And here I am… a new year (2021) and a new studio in a new but familiar country. How does it feel is the obvious question. I don’t know. It feels…

Looking at the recent past:

Barcelona

After twenty years Barcelona had become quite worn off. I walked the same streets over and over, everything looked grey. I had met too few people who challenged or inspired me. At first sight I thought I had, but many have disappeared without leaving a trace or died. The harvest was maybe too meager.

This may be due to the passing of years. I live more introverted, am less open to others now then when I was in my thirties.

The virus hit and I stumbled. Already I had lived on the edge for a long, long time and now I saw this big black hole. I had seen many around the corner before, but this one grew bigger by the day. At first I thought I could fill it, but the hole was too flexible. It did not make me sleep well. How much longer will this virus mess up people’s lives?

The best idea was to move for good. On to greener pastures… a surrounding where I could dedicate more time to painting and less to trifle. If everything here is better, I cannot say for sure. Time will tell.

move from Spain to the Netherlands.

How many times have I changed home? I have lost count. For sure more than twenty times. A high number like that is easy to achieve if you move between five and seven times in one year. This happened to me in Florence.

Ok, here an approximate overview larded with some memories... 

The first three years of my life I lived in the Sarphatistraat in Amsterdam. I don’t remember anything of that house. I have some photos and when I look at them I see strangers in a strange room.

Seeing my mother shocks me. I am only three years in age from her passing away. I see a young woman, but a woman that survived a world war. A happy mother letting her son touch the heart of a flower.

Sarphatistraat, Amsterdam.

To mention is the phrase from ‘De Uitvreter’ by Nescio: ‘Apart from the man that found the Sarphatistraat the most beautiful one of Europe, I never met a stranger guy than the freeloader.’ Is this street really as beautiful? For me it has a mysterious charm because of the lack of memories. 

We moved to the Simon Stevinstraat, to a bigger house.

Simon Stevinstraat, Amsterdam.

This is the house of my youth and adolescence. Early memories are that I cannot fall asleep. First due to the strange new environment, later because of my ‘growth convulsions’. I mentioned them in my text ‘IN SEARCH OF A STYLE: HANDS, MONUMANTALITY AND CONSOLIDATION, 1993-1999.’ It is also the house from where out I took the first flimsy steps towards the other sex.

A funny memory: the street is situated just behind the Ringvaart (canal with a dike along). On the dike many dogs were walked. My grandfather (he lived in the apartment below us) suffered from fear of contamination. I was not allowed to talk; I had to keep my mouth shut and breath through my noise so the bacteria couldn’t enter my body. How would he have lived under the threat of covid?

in the garden with granddad.

I went to live on my own on the Marnixkade at the age of seventeen. Accepted at the Rietveld Art Academy, I felt quite somebody. An artist in the making living in the ‘most important city of Europe’…

Marnixkade, Amsterdam.

About this apartment there is little to tell. Or it should be about the filthy flaxen white woolen carpet. Horror… and then to think I hate woolen sweaters. For years I had a cold during the whole winter because I refused to wear them. 

Half way the academy years I moved to the Van Ostadestraat 187.

Van Ostadestraat, Amsterdam.

This is the address where I lived in Amsterdam the longest.

In the autumn of 1980 I left for Florence. I had the diploma (an artist by diploma?) and won a scholarship for a year. 

My first address was a pension with the suitable name ‘La Mia Casa’. It was on the square next to the beautiful Santa Maria Novella church.

Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

The owner had the looks of Dracula but was actually a very caring person. When one night I was too late to get back to the pension and slept outdoors, he sat worried sick on a bench next to the entrance and waited and waited and waited... I had been unable to call him; in all of Florence there was no ‘gettone’ (telephone coin) to be found. That week they went up in price so nobody sold them.

From there I moved between five and seven times in that year. It was my first time away from my home ground. What did I pretend, being an upcoming genius from the ‘most important city in Europe’? I landed hard on my knees. A very good lesson in modesty, I recommend everybody a similar experience.

