Looking back for just a moment

'To another rose fingered dawn' 40x36", oil/alkyd/cold wax/linen

This time, when another year comes to an end, traditionally is a time to look back on the past year and glance ahead towards the new. What's coming in the new year will be a surprise, as always, but what lies behind we can evaluate.
Looking back I'm quite happy about my production and the quality of it. After I started experimenting with a, for me, new medium, replacing the toxinous rectified turpentine I used to work with with a less toxic mix of cold wax, alkyd and odorless mineral spirits, this year I finally felt like I reached the point that I know how to work with it. Sometimes it does take a long time to figure out the exact mix that gives the right amount of gloss and the right feel in the brush work. So I'm happy about that!

And then there was the artist residency in Spain from which I returned with a whole lot of work and inspiration as well as a renewed grip on where I want to go with my work.

I'm ending this year with one of the larger paintings that I finished during these last months, titled: 'To another rose fingered dawn' a title that not only refers to the moment of day that inspired it but also to a painting by Willem Dekooning from the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, that is my favorite Dekooning painting. I'm not quite sure what the full title of that painting was, something like 'Rose fingered dawn at .... and then the name of a Long Island beach. Dekooning was born in Rotterdam, like I am, and he went to art school there. Actually, the school is now called the Willem Dekooning Institute.

After I read the biography on Dekooning: Willem Dekooning, an American Master, I recognized that parts of the philosophy that characterized the Rotterdam art school in his days were still in some form present in my days (the 70's) It had a department for house painters for the longest time, where marbling, faux wood finishes and painting grisailles were taught. Letter drawing, for signs, was taught too and even I still had to learn how to write with a calligraphy pen there! Hard to imagine that barely a decade later all of that was considered outdated and replaced by computer design.

Another funny story from the Dekooning biography was that his friends recalled how he always on Fridays would wash the floor of his New York studio, which resulted in giving the wood a gray driftwood quality. Weird enough I too have this habit and when I told my studio neighbour about this similarity my floor washing was from then on dubbed : my Dekooning moment.