"Where are we at home? In the familiar or in the unfamiliar, in language or in our memories, with the other or with ourselves." It is the beginning of the new book Onder een andere hemel (Under Another Sky) by writer and philosopher Joke J. Hermsen. A book where art, literature, philosophy and a personal journey so beautifully come together. A book in which I could underline so many sentences. A book also that captures my imagination from the very first page. And that touches me because it reminds me of that first page in the novel Night Train to Lisbon, which eventually led to my first book The quest.
Back to the present, it also raises the question for me how I have experienced the past year, when I consider it in light of the question 'where am I at home'? And how does 'home' relate to my own main thread of 'look as slowly as you can'. It is miraculous how all of this often came together, and sometimes it didn't, over the past year: in the exhibitions, in my new book Time vanishes from the landscape, and also, most recently, a course weekend started with the question 'where are you at home'.
I was in many places this past year; places I have longed to be in for years. Places where I can show my work. Places I thought 'if I am there then I am home'. And I was! Because that is how it feels when I may tell about my art, when my work is on its way to a new home, when I may share my knowledge, when I am in the familiar and in the unfamiliar, to use the words of Joke Hermsen. Being in the familiar and in the unfamiliar, with the other and with myself, can present itself at the same time, I have experienced intensely. Not always easy and now looking back I can see where the struggle is. 'Look as slowly as I can', my motto, missed out a little too regularly during the past year.
It is not for nothing that I have given this blog the title 'between ebb and flow'. Because I also experience this duality. The desire that becomes reality in its full extent. Where do I stand between ebb and flow, between those two attractions, my desire to go on an adventure with my work, to bring it into the world, and at the same time the desire not to do that and to be at home on the couch?
By now I know that I need the attractions from both sides, that it is allowed that it chafes, that it is not always comfortable, that I need to navigate between those forces and that that is where my creative power comes from. Exactly between ebb and flow, between the familiar and the unfamiliar. With occasional outliers to one side and to the other, far from comfortable by the way, both for others and for myself.
But perhaps that is where I am most at home. I am becoming more and more aware of that. A nice reflection for the end of the year which for me is traditionally all about 'look (and live) as slowly as I can'. Looking back and forward, heading into 2024.
At the end of 2023, I also would like to thank you. For coming to one of my exhibitions or talks, for your art purchase, for a photo assignment, for attending one of the workshops, for participating in my new annual Creative Journey program, for purchasing my latest book Time vanishes from the Landscape, and for all the incredibly kind and stimulating comments and conversations. All of that has made 2023 a fantastic year for me! Thank you so much!
I look forward to meeting you again next year.
For now, I wish you a loving and creative 2024!
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