My luck was that in the mornings I could paint in Gianni’s studio (click on his name to go to his site). Often has he saved me in that period. And he is to blame for my appetite for the opera. He had many cassettes to which I listened while working.

paintings made in Gianni’s studio.

Twice I more or less fled from the place where I stayed. Once because the girl that let me a room was addicted to barbiturates. Her boy friend studied medicine... she was a manipulative phantom. A sick mind in a beautiful body.

I also fled from a house because the other inmates had built up an astronomical phone bill they didn’t feel like paying. The dial of the phone was a locked. They had taken off lock and dial and phoned abroad to their friends and family for months. They ran. I was the last to escape… All this happened in the first year.

I stayed another two.

First in the hills of Villamagna. It was a beautiful country house, the winter was cold and Terenzio didn’t arrive… he was the one who could make the heaters work but hid at his parent’s house in Sardinia waiting for the spring. Consequently Giovanni and I moved back into town. Cinzia gave us the keys of the apartment of Toshaki. He was in Japan and was not allowed to know. This time it was not I; it was Giovanni who fled. He had prepared apples in the oven, where Toshaki had hidden his lenses. When I came in the room it was filled with floating black plastic worms. What Cinzia told Toshaki I don’t know. A couple of weeks later I found another place.

I found a room in via Fra Jacopo Passavanti, in the apartment of Daniela. She is probably the laziest person I ever met. A gigantic bed dominated her room, the bed in which she practically lived.

Of that address I remember two incidents. On a summers day I heard the same shouting from out of many houses. Everybody had the television on. A boy had fallen into a well and had to be saved. The saviors made a lot of turmoil, but in spite of a contortionist that went down and all the noise above the well, the boy died. If the boy would have been saved in the Netherlands I don’t know. In those days I was convinced he would have, nowadays I am cured from that chauvinism.

And there is the beautiful story about the dredged up heads of Modigliani. This story has to flow, the time period is wrong, so I push it back a little further in time.

The rumor went that Modigliani had offered several sculptures of heads for sale to the city. The city hall of Livorno was not interested so Modigliani had thrown them in the canal.

To commemorate his birth a hundred years before an exhibition was organized. And the organizers dredged the canal in search of the sculptures. Amazingly they found four or five of them. All the famous art critics and art popes declared them authentic.

A couple of days later a group of young men declared to be the makers. They had felt pity for the organizers so they had thrown the newly (and hastily) made sculptures in the water. To prove they were the creators they made another on live television.

I have seen the bookshop windows with the catalogues… and a couple of days later the commercial of Black and Decker drills for your own genuine Modigliani’s… ever since Modigliani (click on the name to go to the video about this joke) is not that much of a genius for me anymore… 

From Daniela I went to Borgo Allegri. I could live there because Maurizio had to do military service. I painted in the huge living room of Paolo, Sandro and Francesca in via Monte Oliveto. Francesca’s boyfriend was Sasà. Sasà studied architecture and lived in Naples. Often he came to stay.

Sasà was a very nice guy, very generous. Always in for a chat, say a thorough discussion. Uncountable times I wished him a pleasant journey back to Naples and here’s the reason why:

Upon arriving in the studio, he’d surprise me with a coffee. We’d go over all I had painted, what it was about, where it was moving to and why. When I finally had gently moved him into the corridor, I had to promise to participate at lunchtime. After the lunch there was a very good train connection to Naples; one cannot travel on an empty stomach.

So after having eaten his desert he had to run and that as impossible. There was Francesca and he needed a little siesta to digest. Luckily there was a good connection at about six o’clock. He would hop on that one. When I left, he didn’t come to say goodbye.

The next morning he’d explain that it was not very wise to arrive in Naples at night. No, better to take the train at eleven; no harm done, just half a day delay. And again I had lunch with him…

Sasà showed me around Naples. It was an amazing trip. Unfortunately I lost his address and phone number. 

two paintings made in the salon of Paolo, Sandro en Francesca and a photo of Borgo Allegri, Florence.

