Monday Mood Pit Fired

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Today is firing day, with a pit fire and raku. With all of our ceramics group we created items espacially to be fired in one of the above techniques. In the pitcures you see examles of pit fired pieces. One never knows how it will emerge from the fire, which adds to the fun. More pit fired items om etsy here. If you want to see how it works, read this blog post from last years firing day.

My creative space: auction-eye-hospital part 2

If you read my last post, you know I have been working on an artwork to be auctioned for the eye hospital in Rotterdam. The auction is now online (in Dutch) and the first bids have been placed. Saturday the 4th of July the auction ends during the benefit dinner and party.

So here a pictures of the final work:



I painted the box an off white, so the contrast with the clay would not be too harsh.  Two holes in the back make it easy to hang the box well. On the back you also find clay Two Trees logo and my signature. The batteries are easy accessible and so is the on/off switch. The white box is 25x25x6cm and each clay block approx 9x9x4cm. If you want to bid, you have to press the link "formulier" on this page, fill in the name of the work (light box) the bid you want to place and your details. If you like to see more pictures, go here.

My Creative Space - auction eye hospital

A friend of mine is a doctor for the eye hospital in Rotterdam. They have a very modern and different approach to the hospital experience as I learned when I attended TEDx Rotterdam last year:

Frans Hiddema - TEDxRotterdam 2010 from TEDxRotterdam on Vimeo.

Perhaps just as different is the charity football event which they organise for the 5th time this year. A team from the Rotterdam eye hospital plays against a team from the Moorfield (UK) eye hospital. They will play in "de Kuip" so not just any football stadium. During the after party an art auction is held to raise money for the hospital. This year I'll be one of the artists contributing. I'm happy to be part of all this.  

Cause everyone is a bit blind in the forest, as one cannot see the trees from the wood ;-) And besides there's always these unexpected creatures suddenly blinking their eyes at you. So I created 4 squares in clay with textures of tree bark.

Tiny LED lights will be inserted into the holes / eye sockets, which will give this effect when lit, 2 bright eyes:

All will be mounted on a white background, which I asked the local carpenter to make for me as I wanted it to be perfect with mitred corners and such, which I cannot do myself. The on/off switch and battery compartment will be hidden in there too. I hope it will be liked and fetch lots of money, the auction end of last year for another good cause of one of my story bowls was a great success, so I hope this will be too.

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.

Spello 8/4/11

Feels like more than just 2 weeks ago when we were getting ready to fly back to Belgium and say good bye to Umbria. We had decided to spent the morning in Spello, have lunch and drive to the tiny cute airport of Perugia.

Bought some nice souvenirs, linen and olive wood

Saw some more marvellous churches and such. 

Had lunch at the place where we ate our first dinner

Bye Bye Spello

During the morning I had received a text message from ryanair saying something like: "if you want to change your flight contact..." we thought; strange, but nice of them to think we might want to stay longer. We would have loved too, but the cats were waiting for us at home.

When we arrived at the airport we found out that our flight had been cancelled, hence the strange text message. So we rang ryanair, they have still seats on the flight from Rome later that day. Ok, lets check if we can keep the car and drive there. We could, the clever lady from the car rental also pointed out, but if Charleroi is closed will be able to fly from Rome or just be stuck again. Hey, good point! So we rang back, double checked we would be able to land in Charleroi and booked. The airport of Charleroi had reopened at that point. So off to Rome, to hit the Friday afternoon traffic, but we made it on time.

Pity you can't see anything from Rome driving on the ring road. Like with Paris you at least can catch a glimpse of the Eiffel tower.

So we got a little extra of Italy, some more nice views and even sitting in traffic was not that bad, had our flight not been cancelled, we would have hit the traffic around Brussels, so Rome was a nice change. 

We were home just after midnight, the cats were trilled to see us. Usually Mol, the eldest is cross when we have been away for a few days, but 5 days was enough for her to be just happy as well :-)

Spello 7/4/11

Thursday 7th of April, our last full day in Italy, so we had to make the most of it. We started with cappuccino and croissants in a local bar.

