Cucumber time in the city

A rainy summer here in the Netherlands. Not much interesting going on, almost the whole country is in France or Greece. This is what the Dutch call "Komkommertijd", in English "Cucumber time".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
And in Dutch overhere:
http://www.geencommentaar.nl/2010/08/22/big-goosberry-season/
Copy text + paste in translate.google.com

But the van den Nieuwendijk family is not afraid of a bit of rain so me and my two boys (Milo and Elias) are playing soccer! The picture was taken on a slightly better day...
And I cleaned up my new studio, and I must say that I am quite content with the result.

Sultan Mahmud Babar II

Work in progress on my new painting 'Sultan Mahmud Babar II'.
Showing left the preliminary sketch.

Perpetua's vase

I am happy to announce that my large vase 'Perpetua Porseline', I made in Jingdezhen, China in 2010, will permanently be on display in museum Prinsenhof from August 2011!

More information will follow.
http://www.prinsenhof-delft.nl/

Made in Delft

I've worked on two special ceramic plates. The plates are made at the 'De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles / Royal Delft', museum factory in Delft, wwwwww.royaldelft.com
I painted them in the Cobalt Blue that made "Delftware" famous!
The first plate has just come out of the kiln.
The figure on the plate is Perpetua Porseline (eternal porcelain), my own goddess of Porcelain. She is carrying a Ming vase, and she is surrounded by Chinese symbols of good fortune and luck.

The second plate is showing the character 'Mirabella Majolica'. She is representing the ancient ceramic 'Majolica' technique. She is an Italianesk Renaissance 'beauty', because the most important samples of the technique originate from 16th century Italy.
Note that both the Majolica technique and the Chinese (blue and white) porselain where a great influence in the development of Delftware.
Below picture's of the work in progress (the plate has not come out the kiln yet).

Sasquatch magazine!

Wow, I just found that the Australian Sasquatch magazine posted my work on their website!! Thank you very much Sasquatch magazine!

Sasquatch magazine 

Pottery shards from Yaoli

At my work period in China, October 2010, I took a trip to the beautiful village of Yaoli (Jingdezhen). Overthere I found some old porcelain shards. The old man in the picture saw me walking with these shards in my hands when I past his house, and he gave me the three (broken) bowls on the left as a present (okay, well, I actually gave him some money for it, but anyway.....)!

The artist Jiansheng Li told me they were probably from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), at least the blue and white ones. The greyish bowl was probably even older, dating from the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368).

According to information, about the blue and white bowls, I recently found on the web, Chinese archaeologists have excavated bowls of this type at the Jiang family kiln at Yaoli. This kiln site is from the Ming Dynasty Zhengtong to Tianshun Period (1427 -1464).
So that make these bowls almost 600 years old! I am so glad I got these through customs and in my collection now! 
Note the special calligraphic style on these bowls!
(on the right you see pictures of two similar bowls found on the internet).
If you have more historical information about these type of bowls, please contact me.

Neko Jita!

This coming Saturday, June 18 th 2011, a new exhibition opens at Quartair in The Hague (where I have my studio).
This exhibition is called "Neko Jita", literally meaning "cat tongue", and it refers to someone who can't eat or drink spicy food. Unliterally it refers to someone who is sensitive for influences from outside. The exhibition shows works of twelve artists who are fascinated and inspired by the country Japan. So maybe you can say that Japonisme is not only an art movement from around the year 1900, but is still very much alive! Come and see for yourself.
By the way: I did the graphic design for the invitation!

'NEKO JITA' 
Juni 18 th till Juli 9 th 2011

. Opening Saturday June 18, 8.00 PM

.
'Neko Jita' shows works by the artists: 
Seekee Chung, Karin van Dam, Sibylle Eimermacher, Robin de Goede, Daan van Golden, Erik-Jan Ligtvoet, Huub van der Loo,
 Nico Kos, 
Rens Krikhaar, Stefanie Scholte, Martine Stig, WassinkLundgren.


More information: www.quartair.nl