Merel - Life is an Art, Art is my Life

Merel is a Belgian artist who lives and works in the centre of Antwerp since 1980 and devotes herself entirely to the practice and distribution of her art. 

Extract from Merel's book, Life is an Art, Art is my Life.

I recently had the pleasure of attending one of Merel's art exhibitions. An opening reception for  Life is an art, art is my life, at Leonhard's Gallery, here in Antwerp.

My lovely Belgian friend, Ruth, had introduced me to Merel's art and invited me along to the opening.

There we were, it was almost time to leave, and I was looking through Merel's exquisite hardcover coffee-table book while Ruth and Merel chatted.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered the page photographed below.

There was some surprise, much laughter, and conversations about how it happened.  Anyway, I really admire her work ...love it, wouldn't mind some on my wall.  One day, when I'm working again, I'll go buy a copy of her book.

As always, Ruth, thank you for another lovely adventure.

On Preferring Genova ...

A shameful admission ... perhaps, but I didn't fall in love with Verona. I don't know what I expected.  I may have accidentally watched Letters To Juliet once and you might say, that serves you right, Di. 

It was a very pretty movie set in an Italian summer.  Meanwhile I was there in September on an overcast day and I couldn't help noticing how much they had tidied things up for the movie.  And I think I was disappointed.

I really like Genova.  I like the extremes of Genova.  And it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not.  The gritty is there, right next to the pretty, in that northern Italian city located on the edge of the Ligurian Sea.

Trieste didn't seem to be pretending, not at all, during the few hours spent there.  And the local restaurant we found served food that I'm still dreaming about.  I love Rome but not like Genova.  Rome is simply something else.  Magnificent.

Acqui Terme has fabulous food and wine.  And the people were lovely but still, I preferred Genova.

Venice ... rainy, overcast, crowded.  I don't know, it didn't capture me but perhaps I need to go back there in summer, or spring.  On a sunny day anyway.  And Cinque Terre ... I'm still muttering about the crowds I found there.

Naples, that was something something else!  It was like nowhere I've ever been before.  Not like Istanbul, nor Cairo.  Not Singapore.  Naples was just its ownself.  I loved it but I imagine it's obvious by now ... not like I love Genova.

I write all of this in a bemused state of mind.  I need to pop in and visit Florence one day, and maybe drive through this Tuscan countryside everyone raves about.  Even if it only confirms what I suspect ... that Genova has everything, and more, of what I prefer.

Maybe Italy is like a pick-a-path story.  Maybe you simply find what you love best there and stay loyal to it.  I don't know but that's how it is for me.

Life Without Travel ...

The longer I'm home, the more domestic I become.  It's as if the examples laid down in my childhood just take over when I'm home too long ... ohdearlord!

The house is clean, the laundry mostly done.  There's gluten-free bread in the machine, tacos are ready to cook.  I imagine it might be the last lettuce and tomatoes I can stand to eat until next summer.  How and where do they grow these once the warm weather is done and autumn is absolutely in place? 

The tv people are coming to interview me tomorrow.  Let's see how that goes.  If it goes well, I'll share.  If not, I shall never mention it again.  It will be my third tv interview thingy and I'm hoping that I have finally learned how to self-censor.  Last time, a laughing producer said, 'Ohhhh, we had to murder some darlings!'  I was relieved that he did but concerned he was laughing.

Actually, that's over here.  They got our dates wrong.  I've been in Belgium since 2005 and Wendy, the artist, has been here for 3 years.  We had so much fun making that.  Mustn't relax tomorrow though ...

But it's a short piece and so the temptation to relax into a conversation with the interviewer may not occur in ways that make me forget the potential viewing audience.

It's getting cold ... 4 celsius this morning, rain fell most of the day.  My new book arrived.  I ordered wrong but it seems like a better starting point than Viktor e. Frankl's original 'Man's Search For Meaning'.  He expands on that book in this book.

I devoured it on the tram to the city this afternoon ... 'Existence thus may well be authentic even when it is unconscious, but man exists authentically only when he is not driven but, rather, responsible.  Authentic existence is present where a self is deciding for itself, but not where the id is driving it.'

Let's see how that unfolds over these days where I'm catching trams across the city 4 times per week.

