herman de Vries. She and her boyfriend were looking at the work when a man wondered in and walked straight into the work. This happens a lot with temporary carpets, I know from experience. Somehow we all know that we should not touch art on walls, but when it's on floors we forget. Walking over it, feeling the material it's made of, these things occur quite frequently. I remember this artwork at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. It was made of coloured sand (I think). Someone was standing bent over looking at it, the guard was paying good attention to make sure he didn't touch it with his feet. Then he sneezed. Everyone was in total shock, I was laughing so I had to go to another room. When I looked at the work later, I couldn't see any damage to it.

The work "54 kilograms of lavender" by Herman de Vries is very strong. The smell of lavender is in all the rooms, getting stronger when getting closer. We first went the wrong way, losing the smell, but ran into some works by Richard Long!
Finding the work "54 kilograms of lavender" it was very damaged (it was also very busy that day in the museum which is a good thing). The edges were covered with footsteps and what looked like marks of hands picking up lavender. It lost its intensity, how straighter the lines, how more powerful the image is. Never the less, I liked it a lot. Also his other works are great. I didn't know his work, but he is quite the celebrity in Twenthe.

Behind the lavender carpet are framed drawings called "terre de cézanne". Every piece of paper is coloured in with soil taken from the mountain Sainte-Victoire of which Cézanne made many paintings. In the room next to it, framed leaves are on display. The leaves form a rhythm, a pattern. His works are journals. Collecting materials which by framing become a moment in time.

"leaves from the courtyard, hotel amritha" by herman de vries from 1977

"In his many journeys to other places in the world, however exotic or remote those places may seem to be, it is what de vries prosaically calls the 'facts' that make their way into the journals that he creates as a documentation and a record. As with the seeings of my beings, it is what singles itself out from the infinite diversity of possibilities that is caught in the frames of the journals, which are composed of random samples thus encountered in whatever place the artist finds himself at a given moment. How could any plant, blade of grass, leaf, shell, rabbit dropping or earth specimen be more significant than any other? Every natural object is like Blake's 'ev'ry bird' - 'an immense world of delight'. 'If the doors of perception were cleansed' wrote Blake elsewhere, thinking of the 'clos'd senses five', 'every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.' For de vries, the opening of the senses - sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell - and the consequent expansion of consciousness are primary purposes of art."
-From herman de vries's website (see "journals & journeys")

"Throwing Muddy Water" by Richard Long

Another great capturing of time in the museum is Richard Long's "Throwing Muddy Water". Emmy told me, after bumping into his work, that there was more. I was as excited as when I was 12 and went to a Backstreet Boys concert (I was equally excited seeing Lou Reed during his 'Berlin Tour' in 2007, so don't worry).
Its a bit silly, getting all jumpy about some well thrown mud on a wall, but knowing that Richard Long made it...
It made me realize that it is a good thing I recognize artworks made by my heroes from a mile away, but probably not the makers, which hopefully wouldn't make me act like a fool when I get to meet one of them.

The Rijksmuseum Twenthe also had a more historical collection. Among it works by Jan Toorop (1858-1928). A beautiful portrait (with a beautiful frame as well) is now on long-term loan. It illustrates nicely Toorop's own style and influence by Art-Nouveau. He made Art-nouveau well-known in Holland. He designed a poster for a Delft salad oil factory. Because of this Art-nouveau got the Dutch nickname "salad oil style" ('slaoliestijl').

"Girl in a white kimono" by George Hendrik Breitner made in 1895, collection Rijksmuseum Twenthe


More about Rijksmuseum Twenthe on www.rijksmuseumtwenthe.nl

More about Emmy Dijkstra's exhibition in Rijksmuseum Twenthe on www.emmydijkstra.nl (in Dutch)

Understanding is a relation between the knower and an object of understanding

"Without Place–Without Time–Without Body" by Wolfgang Laib, 2007

I'm celebrating my 5 year anniversary of my ricecarpets this year. Next to writing posts about Temporary art with the focus on temporary carpets, I would like to make some special projects with my ricecarpets this year. Writing and working on that, I like to start this post with a work by Wolfgang Laib. I never really understood his work until recently. I remember seeing this square on the floor of a museum made of yellow pollen. In the next room a movie was projected showing Wolfgang Laib walking in a field of yellow flowers collecting the pollen by hand. I was only thinking: 'man, what a lot of work for such a small square of pollen".

"Wolfgang Laib studied medicine in the 1970s in Tübingen. From early on he had been interested in art, foreign cultures and eastern philosophies such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism, but also for the mystics of the European middle ages.
His work may be grouped with Land Art and he shows influences of Minimalism. He employs natural materials, such as beeswax and rice. Most notable is his use of large quantities of intense, yellow pollen that he collects by hand, then spreads over large areas of floor or piles to conical heaps...
Laib considers nature as something to be experienced through the senses, but not the goal of his work; it is rather a space for activity and contemplation to point towards larger contexts."
- From Wikipedia

I know better now, and I really like this work, and what a great, strong title, "Without Place–Without Time–Without Body". And I'm just a sucker for works with rice!