Than we headed to Assisi, to see the basilica of St Francis. We were overwhelmed by the amount of tourists and nicely surprised to see "our" statue from St Francis again. The interior of the basilica is amazing, one was not allowed to take pictures, so you will just have to go see for yourselves ;-)

On wondering through Assisi, you could find me drooling in front of these shop windows. 

I did get me some nice nougat and meringue, some of it even made it back to Belgium.

This on top of the "dolci" we would have after lunch and dinner. Is it a holiday or is it a holiday ;-)

This nice mural on a ceiling in an alley somewhere in Assisi reminded me of Jeroen Bosch's work, I like the thin lines and that there is so much white in it.

More nice paintings, we saw these in several galleries, paintings with happy monks.by Luigi Silvis

After lunch we drive to Gubbio, another Medieval town. We were recommended by the landlord of our apartment to go here, as it's more authentic than Assisi (were in later century buildings were restored in a mediaeval style). We walked around for a while, just site seeing when we saw a sign for a funivia, a cable way. It was a bit more wobble and just a basket, so I did not think it very fun, but it was worth the views.

Temperatures rose to 27°C that day, so we were happy to find a nice pace with ice cream.

A little shop full of handmade notebooks with leather covers, in all sizes, too much choice.

We left Gubbio behind and continued to make most of our day by driving to lake Trasimeno, the sun had just set as we arrived at the shore. 

Some nice seafood for a change, although the pasta with fresh forest asparagus, we had previous days, is a real treat too.

Tomorrow our last day in Spello, with a little extra, stay tuned!

Spello 6/4/11

Travelling 2 weeks back in time, the weather today in Belgium is just as gorgeous as it was in Italy than; Sunny and warm. We planned a trip to Dunarobba to see the fossilised forest and than make our way back trought the mountains and visit some more places. When walking to the car, which was parked just outside the old city walls, we found there was a market in Spello, so we had a quick look around. I liked the way they used umbrellas as baskets.

The colors of the trees were just stunning, fresh green mixed with warm browns.

We drove past a large industry producing bricks, just before we found the centre for the fosil forest. Not so strange it turned out as they found the trees in the clay they were mining for the bricks.

If you go to the above link or this one, you'll see what it looked like when they found it. Now all trees are covered with a tin roof to protect them from the elements. 

The wood is still wood, bone dry wood, it has not turned to stone. They date back from the time of the mamoets  and are all  under an angle as the ground has shifted position since. They are huge all over 1 meter in diameter and 1 or more meters tall.

 After all this amazement it was time for lunch with a large coke for a change, instead of wine, as we still had lots of driving to do.

Of course we came across some sheep in the mountains.

We stopped at Gualdo Cattaneo and hoped to climb the tower, unfortunately we were to early in the season and it was not open on Wednesdays yet. 

The views from the tower would have been more spectacular, but from the village we got some great views too.

We spotted a lovely ceiling through an open window, which was closed quickly when they heard us outside, but we got the picture anyway :-)

 We leave the top of the mountain and Gualdo-Cattaneo to drive to our next destination.

Montefalco, famous for it's wines (and oils).

We stepped throught the doors of another old church, Chiesa Sant' Agostina, dating back to the 13th century and were amazed, this was much older than any of the other churches we had seen so far, it had old beams for the ceiling, very few status and sculptures, but lots of wall panitings.

 The church also housed the exceptionally well preserved remains of someone. 

(I now know after reading about the church (see link above) that it is a 14th century unknown pilgrim)

It seriously gave me the creeps as he was suddenly there sitting in a glass box, so unexpected, that I needed some sun ....

....... and famous Montefalco wine to get rid of the chills.

We left Montefalco to have our dinner in Spello, with more local wines :-)

On the way we saw a place with old FIAT cars, the original version of the FIAT 500 we were driving, it's bigger brother the 750 and this tiny bus, isn't it the cutest one you've ever seen.