I posted a photograph of my workspace the other day and then I decided to withdraw from my commitment to blog everyday.  I deleted the 3 posts I had written.  But then ... in a moment of brilliance, I deleted my Facebook account and voila, I am back blogging daily ... twice daily today it seems, and so I'll repost the photograph of my work space because I wouldn't mind seeing if time off from Facebook, combined with this promise to blog daily, and the fact I am beginning work on my book, doesn't inspire an evolution in my workspace over time.  I'll chart it here.  Then again, nothing may happen.

I'm struggling though.  I used to write the blog just for me now I'm more conscious of the fact I'm putting this space out there in the big new world called NaBloPoMo.  That's odd and I'm trying to get past the whole self-conscious thing.

On Gallivanting ...

There is nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything. Negative people find their walls. So never apologize for your enthusiasm. Never. Ever. Never.

Ryan Adams

I read this first thing this morning, pre-breakfast, and thought, yes.   I was reading Amy's blog.

It was a quiet yes.

One of the things I have most consistently done through time  ... and it's dancing for shadows really, is defend the way I live my life.

My ex-father-in-law was an outrageous monster sometimes ... one who made everyone laugh.  He assured me that the more he mocked the more love there was.  Eyes twinkling, he pointed out how much he must care about me.  He could be charming at times.

I can still see him there in the kitchen of 40 Tyne Street in Mosgiel.  He's gone now, that man who was planning on spending his retirement near some beach where he could fish everyday.  But his most serious and real accusation was always his ... have you been off gallivanting AGAIN?

The men I grew amongst were men who believed that a woman's place was there in the home, next to their husbands.  They also believed that a husband's place was right there next to their wives.  Kind of chained together.  And that was a problem for me because I've always wandered.

My first husband gifted me an entire month off interviewing climbers and mountaineers for a book I was writing.  If the authority figures in my young world were telling me I must stay at home, then my husbands have always told me to ignore them and wander anyway.  But maybe they knew that I had to.

'Never apologize for your enthusiasm' was timely.  I have tempered my enthusiasm over time.  It is less evident although still explodes out of me on occasions but the need for flight ...  there are no apologies in me.  If anything, I'm becoming more convinced about the beauty and the need for flight.

There is the goodbye and hello of it all.  You never stop appreciating a partner when you have a little distance sometimes.  But more than that, filled with a compulsion to fix things for people, it's better to give myself a little people-less time.  To live on toast and red wine and stand on the edge of societies I'm not part of ... there's something healing about that.

I do worry that things will collapse while I'm gone but it's so good realise that it's not all about me and that the world does go on when I wander off.  I knew it as the small child who wandered.  Perhaps I was my entire universe back then.  I didn't care so much as the teenager who disappeared with her dog and dreamed dreams that she doesn't recall now.  And I needed it on becoming a wife and a mother.

Negative people find their walls. So never apologize ...  I'll run with that I think.

On Missing Home ...

It's been an odd day here.  Some blog posts were deleted today and I decided to step away from Facebook for a bit.  I'm learning the limits of 'what else I can do while writing' and having FB available just doesn't work for me.

I've been homesick for New Zealand.  Dad's brother had a fall last week and so I spent a few evenings talking with Dad via skype.  It was sad knowing he was spending his days at the hospital, watching Uncle Brian slip away.  They couldn't save him.  The funeral was last Friday.

Uncle Brian was a butcher by trade but when I think back to my most vivid memories of him they seem to involve those backyard games of cricket played by families, and their neighbours, all over New Zealand during summer.

I think Brian might have been a Speights man back then too.  Like Dad.  I think all of them were, and I don't think he would mind the link.  That series of adverts usually makes kiwis smile some.

You will be missed, Brian Mackey.

Teaching Miss 9 To Take Photographs ...

I spent a few hours teaching Miss 9 about photography yesterday.  Just a slow introduction to the most basic ways of using an SLR.  We talked of composition, light and exposure.  We did a lot on focus.

And eventually, as per the story that follows, we went to photograph the  giraffes.  Once there I shared my passion for reflections. 

She took it on board but I love what she did.  So different to mine but that is the beauty of photography.  No one ever sees and captures the same thing.  It's always about your own individual way of seeing.

We ran this image through PicMonkey this morning, added a frame and cropped it a little.  The light and colour, the composition except for a small crop, it's all hers. It's how she saw ...

And I love it.