extraneous work (vii): storing art, transporting art, restoring art

most people don't stop to consider that many sculptures are fragile, and that the storage and transport of such sculptures is not trivial. even during shows it happens that sculptures get damaged by --- i have no suitable adjective --- visitors. over the past 32 years, strangely enough i've observed that storage is the hardest. because no storage is permanent (for me, with limited funds), which means that sculptures need to be disassembled, repacked and transported... and this is where the loss of components and damage hazard creeps in. i have lost around 10 sculptures completely, in this way. and about the same number of sculptures has been damaged to the point where serious restoration was necessary.

storing --> restoring

as an example of fragile sculptures consider:


man woman relation (20 x 15 x 15 cm, own work, 2005)


the slow triumph of death (own work, 2010-2011, 30 x 15 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

but also the ceramic sculptures tend to be fragile and accident-prone. so one learns how to disassemble, reassemble and package sculptures. and one learns how to restore. restoring paintings and drawings actually seems to have become a fruitful artistic sideline for me! (see the series on finishing old work). so then the word `extraneous' must be dropped. but it was meant to be a bit provocative in the first place, since i think all these endeavours are fruitful, and in some sense related. just wanted to share something of all the hidden aspects of being an artist.


xerophyte (26 x 30 cm, own work, 1994-2013, click on the image for an enlargement)

the unfinished original of the above drawing had completely faded, due to my using iodine as ink, until only the outline of the original was visible. now the original was left unfinished since i did not know how to proceed with it. restoring always means reconsidering, and this time i chose a simple background to better focus on the plant and its supporting table itself.

i like to draw plants, but it demands some patience...all those leaves (mother nature at all times remains the greatest artist).i can't resist another drawing of a xerophyte, since also in this drawing the supporting table plays a major role:


xerophyte ii (20 x 30 cm, own work, 2010, click on the image for an enlargement)

Recuerdos de Tenerife (paintings series of the Canary Islands)

recuerdos de tenerife (own work, 2013, 60 x 80 cm, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, click on the image for an enlargement)

The Canary Islands continue to inspire me. Last February we visited Tenerife, and with a feeling of nostalgia I painted the above. Yes, the title borrows of course from the incomparable guitar piece `Recuerdos de la Alhambra' composed by Francisco Tárrega.

Another motivating factor was my wish to paint the beauty of `simple' foliage. I'm always enthralled by plants, and can look at them for hours and hours. An artist is truly insignificant when it comes to creating beauty, for nature is the true master, I feel.

again drawings (6): pine valley in painstaking line strokes

pine valley (own work, 2007, 21 x 30 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)


pine valley (detail 6.7 x 9 cm, click on the image for an enlargement)

one reason for adding the detail: it might give an inkling how many lines this one drawing took to complete. i find it interesting to note that this level of detailing inevitably leads to image files which are significantly harder to compress than average photgraphs. in the case of this drawing, the compressed .jpeg file is about 10 times as large as when compressing a normal photograph...showing how much information is packed in such a drawing.

oh, and i should add that the file (around 1.2 Mb) still doesn't do the real drawing much justice.

more digital stuff, mostly mildly photoshopped pictures (don't expect elaborate digital art)

cinema (own work 2008-2010, click on the image for an enlargement)


dark sky, polder (own work 2010, click on the image for an enlargement)


liège 1985 (own work 2008, click on the image for an enlargement)


still life with kiwi (own work 2008-2010, click on the image for an enlargement)

&&&&&&

anyway, one point is: without photoshop i would never have been able to make these pictures. the analog technology necessary for producing anything remotely resembling these pictures is way above my head. i'm not saying they are so great or anything, but photoshop at least has opened a world of photography for me, that was quite closed to me before.

and taking pictures, especially of landscape and nature, is also an inspiring way to prepare visually for painting and drawing.

[to be continued]

hard-won beauty, direct beauty, conceptual beauty

so, let's forget a moment about conceptual art...even though all art in a way is conceptual imnsho (in my not so humble opinion), which i'll comment on later.

more interesting perhaps to talk about hard-won beauty.

why not simply beauty, why this `hard-won' adjective?

to me, it is what distinguishes great art. when i'm walking in the forest, i come across all sorts of plants and trees which i find utterly beautiful and amazing. daily, i see people whom i consider very beautiful, each in their own way. i find many beautiful wonders in this world, all created by nature. zebras, swans, snakes, you name it. the sea, the forest, rolling grassy hills, the sun, the stars,...

and i would not trade this type of direct beauty for all of the world's greatest art works. but still, these (what i consider great) art works do have something special, something that their makers have worked extremely hard for, a different type of beauty...perhaps i should call it conceptual beauty, because these art works refer to our very deepest concept of beauty.

and other emotions as well.

anyway, here below a most remarkable painting which i consider to fulfill all of the above:


salvador dalí, christ of st. john of the cross (click on the image for an enlargement).

perhaps i will discuss it a little bit in the next post.

st francis

st francis at night, 2008

i've been drawing st francis a number of times in the past years. my reason for this is not religious - to me spirituality (human compassion, kindness, love) needs no religion and is often confined by it. i'm specifically touched by the idea that st francis loved animals so much, that they came unto him soft of heart and without fear.

to me the science fiction idea of `gaia' - a world where all living beings are one, and also (on some level) aware of this oneness - appeals as high ideal for which we could strive on earth.

but is it so high as to be a tower of babel? this seems very likely, especially considering what people are willing to do to animals not even out of misunderstanding or malice, but simply out of economic gain. i believe that anything we do to animals is something we will also be willing to do to humans if the circumstances are just a little tight.

i'm not saying that we are automatically responsible for solving the moral problems that nature faces us with once we start looking at animals as fellow creatures(cruelty, survivalist savagery, etc.). but i think we can lift ourselves to a level where at least the heartless human exploitation of animals which are obviously a lot like us in feeling and even understanding is abandoned.

responsibility for the innate cruelty of nature...this is where i think human understanding is vastly too limited. this is where i can understand people needing a concept of things which are way over their head. too bad these concepts to me often look as if turned into a fairytale. but perhaps we all need fairytales to make our lives meaningful.

st francis, 2003