succesful weekend

The KunstTour-weekend is over and now I'm exhausted, but it was great! I did not have such high expectations, but there were so many people and I had so many conversations and discussions with visitors and artists. The organisation wants the artists to be there to talk about their work and stuff, so I did. That is why I'm so tired: I spend to whole weekend there! The response to my work was also very good (even if it was hanging on these small walls, which I don't like very much, but it worked out) and it was so nice to talk to so many differrent people. I even met Helmi, who came to see my work, what blog can do! Maybe I'll post something more about it this week, when I can think again!

every then and now part 2

I finished the other two matresses I told you about in this post. I'm happy with the result and I'll show them in Maastricht during the KunstTour. Tonight is the opening and I'm a little bit nervous!

Art Tour

From Friday May 27 to Sunday May 29 you can enjoy contemporary art, design, sound and new media art forms in and surrounding the city of Maastricht during the KunstTour (ArtTour) 2011. More than 200 artists will exhibit their work across 60 locations, such as artistic breeding grounds, galleries, studios and art institutions.

The theme of the twelfth ArtTour edition is ‘Language, Sound and Art‘: The borders between poetry, painting and writing fade and disappear when painting poets and writing painters join their creative forces. From Gibberish to Esperanto, my mouth still speaks the tongue of my mother.

So if you live nearby and you have nothing else to do next weekend, it would be nice if you could visit Maastricht. I will probably be there mself so maybe I can meet some of you! You can find my work in the central location:  De Eiffel (Boschstraat 24). Here, the Art Performance Night, the Hermine van Bers award, the Gulpener Puurzaam audience-choice award, the Debate Without an End #3 and the exhibition Neue Positionen take place.

My first attempt to hang the "pippi" portraits ( I will finish hanging them this week):

the wonders of my world

I've been tagged by Barbara, owner of the wonderful blog Barbara's dogs and colors, to write seven things about myself. Well, that was a shock but here we go! (hope you still like me afterwards!)


*The first thing has to do with the drawing: say "hi" to my oldest stuffed animal. I got it when I was a baby and I still adore it! It's a sheep, which brings me to the second thing:


* I collect sheep.... I don't know if it has anything to do  with the stuffed animal, but I love sheep and anything that has to do with them....


*I'm a vegetarian for about 14 years.


*I'm allergic to nuts, I get really sick and I have to go to the hospital when I eat them. I go crazy when I think there was a piece in my food. I try to hide my fear  for the people around me.


*I wanted to become a professional dancer, but at the age of sixteen I broke something in my knee and my career as a dancer was over.


*I  work for the post office and bring people their mail to earn some money besides selling my art-work, which is really my job.  But it has one good thing to bring the mail: I have a really good condition!


*I have a crush on the actor John Malkovich ;-)


That's it, hope you enjoyed it and I tag the wonderful Lela and Annton.

every then and now

Sometimes new ideas can be so easy. You don't have to search for them or stay up all night, trying to come up with something great. It doesn't happen very often that an idea is just there, in your head, and you don't have to think it over, everything is just right about it. I'm working for the exhibition that is coming up and I thought about the mattress of an old bed that is still lying in the attic. And I realized that it has the same pattern that I create in the background for my paintings. The fabric of the mattress is almost the same! It's a great feeling when somthing like this happens, it creates so much new energy. Besides this mattress I have another two, they are all 100 x 65 x 20 cm, so small ones and now I'm making painted objects out of them.
And the funny thing is: last year I wanted to clean the attic and throw stuff away and I'm so glad I was to lazy!

"deliverance at last"

"deliverance at last" are the words on the cover of the magazine which Schunck* published on the occasion of the exhibition "Niki de Saint Phalle: Outside-In". I told you all about the exhibion in this post and that they're working on a "Niki zine" (from magazine...), and looking for pictures of  people who are inspired by her work in this one. And now the Nikizine is ready and they published my tattoo! I'm very happy with it, to be connected to her work and on a project like this. I want to share a part of the text about art, which I found very powerful:

"What makes the work of the artists who have been sidelined as "outsiders" so interesting and topical is that it indirectly reflects the way we deal with critical, nonconformist voices. As self-affirmed "insiders", we are all too happy to label those who think differently as "outsiders" in order to prevent our own convictions being placed in perspective, our fixed view of the world becoming unsettled and our carefully-constructed identity being placed in doubt."

from my window view

And now for something completely different (to speak with Monty Pyhton, I watched some of their sketches this weekend), these are some pictures of my garden. I think Mano asked me already 2 or 3 times to post some pictures of it, so here they are! Because the garden is so big, if I start walking it goes down for 150 to 200 meters, I'll post the first pictuers today and next week the second part and I guess there will be a part three as well!

how the birds will sing

Since we live in this house and we have this big garden, I noticed the birds and a started to feed them. Now I do that every morning at 6 different places.... a lot of work, haha! And now I feel really responsible since I red that it's also important to feed them in the spring, because they build their nests and the little ones are born and if you feed hem, they have less work... So now they wait for me in the winter, sping, summer and autumn! There're now so many of them, it becomes a paradise for birds and I think they bring even more friends...

red hot chili pepper-girl

The season of growing your own vegetables has began! I grow my own tomato's, peppers, cucumbers, salad, strawberry's, rhubarb, herbs and hot chili's peppers. I still have a lot of peppers left from last year. They're hanging in my kitchen, I dry them. And we just finished the last tomato's from last year. So I made a sculpture for in the kitchen, the chili's need a queen! She's about 75 cm and I used one of my old barbie dolls. Now I'm working on a tomato-girl.