BAD BREATH AND PIGMAN'S NEW PURPLE SHOES

Time flies, my first little book was published in 1995. Nostalgia! I translated the text myself (and corrected or changed here and there), so it might also be funny in another way. Some things in the text might not be clear anymore. Hope there is still enough to laugh about…

‘We proudly present my first book, ‘Bad Breath and Pigmans New Purple Shoes’, a selection of sketches made between August 1990 and October 1994. Sketches that live next to my work, they let the mind wander and Gods water stream over his acres. They are of no use for me - the needy card players in the bar or the king who mounted his pig of which his people say it is a horse. They live in a totally different world of the one where green sometimes should seem red or flat the deepest deep. With them no painting can be saved. Merrily they dance between the ‘Fallen Angels’ on the grass. The boy has sawed the rainbow into pieces and now it runs away. I run after it, with my solicitation letter in my hand. I want to become postman on Stromboli… Let the arts fulfill their promises by themselves. Let everybody know that we can lead past pink horizons to greener pastures. Time has come for me to act against the disasters of a penniless old age. The artist no longer is a Saint John the Baptist; one you keep in a shed in the back of your garden. It is either you are a succes, or you are not an artist. Let it be I thought about Schoonhoven, there is no way of being original anymore. More probable it was the memory of the holidays in 1988, with my Italian beauty on Stromboli, that made me write the solicitation letter for postman. Life can be simple. Now I see myself with my splendid cap and bag filled with blue envelopes sailing out to Ginostra. Dark clouds appeared on the horizon and the volcano is dangerously smoking. The sea is of indigo blue or is it ultramarine and the bow is of a thin yellow. Will I make it this time? Many trips were made; the population of Ginostra awaits my arrival. I am their redeemer with the somewhat unsteady course. Too many bottles of Donnafugata, to many nights singing Napolitan songs washed away with grappa.

Here I bring salvation, there I bring sorrow; my bag seems bottomless. Poor Ginostrans; aren’t they my ignorant worshippers, their eyes filled with tears. They adore me. I am their modern Hermes with the outboard engines on my ankles instead of wings. Of course I did not forget my fishing rod. The sea is filled with tuna and sward fish. At night, sitting by the fire, sardines on a stick, I recall days of endless drinking, sex and drugs in the ‘Kring’. Those were the days. I speak of anything but these sketches or the heavy work behind the easel. The work speaks for itself, if you touch it, you get dirty fingers and you smear the art. Instead I talk about my nights with the beautiful models and how my work was loved by the masses. At home, a good glass of Regaleali in the left hand, I take my markers and search my way to the three gates of heaven. I draw perfect circles, since long the arts spins around the void.’

Amsterdam, 1994.