Back to painting

After all the busy weeks preparing the opening of the show with Rebecca Crowell's paintings, it was now time to go back to painting. After all, this is also my studio, not only a gallery.
The tables that served as a wine bar were put back to working positions, the big easel was rolled back in, the palette table was allowed back in from it's hiding place and when the pots with turps were opened and the familiar fragrance filled the studio I was back on track again.

What a luxury to paint in a gallery! I'm surrounded by Rebecca's softly glowing paintings and whenever I allow myself a tea and/or contemplation break there is all this art to look at. It was raining all day yesterday and cold and unfortunately that meant that no visitors stopped by.

Having been distracted by all the show related work it took me some time to decide on what paintings to continue, I had several in progress. Wednesday I worked on a large abstracted painting, yesterday I took out the two landscapes that were inspired by the landscape near the Mississippi valley in Wisconsin where I spent several wonderful weekends last summer. I loved the green grasslands on the planes there, grass waving in the wind under warm summery clouds. These two paintings depict a moment where first you see only a small triangle of a yellow field pop up, coming closer it unfolds into a full size triangle.
When I left yesterday it felt like they were done, let's see what they tell me today when I come in....

What an opening!

Looking back at Friday night's opening of Rebecca Crowell's show I can only be pleased, what a terrific turnout we had! People kept coming in till far after closing time - lively art conversations were going on all around and we had a lot of fun also.

Of course we could not have hoped for better weather, it was great to be on the go from gallery to gallery without mittens, hats and umbrella's. It looked like a lot of new people found their way to our building. Let's hope they'll spread the word.

For all of those who could not make it this weekend, the show runs through May 19 in Polderland Gallery, open Thursdays-Saturdays from 12 pm - 5 pm.

Almost Opening Time!

It's almost done, all the paintings are hanging, clutter has been removed, floor sweeped, wine chilled, a couple more hours and we are ready to open the doors on Rebecca's show.

Of course there are a few more things we need to take care of, put the inlay on the sandwich board that goes outside, glue the letters of the new name on the door but I trust we'll get it done in time.

Here are a few installation views that will give you an idea of how things are looking. I love how the off-black floors work, especially when the sun comes in and paints a graphic design of light and shadow.

A shady deal?

It has been a while since my last blog entry, mainly because I was extremely busy preparing the upcoming show of Rebecca Crowell's work in my gallery (Polderland Gallery).

The show will open next Friday, April 20, and runs through May 19.

First there were the press kits to get ready, then the invitations and posters - and getting them out of course and then the famous one thing leads to another projects. After running a gallery in part of my studio for about two years I felt I could use some help in marketing the gallery, and asked help from the talented Linsey Sieger. As an 'artist run' gallery I have to do without an advertising budget and I asked her for some ideas on how to get the name out. One of her suggestions was to change the name from MB Gallery into something that would resound my being Dutch and that is how I came up with Polderland Gallery. There is probably nothing more uniquely Dutch as a polder, a piece of land won on the water by putting up a dike and then milling the land dry. The new land is consequently below the water level. This is how the former Zuiderzee (South Sea) became the location for towns such as Emmeloord and Almere and what was left of the former Zuiderzee now is Ijsselmeer (Ijssellake). When thinking of polderland I see a (very) flat landscape with a big sky in my minds eye.

Having decided on the new name I needed to remove the slightly oriental looking red logo from my black door - painted the door gray (we have a lot of overcast in Holland) and ordered new signs. Now... a gray door would definetely look better against a shiny black floor I felt. Although I've always loved the look of the old wood floors in my studio, the gallery part of the floor had a strange broad strip of some tar like filler on it and made that part look narrower as it was. For a long time I had been toying with the idea of a black floor and one of the first things that triggered it was my visit many years ago, to the studio's in the 'Wilhelmina Gasthuis' in Amsterdam, an old hospital turned studio/living spaces for artists, where one of the studio's I visited had this beautiful black floor, actually everything in this studio was white, black or gray, and it made such an impression on me that I promised myself that if I'd ever have an old wood floor in my studio I would paint it black. So here you have it, many hours on hands and knees later my wish became reality!

Then Rebecca's work had to get here too of course, so that was the next project to tackle. As she lives on the other side of the state we agreed to meet halfway in Madison and trade loads. It was a bit like on of those shady parking lot deals, you know: the kind that cannot bear the light of day, but fortunately the sun was out brightly so we did not attract any suspicion at all.

By now the paintings are all unpacked, unveiling their superior beauty, the first five already on the wall, many more to go - I've got my work cut out for me till Friday 9.30 pm!

PS Professional packing is an art in itself, see photograph on top on the creative use of spacers!