Portfolio
I like to vary my work. Nowadays I’m doing a lot of felting. In the spring of 2019 I started with the felt course ‘Fitt in Filz’ in Oberrot in Germany, because I think it’s important that creativity merges with craftsmanship. During this course I hope to learn all the tricks of the ‘felt’trade. In these photos I’m showing what kind of artworks I have made so far.
The wave (dance by Gabrielle Roth) rendered by felt on aluminium. It consists of the pieces Vloeiend (Flowing), Staccato, Chaos, Lyrisch (Lyrical) and Stilte (Stillness).
Years ago I followed a dance course on the rhythms of Gabrielle Roth, a motion meditation and free dance form. After that I sometimes thought about how different the five rhythms were and how everyone had an own preference for a certain rhythm. After surely twenty years it crossed my mind again and I wanted to render the rhythms artistically: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness.
In the period I was working on this, I tracked the artist of the Wave, as she called the dance cycle, and discovered she had died the same month I got the idea to make this series, at the age of 71.
Graduation artwork 5e year De plooibare vrouw (The pliable woman)
In making these artworks I definitively discovered felting.
Modern day women have to be pliable. While making these pieces, I was working in education, had a spouse who worked a lot and irregularly, had a family with three young children, and had been following the Academy in Genk for a number of years. All in all quite a lot of balls to juggle. By following the training I discovered that there is a limit to the ability to be flexible. If I wanted to finish my pieces in time, I had to take a step back on some things. My idea for de plooibare vrouw was born during that period. When you are to pliable, you don’t show off well. My biggest piece is a round object with lots of folds. The colour is on the inside and only shines through in the folds that are cut open. All following pieces had more colour and therefore less folds. From rectilinear to excessively colourful, at last I found ‘my style’, which had calmer colours and folds in all directions.
Unfinished object: Why
Graduation artwork specialization: de spanning tussen grilligheid en gestroomlijnd (the tension between craggy and streamlined)
For years I have been fascinated by craggy shapes. The poles of the Betuwelijn. Modern wind turbines. Bare branches during winter. Next to the A15 to Rotterdam is a spot where all of these shapes meet. This is the spot where my theme originated: the tension between craggy and streamlined.
For me, craggy has to do with quirkiness, a quality that’s not foreign to me and has made my life go differently.
Sometimes, life is whimsical
Sometimes streamlined.
Sometimes closed, sometimes more open.
An excess of whimsicalness blocks the flow
Leads to a stop.
These art pieces try out the balance between the two.
And shows that this balance remains unstable.
Vulnerable,
Temporary.
For me, less balance signifies closed objects. When the balance restores, there is more openness and brighter colours.
What keeps the balance?
Everybody is looking for balance in their existence.
This piece searches for this balance and barely succeeds.
For me, a journey to New-Zealand with my family a few years back was a way of maintaining that balance.
The colour yellow appears frequently in free nature over there.
Pieces at the guest artistry of de Kunstkolk
With these pieces I want to show how I’ve made some objects with relief. From nature, but also pebbles and organic shapes. I’d like to develop t his further.
