New, new, new....

A new series: A blast of air in full color. While I was working on it, I already fell in love with the paintings...

TIMES SQUARE TO ART SQUARE

Yesterday I saw an item on Dutch national television about a Dutch student (and a large team of assistants) of  who wants to change Times Square into Art Square temporarily. 

Times Square to Art Square Teaser from Times Square to Art Square on Vimeo.

I think this is such an epic idea! If you are interested in participating, donating, etc.. please read the rest on http://www.timessquaretoartsquare.org

Party! - Life is only what you make it

After I've been working very hard on a new collection of Portable-Art, today I finished a diptych. Not a large one, only 140x30 cm/55x12 inch, but nevertheless very laborious.

'Party! - Life is only what you make it'.

Last week Antonie Kamerling, a famous actor in the Netherlands, committed suicide, only 44 years old. I was really shocked.

First there was only the news that he was dead, but I immediately knew he committed suicide. He had something over him, a sort of 'tristesse' below the mask of happiness he wore... Apparently he suffered of depressions. He left behind a wife and 2 young children. I wish them the best. 

Most people don't understand at all. He was talented, good looking, succesful and had everything he wanted, they say... But some things in life are that elusive and incomprehensible that you just have to accept that it is what it is. 

Life is what you make it. So let's celebrate it as much as we can.

 

courtesy of Henk van Kooten

 

 

Why do a lot of Facebookers and LinkedInners want to collect thousands of friends?

I really don't understand and am sincerely interested!

I got myself an account on Facebook in 2007.
At the beginning I tracked down my friends, fellow artists I know in person, people from the past etc..
I was fun to communicate through this medium.
When I received friend-requests from unknown people I refused for the simple reason that I did not know them.
Nowadays most of the time the new connections come through friend-requests I receive.
I post links to my blogposts on Facebook, for the interested friends who wanted to connect themselves, and furthermore I comment on my friends messages. Also there's a bit of teasing and making fun!

I noticed that a lot of people are collecting friends.
I can understand if you admire an artist/popstar/writer/actor/musicians etc..., and you want to follow this person or group.
But what does it bring an average person to have thousands of friends? I'm really curious.
I consider myself an average person. I accepted friend requests from people who want to follow me as an artist, but I'm no Moby or Madonna.
What struck me, is that some fellow artists send requests to everybody, and after you accepted those requests, and became friends, they never show any interest in you.
In my opinion the friendship is more or less forced upon you. And only one-way. It looks a lot like spam.
Some people have no other activity on their wall then their daily completion of new friends.

Why do people collect so many friends through social media?
Is it because one derives their identity from their number of friends?
Or the amount of famous people one is connected to?
Is it opportunism, and trying to ride along with succesful people?
Is it because one thinks one can become sort of famous this way?
Is it for professional marketing purposes? And does this have satisfying results (when you're not already a famous person)
Because if everyone has got thousands of friends, their news feed-page gets stuck with messages from all those people and one can not see the wood for the trees anymore.
One cannot be famous amongst millions of famous people.

What I'm I missing if I don't start collecting lots of friends?

Who has the answers?

Portable-Art collection 2010.

Last year I did a project called Portable-Art.
The idea came up, and after a lot of experimenting a collection of art-bags appeared.
I got really awesome reactions on the art-bags (fully created and manufactured by myself, which cost me days for one bag).
But I got fed up with the very meticulous process of manufacturing and finished the project. Back to my large paintings (what a relief!!!)
However, I still love the idea and still receive great reactions. 2 weeks ago suddenly a new variation arose in my mind and I started experimenting again with new art-bags.
Above a first peek. A close-up of an art-bag of the 2010-collection under construction. The first new bags will be exhibited on BLOOOM, the creative industries art fair in Cologne (Oct 28 - Nov. 1). When the collection is ready I'll add it to the Portable-art page on the Project-page of my website (I need to update the old page).