one day I'll fly away...

express yourself crescendo!!!!!

I have a cold, poor me

suffering from a small cold I made this get well postcard to remind me of all the good advices I would give other people who are down with a cold

nothing can kill my inner joy

After months of sadness because of the illness of my beloved husband I rediscovered BIG painting. It saves my life like it always did. I will never forget it again.

PASA-DOLL

my heart, a flower

all it needs is fresh water 

and care, now and then

BIG KNITTING

curiosity

paranoid

sweet memories of Italy

jardin rouge

red and pink in my garden

garden blue

blue details in my garden

SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

MESS or INSPIRATION?

These pictures show my studio. I sometimes think of it as messy and feel like I 'should'  throw a lot of stuff away. But then again and again it happens that that specific piece of cloth or that old painting  that was supposed to be a failure ends up as a part of  a new piece of art. So the mess is not just mess or garbage. It's more like  a mine that  contains all sorts of  treasures waiting to be found and to be revived in art.

POWER

BLASPHEMY OR SPRINGTIME

'this-is-not-a-beer'

This is not a glass of beer, although it might look like one. The glass contains soda and orange juice. In Holland it's almost blasphemy to drink anything else than beer out of a beerglass. Maybe water, but certainly no orange juice. Anyway, the waitress  serving this drink on the most beautiful terrace of Leiden was very friendly and sunny . So I drank 'this-is-not-a-beer' with delight on this wunderful afternoon spent in the sun doing nothing else than enjoying life.

BEHIND BARS?

there is room enough to play

FREEDOM DEMANDS COURAGE

this painting is dedicated to everyone who is somewhere in this world trying to find the courage to be free

step into your world!

a sunday in the sun

embroidery-week, day 5: INSPIRATION

The writing about my embroidery, the taking of the pictures, the reading about other textile artists on the internet. It all inspired me to start a new embroidery work yesterday. Look at some details here!

embroidery-week, day 4, association

How do I work in my embroidery? Like with almost everything I do in my art, I start doodling. This means that I embroider lines and forms without any plan at all. I find these beautiful pieces of fabric, wonderful pieces of paper, some lace from an old bra. No matter what. Sewed on a larger piece of fabric everything becomes extremely beautiful and it gets a meaning. While I work images appear in my head. The lines take a more defined form. I see a fish, a house, a face.

The process is sometimes slow, tormenting or meditative. Sometimes I become inpatient. I grab some paint or use my sewing machine and work very fast. And then there is always that moment of reflection in which I find that one small corner in the piece of work that I want to stand out using the most beautiful stitches I know.

embroidery-week, day 3, International Women Day

It is so strange. I tend to feel a bit embarrassed about telling that I do embroidery. Why? Because of the air of it being an old fashioned hobby ? Or maybe  because of the association with boring  Sunday afternoons? Or because I have to think about grandmothers in the past who said that your hands needed to be busy always, because else…  Yeah, what else?  In that way embroidery belongs to what it means to be a good girl. And who wants to be a good girl these days? Certainly not me! And certainly not on march 8^th, International Women Day!

So, this post is in celebration of the women all over the world and of embroidery being it boring, old fashioned or not!

embroidery-week, day 2

'1000 beautiful things'

I made this work while listening to Annie Lennox' song called 'a thousand beautiful things' playing it time after time in my studio. Check the link and listen if you like it at much as I do.

embroidery-week, day 1

'THREE'

In the recent past I did a lot of embroidery. I love the slow proces in which a piece of art is build stich by stich.I love the way it makes me calm and focussed. In embroidery being in a hurry is no use at all. So all you can do is be very patient and enjoy every thread, every line, every  form in every color while the time seems to stop.

In the coming week it is my intention to post a picture every day of one of my embroidery art pieces.

Enjoy it!

portrait of a photographer

dancing heart

just fun

back to an old love: the plastics

playing in the golden sunshine (detail from the bookcase)

where does my soul float

when free of my heavy chains

she finds her own way?

stop the rain

longing for springtime

I am longing for colors

for flowers, for sun

taking the colortrain