One of my most trusted sources of inspiration: a walk in the park. Today it was even more special with the golden light accompanying the end of a balmy autumn day. The trees are getting old. After a recent storm a centuries-old beech almost fell apart and needed surgery.
Read more‘The more diverse the life of the mind, the better the chances are that your inspiration will be protected’ writes Rainer Maria Rilke to Elisabeth Ephrussi in The Hare with the Amber Eyes. I think about this as I return from…
Read moreHidden from view inside a park not too far from my home is a large building site. Contrary to most construction sites around us these days the entrance gate is never closed and, apart from the builders, hardly anybody ever comes there anyway. From a distance I watch the building…
Read moreToday, in a reflective mood about the artist’s work, I’m only quoting others… ‘… the making of art has nothing at all to do with knowledge, education, craft, technique, sophistication, style, concept, subject, process, praise, the judgment of others, who you know, where you live, your age,…
Read moreA moment of pause to pick up this journal after a month has, once again, passed too quickly. I’m listening to Benjamin Biolay’s music compilation ‘Rose Kennedy’ which sounds very French and summery and fits a Sunday afternoon of making order around me. Changing the scenery in my studio is…
Read moreAt the launch of Rajasthan in London in the Fall of 2003, a journalist asks me why, being Dutch, I have not made a book about Indonesia. Although the question is meant to tease me, it is fundamental and the journalist himself is surprised by its effect. What is the…
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