Art

Three pen and ink drawings from recent travels in the Nederlands

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August 17, 2019

 

We stayed on an island near Woudseen, from which I drew this scene.  It is  a tranquil spot with room for about 12 boats.  The island has many mice who dig in the sand.  We were there for two nights.  

 

 

 

 
This mooring is on the outskirts of Lelystad,  also a free mooring with room for 3 or 4 boats.  You can get to Lelystad by bike easily.  It’s a pretty ride through the forest part of the way.   There were several groups of rowers while we were there for a few days.  

 

 

On an Island Heeg and Woudsen, near Lelystad, pen and ink, 6″ x 8″ 15 x 21 cm
 
The Batavialand Museum in Lelystad offers a very interesting visit.   The Batavia replica is a major attraction.  The original dates from circa 1628.  It was the flagship of the Dutch East India Company.  The exploitation of the resources of Indonesia was the major contributor to the country’s Golden Age, from which much of its finest architecture and art dates.  The Company made Holland the world’s largest trading nation at the time.  Even today Holland is a major trading nation, the world’s fifth largest according to a guide.   You can walk almost everywhere on the ship.   

 

 

 

 

Sketch of the Batavia, Dutch East India Company, 6″ x 8″ 15 x 21 cm

 

There is a superb tapestry recounting the history of the region created by 27 volunteers, one of whom was inspired to do so after seeing the Bayeaux Tapestry.  It starts around 6000 years ago at the time of the earliest known settlement, moving to the Roman era, the middle ages and Dutch Golden Age with the founding and development of the Dutch East India Cmpany.   It then moves to the creation of the polder in the late 1920’s and up to the present day.  Peg made a video of a large portion of it.    [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_4Utat-Go4[/embedyt]  
 
There is an exhibit displaying the archaeological findings from the earliest period.   Childen played in a waterworks exhibit, lifting and moving water and boats.  So Dutch!    You walk outside to get to the Batavia, build some 30 years ago and in need of major repairs.  It will be coming out of the water soon and will probably be closed to visitors for several years.   

 

 

 

 

Steam Locomotive, pen and ink drawing 

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Between Hoorn and Medemblik you can travel by steam locomotive. 
 
Steam Locomotive Hoorn to Medemblik. 105 years old. Pen and ink 15 x 17 cm, 6″ x 8″
The volunteers have painstakingly restored the engine and cars.  We enjoyed the company of a tall blond (there are many here) and her two girls, here depicted with the volunteer attendant in very well made traditional costume.  

Shopping Local! (vers 2)

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Shopping Local II, acrylics on canvas, 8 x 8″, 20 x 20 cm
This is a smaller version of my submission for a special exhibit at Art Basel in Miami September, 2019.  The exhibit is about Consumerism.  
“The browsing, selection and purchase of goods and commodities have become one of the defining activities of modern urban life. In this consumer culture, shopping has become a crucial ritual for shaping and transforming our identities. Artists have always been fascinated and intrigued by the consumer culture and the way it shapes our society.
At first perceived as the American phenomenon, the consumerist lifestyle has soon spilled over to the rest of the world through globalization and the rise of the free market economy. Unlike Pop Art’s playful and often ambivalent attitude towards the consumer culture, the generation of artists that came after took a more decisive and hostile stand towards it. Since advertising has always played a crucial role in perpetuating mechanisms and values of consumer culture, many of these artists have made it the center of their practice. For example, Ron English has introduced the concept of billboard hijacking where he appropriated the mass media messages and imagery to create subversive and political statements. Today, many contemporary artists explore and criticize the idea of consumerism in a variety of ways. Employing various visual and conceptual strategies to question consumerism, artists such as Gabriel Kuri, Josephine Meckseper, Irina Korina or Martin Basher explore various aspects of commerce and exchange such as models of trading with it as in selling and buying, the labor that generates these goods, global distribution networks, social and economic structures that support it, the notion of value or the role of goods consumption in construction of our identities. Rather than criticizing the consumption on a superficial level, they tend to deconstruct this phenomenon from the inside out.”

Portrait of Frank Zappa

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Musician who became popular in the 1960’s.  1940 -1993.  From the Wiki:

He was an American multi-instrumentalist musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture.[2] In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.[3] Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse rock musicians of his era.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa

Frank Zappa, pastels, 8.5 x 11, A4

 

Shopping Local!

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Shopping Local 1, acrylics on canvas, 10 x 10″, 25 x 25 cm pprox
The browsing, selection and purchase of goods and commodities have become one of the defining activities of modern urban life. In this consumer culture, shopping has become a crucial ritual for shaping and transforming our identities. Artists have always been fascinated and intrigued by the consumer culture and the way it shapes our society.
At first perceived as the American phenomenon, the consumerist lifestyle has soon spilled over to the rest of the world through globalization and the rise of the free market economy. Unlike Pop Art’s playful and often ambivalent attitude towards the consumer culture, the generation of artists that came after took a more decisive and hostile stand towards it. Since advertising has always played a crucial role in perpetuating mechanisms and values of consumer culture, many of these artists have made it the center of their practice. For example, Ron English has introduced the concept of billboard hijacking where he appropriated the mass media messages and imagery to create subversive and political statements. Today, many contemporary artists explore and criticize the idea of consumerism in a variety of ways. Employing various visual and conceptual strategies to question consumerism, artists such as Gabriel Kuri, Josephine Meckseper, Irina Korina or Martin Basher explore various aspects of commerce and exchange such as models of trading with it as in selling and buying, the labor that generates these goods, global distribution networks, social and economic structures that support it, the notion of value or the role of goods consumption in construction of our identities. Rather than criticizing the consumption on a superficial level, they tend to deconstruct this phenomenon from the inside out.