In 2007 I made my first ricecarpet called "Ricebird'. I woke up one morning with the idea of feeding the birds in my garden on a way that it would also look good for me. So instead of throwing a hand full of rice on the grass I used a template and made flowers. Monday I made a new "Ricebird" to celebrate that 5 years ago, when the Forsythia was blossoming, I had the idea for my first ricecarpet. Lucky me I have a garden now with a Forsythia and my new neighbors also think I'm a bit crazy.

In 2007 my nextdoor neighbors only bother to open the window upstairs and point her finger towards her forehead. At that moment I thought it was very odd she did that, not realizing I was the one creating flowers of rice in my backyard. Later in 2007 someone throw a raw egg towards my ricecarpet. The people living there told me that the neighbors didn't like people nosing around and that they were angry that they joined this art-route. I can't understand why people get so upset about something so peaceful.
The response of the neighbors now was a little better, more curious than upset or angry, or better said more nosey.

When I first saw Wolfgang Laib's work my response wasn't any better. But it left an impression on me. I'm happy that no matter what my neighbors might think, I learned to create what is in my head and heart. And I'm happy that I have been doing so for the last 5 years!

"Ricebird", 2007

"Ricebird #2", 2007

"Ricebird #3", 2012


More about Wolfgang Laib's 'Without Place–Without Time–Without Body' on www.artknowledgenews.com

Vlisco in Helmond

Visited Helmond last Wednesday with my mom to see the Gouden Boekjes exhibition. Because we where in Helmond I had to finally visit the Vlisco shop. Meeting my mom in Helmond I walked right towards Vlisco. I spotted this billboard with the blue sky above it and couldn't wait to see some real Vlisco Batiks!

Jippie!

"Girls in the textile factory", 1942-1970, by Vladimir Ilich Panteleev at Gemeentemuseum Helmond*

Vlisco shop in Helmond

Beautiful combination of red and orange-yellow

Vlisco shop

After the exhibition we headed towards Vlisco. When we found the shop I asked if I could make some pictures, having my blog in mind, and I could. I fell in love with two fabrics both with birds on them. I regret that I'm not handy with fabric, because what to do with the whole 6 yards if I can't make anything with it..
Good thing there is also Jansen in Helmond. This store has Vlisco, African Batiks and left over pieces of fabric. I found one of my bird favorites between the big pile of Batiks. Beautiful to see al this colours in one big mix together and I have my own 'Real Dutch Java Print' Vlisco now! At least a part of it :).

Looking with my mom for a smaller Vlisco at Jansen





Loved the Vlisco shop. How the Batiks are displayed and the mannequins in the great Batik creations. My mom bought me this book about Johan Jacobs. One of the first designers of Vlisco. I'm preparing for a post about him, but as always it unravels a big story including the Arts-and-Crafts movement of William Morris, the Dutch "Nieuwe Kunst" Art Nouveau group, Klimt's Symbolism and Van Gogh Japonism. And as always greatly connected to the development of Batik Belanda in Pekalongan, Indonesia. So I first have to read some more and get back to you when I have a clearer story to tell.

More about Vlisco and to shop online go to www.vlisco.com.

To see more Vlisco Batiks, visit the exhibition "Six Yards Guaranteed Dutch Design" at MMKA in Arnhem (till the 7th May). An exhibition about how Vlisco’s Dutch textiles became a part of various West African cultures and found their way into international fashion, the visual arts, and photography. The exhibition Six Yards is a tribute to Vlisco textiles: over a hundred years old, born in Indonesia, designed in the Netherlands, loved in Africa, and desired in the West. A real must see. I'm going end this month, looking forward to it!



* correction on 10/2/2018,  I had a wrong date/year mentioned at this painting, see more information in Dutch here: http://data.collectienederland.nl/page/aggregation/gemeentemuseum-helmond/2003-069

Difficult Time

"Difficult Time", acrylic on paper, 2011

Spring is in the air, it's time to get busy in the garden and start growing sunflowers! Last year we moved from an apartment to a house with garden. I was (and still am) so happy to be back on the ground again, watching birds and putting my hands in the dirt. I started a new work in December of 2010, but it developed very slow. My subject for it literally had to grow. I had so many doubts while making this work. Every pattern I added was followed by weeks of thinking. I photographed birds in my garden for days. Made a path of left-over sunflowerseeds (from Dance in a ricecarpet) to get better images. I cultivated Sunflowers and had to wait months before they reached the right frame.
It took me a year to make my painting for a Pagi-Sore Batik design (Day-Night Batik). It was a tense year in which a lot happened.

