Living Iron is in production. My bookbinder’s heart is excited: ten years after A Resistible Force I am going from the printing press to the binder’s workshop. The scale and speed of industrial book manufacture cannot be compared to…
Read moreToday I realised once more how any walk clears my head and how little one needs to feel fed. I went out with my faithful companion, the eye of my mobile phone, and before I knew it I had spent almost an hour just watching the bark of a few trees from close…
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 moreThe colour red, in stark contrast with last week’s grey-and-whites, has unexpectedly led me this week to an inspiring series of lectures by scientist Richard Feynman. It began with pictures of what looked like a flow of lava but appears to be a rare natural spring phenomenon…
Read moreFollowing my previous blog post, one of my other favourite artists is Roland Roure. He may be less famous than Alexander Calder, but he is equally fond of wire, ‘junk’ and, most important: play. His artwork touches us because its source is genuine. He plays out of…
Read moreWillpower does far more for us than to support achievements other people expect from us. We need it to listen to our deepest voice without being distracted. Making space for ourselves needs confidence and determination. Alan Watts describes its essence in his essay on…
Read moreA rare sight in The Netherlands : half hidden behind a farmhouse, a crumbling hay barn. This country is generally so clean and organised that most people here would be shocked by my enthusiasm, of course, and this shed is certainly becoming dangerous to use. But my heart made a…
Read moreThis summer I see rusty colours wherever I go. It is the theme of my daily (pre)occupation. Large steel tubes for a North Sea wind turbine Recently, a short stay on the beach… Fishing gear on a…
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 moreThere is a park not far from where we live, where I walk almost every day. It surrounds an elegant country house which has now become offices without losing too much of its charm, and the variety of trees it harbours shows the vision of the 19th century landscape architect…
Read moreSome years ago five images from my Rajasthan pages were selected for a – now discontinued – poster called Samples and a series of postcards sold by IKEA. I took the picture one early morning in Jodhpur when the renowned dyer Tayeb…
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…
Read moreAfter the launch of Rajasthan I returned to India to finally show my friends what I had been doing. The village of Rohet in the Jodhpur region and its pleasant fort had been my base for longer periods of time. I had even become affectionately known as ‘Pollimadam’ and…
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