Art trail Tholen

Last weekend you could find me and my creations at the art trail in Tholen, Zeeland, the Netherlands. For me it was a first time, both to participate in Tholen and to perticipate in an art trail. For the city of Tholen it was the 15th time they organised this. It coincided with queensday, which is celebrated on the 30th of April each year. the weather was perfect and a lot of people were out and about. Besides the art trail there was a flea market too and lots of music performers. I had been assigned a space in someone's house. She "donates" a space of her house to the art trail for several years now.

 I was very happy with the location, a gorgeous old house near the church with a landlady who looked after me very well. Another upside from being at a market, to be inside, warm, with a toilet close and someone making you cups of tea :-)

The place was small, but that was perfect for my small creations, I had especially brought my collection of Dutch Folklore inspired items as a lot of them are inspired by Zeeland's folklore.

I met Andrea from atelier28 in Tholen at the opening, she is an etsy seller too and I had never met her in real life before. She gave me a warm welcome in her atelier. Her work is even more lovely in real than when you see the pictures in her etsy shop, which is well worth a visit.

I can't wait till we have a new house, we are in the middle of searching, 

and I can start buying decorations again.

Andrea wrote a blogpost about the art trail too, you find it here.

Plums

My brother has an orchard in Zeeland, the Netherlands, with plums, apples and pears. It was my dad's before and it is nice to see that the land stays in the family even though it is tough making a living in agriculture these days. In a few seconds a years work can be destroyed. Spring frost can freeze all of the flowers so you're left will nothing or very little and just have to wait till next year. Hail will damage the fruit so that it is only good for making apple sauce at best or go to waste at worst. Rain will make the plums crack if it falls in big amounts at the wrong time of the riping stage, so you can't sell these anymore.
But when the harvest is good ad the prices are right you can make up for the bad year.  Of course working outdoors in each season is a reward too.

I was just at my brothers when a large batch of plums was collected. The scent in the barn, when full of freshly picked plums, is intoxicatedly good. By the time I thought of the idea for this blog they were gone, but imagine the collection of containers with full crates instead of empty ones. These are ready to be filled the next day. Each container goes on a little wagon and several wagons make up a little train that is pulled through the orchard so there can always be empty crates near the pickers.

 

The plum pickers use buckets which they wear on their shoulder to collect the plums. They look at the color and they feel the softness to judge if it's ready to pick. The older trees are taller and they use step ladders to get at the higher plums. Also if the weather is warm, as it should be in this season, you're always nicely in the shades of the trees when picking.

Once the bucket is full they are carefully emptied into the crates. The plums have a layer of wax on them, which gives them a lovely satin/silk finish. Some people think it's residue or put on by the fruit grower but it isn't, it's natural. You can eat them like that or just give them a polish if you prefer them looking that way. I think it's a bit like with white and brown eggs, one of those other misconceptions. You hardly see any white ones any more, cause brown ones look more healthy and free range by themselves, but they're just laid by brown chickens. I feel sorry for the white chickens and that their eggs are liked less just because they're white. 

Anyway once the plums are picked they are sorted into big ones, small ones, good ones and bad ones (damaged or too ripe). This is done by emptying a crate onto a rolling platform. One person is emptying crates while two others stand on each side and sort the plums into other crates according to size and goodness. Then the crates with the sorted plums go to the auction to be bought by traders and from where they go to supermarkets and so on. The plum season has just started, but there are different varieties ripe at different times, so you'll find the in the shops for a good few weeks now. 

So go get those lovely fresh plums :-)

Going back to my roots: 't Paeremes

As you know I've been working on a series of jewelry inspired by traditional jewelry from Zeeland. It is not only the jewelry were I found inspiration. When I was a kid I've had pocket knives, very simple ones, but handy for carving sticks and so on I found in the orchard. At some stage I even followed a wood carving course, my fellow students were all pensioned men :-)

These two interest come together in the 'Paeremes'.In the olden days farmers from Zeeland had a really nice knife as part of their costume. They carved the hilt with scenes from their lives. I learned all about the knifes from the book 't Paeremes' by Pieter Brouwers. 