There is always something happening in Italy. One morning I was unable to have my cappuccino and brioche in the bar around the corner. The bar was full of exited people. Twenty meters from my house a painting of Maria had burst into tears. The street was packed. A huge queue stood waiting for the door. The official church forbid priests to go and see. A week later I could have my usual breakfast, Maria never shed a tear since. 

In 1983 my stay in Italy ended. The art program of the Netherlands persuaded me to go back home (as now the favorable social climate?).

I had sublet my apartment so I could move back to the old place. I found a studio in Fagelstraat. Quite impossible nowadays, a cheap apartment and studio in Amsterdam!

studio in the Fagelstraat, Amsterdam.

The circle of friends changed drastically after the Italian years. From before only a handful remained. The nucleus of my present circle mainly consists of people I met after Italy and a stubborn rest of Italians.

During the show at Jaski I met Kim. Head over heals in love I temerariously left for New York. We managed to move three times in one and a half year. From Chelsea to East Village to Tribeca.

New York: Manhattan and Williamsburg.

Remarkable memory: leaving the house on Second Avenue in the morning a guy offers me a revolver for sale. Is this America? He’s a total stranger, what did he think? What did I look like? That I wanted to clip somebody? I know it to be easy to buy a gun, but still…

It crossed my mind that this could be a ‘dirty’ weapon; a weapon with which somebody was killed. A romantic thought. I answered that I didn’t need it that day.

I also was witness to an authentic extortion scene in Little Italy. A mafia boss in a double-breasted suit, ray ban sunglasses on his nose accompanied by a body builder and an old man with a note pad in his hand. They had a ‘pleasant chat’ with the shop owner. I was there to buy olive oil and only after a couple of minutes I realized it happened for real, so I couldn’t shamelessly watch. 

One of the big lessons learned there was that you can live as luxurious and exiting as you want, but if you are not happy, it is time to leave. Better to be ‘stupidly happy in the Dapperstraat’ than unhappy on Second Avenue.

Reason for my departure: the relation went bad and I couldn’t get anything done. I am an impossible creature. So back to the Van Ostadestraat… I stayed another ten years. 

And then there was Spain. To blame was another woman (will I ever learn?). I had found the ultimate love of my life; I had BIG plans. To get married and start a family! Via Vilanova y la Geltrù we moved to Barcelona, then still a city in full speed development. First we lived next to the bullfight arena, which I frequently visited, and then next to the Boqueria market.

house in the Raval, near the Boqueria, Barcelona.

In the Poble Nou neighborhood I found a beautiful studio. That part of town was half neglected and under construction. There were many places for artists available. My studio was in an old textile factory called ‘La Escosesa'.

artists and other sort of species.

In the building there were more than twenty studios, populated by artists and would be artists. With some I got along, others I would have gladly turned into minced meat.

'La Escosesa', Poble Nou.

In that studio I made the works for the new church 'Gesù Redentore', in Modena, Italy. To see the documentary click on the image below.

working for the Gesù Redentore.

Why didn’t I stay in that studio? First reason was that one of the artists permanently kept two crazy fighting dogs in his place. To keep thieves away… but sometimes these dogs escaped and attacked everybody, thieves or not. When entering the terrain I had a pepper-spray in my hand.

After a while the city hall had plans with the neighborhood and wanted to throw us out. We set up a foundation to take action. This meant endless reunions. I have no talent for political games. Gala was still a baby and I needed to work on the stuff for the church. To talk for hours about nothing was torture.

It got quite out of hand. One of the members of the board ran away with the money. With a bleeding heart I looked for a new place.

But first let’s mention our beautiful country house. It was a loose standing house with little garden in the beach town Garraf, half an hour from Barcelona. We moved there because of the noise produced in front of our house. During the weekends there was a market with a life disk jockey playing ‘music’ quite loud, starting at eleven in the morning till one at night. To have a normal talk in the house was difficult. In Spain noise is often not considered an issue, the police did nothing.

the 'Casa del Sol', Garraf.