Detail of nightside "Difficult Time"

Detail of nightside "Difficult Time"

Detail of nightside "Difficult Time"

I named the Batik 'Difficult Time'. A reference to the Pagi-Sore Batiks I based my design on.
The Japanese Empire occupied Indonesia, known then as the Dutch East Indies, during World War II from March 1942 until after the end of War in 1945. The period was one of the most critical in Indonesian history.
During this period Hokokai batiks were made. Hokokai is also called 'Difficult time'. *The batiks were commissioned by and created for the Japanese market during their occupation of Indonesia. Workers from the top batik workshops which had been taken over by the Japanese made batik to maximize the dwindled supply of materials (cotton and dyes). They drew and dyed motifs favoured by the Japanese such as butterflies, cherry blossoms and birds. These batiks had as many as seven colours and every available space on the cloth was filled with the minutest isen motifs (filling in the left over space between bigger motifs with a smaller motif). These batiks are often too rich to digest at close range, but they are an extraordinary visual spectacle when viewed fro a distance. Almost all Hokokai batik was made in Pekalongan in the Pagi-Sore format.*

**The batikworkshop of famous Batikmaker Eliza van Zuylen was also forced to work for the Japanese. Batik Hokokai was not only so extravagant and extensive in it's use of colours and motifs due to lack of good quality cotton, but probably also because van Zuylen deliberately stretched the making process. Sometimes they work more than a year on one sarong!**

Detail of nightside "Difficult Time"

Before I started making "Difficult Time" I was reading a lot about Vincent van Gogh and his love for Sunflowers and Japan. Wanting to combine his inspirations with mine I decided to design a Batik. Not knowing the history of the Pagi-Sore Batik, I chose its format because it combines day and night, beginning and ending, life and death in one work. On the dayside I wanted fields full of growing Sunflowers facing towards the sun, on the nightside birds eating Sunflowerseeds.
I wrote 3 posts on my virtual residence about preparing "Difficult Time", I posted it later on De reis naar Batik. First post was called 'Flower of the Sun' : "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!".
After that "Making fabric look like paper" and "Making paper look like fabric" : "Putting the last layers of paint on the work I still didn't share fully. Only bits (birds) and pieces (Sunflowers), unfinished details, but not on my blogs.
When I'm finished painting, I have to transfer the painting on to tracing paper and send it by post to Indonesia. Where hopefully the Batik makers in Jeruk will use the design for a Batik."

At the moment my transferred to tracing paper Pagi-Sore Batik design is with Willem Kwan, the batikexpert I met during my stay in Indonesia. He will let me know if the design can be used for an actual Batik. If so, the women I met in Jeruk (near Lasem) will make the Batik! I'll keep you posted!

Detail of dayside "Difficult Time"

Detail of dayside "Difficult Time"

Detail of dayside "Difficult Time"

* information and text from "Batik, creating an identity" by Lee Chor Lin
** information and text from article "Little Red Riding Hood in Batik, From Batik Belanda to Batik Hokokai" by Amy Wassing in 'Vertrouwd en vreemd: ontmoetingen tussen Nederland, Indië en Indonesië"'
*** Post on my website about the work in progress, Part I

Plant a seed and let it grow

'Sunflower Seeds' installation by Ai Weiwei

Beginning of last year an artwork and the maker of it where in all the newspapers and strongly represented on different social media. First his installation at Tate, later his arrest. Yes, Ai Weiwei. His art is coming to Tilburg (NL)! I was so happy when I spotted the announcement posters of his exhibition at De Pont! Starting the 3th of March till 24th of June, a real much see!

'Sunflower Seeds' installation by Ai Weiwei

'In October 2010, Sunflower Seeds was installed at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London. The work consists of one hundred million porcelain "seeds," each individually hand-painted in the town of Jingdezhen by 1,600 Chinese artisans, and scattered over a large area of the exhibition hall. The artist was keen for visitors to walk across and roll in the work to experience and contemplate the essence of his comment on mass consumption, Chinese industry, famine and collective work. However, on 16 October, Tate Modern stopped people from walking on the exhibit due to health liability concerns over the porcelain dust. In February 2011, a 220-pound (100 kg) pile from Sunflower Seeds sold for $559,394 (well above its high estimate of $195,000) at Sotheby's in London.'
-Wikipedia

'Sunflower Seeds' installation by Ai Weiwei

"On 3 April, Ai was arrested at Peking Airport just before catching a flight to Hong Kong and his studio facilities were searched." Reading about his arrest in the paper, I was so shocked and at the same time fell in love with his Sunflower Seeds installation. What could we do, how could we help? On Facebook everyone was talking about it, it really went viral. Wauw, people do believe in Art, freedom and having an own opinion! It really awakened something.

At that time I was invited to show my performance "Dance in a ricecarpet" during Starry Night, an evening inspired by the heritage of Vincent van Gogh, in Etten-Leur. I based the design of the ricecarpet on Vincent's work, making a cycle of his life starting with growing Sunflowers and ending with grain, but I wanted also to say something about what was happening with Ai Weiwei. It felt like a bomb ready to be detonated. I decided to change the performance. We already had to make some adjustments due to the outdoor location and a cancellation by one of my musicians. We started the performance with chaos and destruction, symbolizing the powerlessness I felt and the need for change. The lentils used for Barbara's drawing in the ricecarpet where replaced by sunflowerseeds. Instead of silence, a ticking sound was made, passing time like a ticking clock, but also counting down. This one was and is for you, Ai Weiwei!