There are 3 elements to each knife: 

1. The crown, which almost always has 2 big farmers horses eating from a food-trough. 

2. The cage, which holds the soul of the knife. This is an open section, cage, like, with 1 little ball in wood inside. If you could carve this well, it showed your craftsmanship and if the sound was good, it proved the wood used was quality too.

3. The decoration on the sides, here you find a variety of carvings; the owners initials, a year, pictures of animals or tools, scenes from daily life or the bible, a coat of arms. 

I found very few good pictures, but here is one and you can see some more here (site in Ducth).

So far so good, when did this inspire me to do something with this info and my love for ceramics? Well, that happened whenI found ceramic knife blades on the internet and just had to buy them. I had them for a while; I did not simple want to copy one of the knives in porcelain or clay. Carving is meant for wood. But I liked the elements, the little soul, which makes the knife come too life,  especially and the crown too. After pondering for a while I started working. First I made a plain hilt in porcelain, than I started trying what patterns could work and I let the material 'speak' to me. In the back of my mind was this quote from an old Dutch/Flemish legend 'Tijl Uilenspiegel', which was mentioned in the book. One of Tijl's skills was carving too, apparently he had carved a knife-hilt with a skull in the cage and a dog laying on top of the cage, symbolizing 'faithful until death'. I found this such a lovely idea and it stuck with me, but found it a bit dark and gloomy at the same time. Kept pondering about life, death, faith, dog, animals while working on it. I found that a phoenix was growing from the wavy pattern I had applied to the hilt, an egg (a new life, a new soul) is caught in the cage. The phoenix who rises from death is much more optimistic ;-)

In contrast to the white of the blade and the hilt I made a piece of ebony wood to size to 'connect' the 2. I still have to varnish the wood and I'm thinking of having a leather holder made for it. Otherwise it is finished.

Going back to my roots

I was born in the Netherlands and I'm proud to be Dutch, even more so being a 'Zeeuws meisje'.

But I do love living in Belgium with my Belgian boyfriend for life :-)

Both my grandma's still wore the traditional costume and my dad still has a custome which he wears for special occasions. (Hhmmm must suggets to him to wear it 30th of April when the Ducth queen Beatrix is coming to their hometown to celebrate queensday.) Unfortunatly I never knew one grandma and my other grandma passed away a few days before my tenth birthday, but here 's a picture with her, my brother, my little sis and me. 

I'm the one holding the apple, must have been one special apple, as it HAD to go with us in the picture. (Remember how pictures were still rather special in those days.) And yes, I know, I look like a little boy :-) 


There are many variations in the costumes depending on the region within Zeeland and the religion, Catholic, Protestant, my grandma's wore the Protestant costume from Zuid-Beveland. Because this was the costume used for the commercial of the butter brand 'Zeeuws meisje' this is best know Zeeuws costume. There are many different costumes in Zeeland because the habitants of the different islands which make up Zeeland, were much to themselves in the olden days, due to lack of bridges and such. On this site (in Ducth) you can find the different costumes, click on the names in the bottom left hand menu. One element which has been used in modern jewelry already is the 'Zeeuwse knop'. If you watched the commercial, it is what the men wear on their collar. But since it has been used in rings, cufflinks, pendants, brooches, bracelets and so on, either new or repurposed. There is even a plant is which is called 'Zeeuws knopje. 


Anyway I got one of the rings since I was I kid and now I used it to make a mold in silicon. The mold I used to make replicas in porcelain and clay. With these replices I than made ceramic and porcelain jewelry.

  I am working on others creations inspired by elements from the Zeeuwse folklore, but more about that later. It's not jewelry, it got a soul and it is sharp.......