The move was to paradise. On Sundays I read the newspaper in my hammock in the garden. During the weekend cars circled around me searching for a non-existing parking place.

I didn’t show my face on the beach; too many people and sand that gets in between everything.

Gala was made Garraf, but the marriage was going down hill.

We moved back to town for the lack of school, doctor and shops. There, and after more trouble I went to live in my studio. The studio I found after the one in the 'Escosesa'.

Important about this place is that for Gala it was the most beautiful one where we lived till now.

Hospitalet 1.

It was one space. When she slept at my studio, I pulled a bed on wheels from under mine. Why I never understood, but we were attacked by millions of mosquitos at night. So on every corner of the bed I put broomsticks and over them I threw a mosquito net. Before going to sleep we would drive around the studio. I put a big canvas between her bed and my desk, so she’d be in the dark.

It was noise pollution (again) that drove me away. On the floor right above my bed there was a complete sound installation for a rock band. Regularly four old and tired of life men played horrible bad and out of tune blues very, very loud till three in the morning.

Hospitalet 2.

I returned to the center of Barcelona. At least ten years I lived in the Born. The apartment was beautiful, the neighborhood very pleasant. There is the market, the best ice-cream shop nearby, around the corner you find the cutest square of Barcelona, for nice smells the Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella (discovered the main-shop of this pharmacy living in 'La Mia Casa') is at walking distance, the Santa Maria del Mar is the most beautiful gothic church of Catalonia, you find the best croissants at Hoffman... what more can you grave for.

Carrer del Comerç, Barcelona.

On two minutes walk lays the Ciutadella Park. There I found the first flowers to paint (click on the grey word 'flowers' to go to one of the first painted, found in that park).

oil sketch of the fountain in the park.

I saw the city turn into a cheap amusement park. Treaded on by the innumerous tourists, all taking a selfie in front of the most miserable monument of folkloristic architecture. The Sagrada Familia is one of the saddest constructions I know. Poor Gaudì, he deserves better. They are still building, disfiguring it. All in the name of the genius… I show no photo, it hurts the eye.

In the center all has become expensive and often the food is bad. In every street there are three 'Italian' ice-cream shops. The only remedy (if you want to live in Barcelona) is to move to Sants or Nou Barris if you don’t know your way around. 

It is still too early to talk about the last ten years. In my head memories fight against each other, nice and less nice ones. I never felt at home in the last place, this added up to my desire to leave.

In the Netherlands I will miss the Santa Caterina market (de fishmonger!), the always-beautiful weather and the abundance of light.

my fishmonger on the marker, his stand NEVER STANK!!!

And now I am here… I am ready for it! I have hope, I can paint and I understand better what moves around me. I am not a nationalist, not a proud Dutchman. I have seen too much madness (also from other nationalists) to fall for that. Every place, every crowd of people has its good and less good characteristics. But here all sounds more familiar, so all moves smoother.

studio in the Netherlands.

I feel rich. I don’t need to go anywhere; my head is overflowing. But how long I can remain here…

Of course, if I win the lottery, I will immediately move to Italy. But that Italy that doesn’t exist anymore… the place of the half spaghetti portions, when the shop is closed you go around the back, the dealing on the market... And I am not anymore the guy that at night glues the posters of Gianni’s exhibition on the walls together with him and Micolash. And then empty a fiasco Chianti sitting at the kitchen-table at Micolash’.

My shared theory (stolen from Schopenhauer) is in that life that consists of boredom and suffering with the occasional high, dreams make it less a burden.

I have always loathed (and maybe still do) the locals. The grass on the other side of the hill… nonsense of course. But it is important to find a not so uncomfortable place to live and cherish your dreams. In my case: Venice but then in another time period.

Venice.

If you ever see me contemplating along a canal in Amsterdam, let me be. Or I jump in or I keep on daydreaming…

Netherlands, January 2021.