DownTown

The devil lives in Mexico..or down-town

There are some pretty weird shops in down-town that attract me magically.

And one of them looks like this

Witnesses of times gone-by times behind glass.

Old glass bottles dug out from the sand, grinded by the sea - they have taken on the color of the ocean

A nearly hundred year old Five Roses tea advertising board

Not driven anymore, stored in a barn........

Amongst other things, at least there is company, nothing as bad as being old and lonely...

The inside of an old colonial house is now a shop. I can imagine that sitting there on that veranda must still feel pretty good.

Not young either...

 

This is the view over the beachfront when coming down from suburbia. Love that place. Windy and stormy sea today. Misty sky.

All the pretty books

The Book of Wisdom

I met a seer

He held in his hands

The book of wisdom

"Sir", I adressed him,

"Let me read"

"Child"----- he began.

"Sir", I said.

"Think not that I am a child,

For already I know much

Of that which you hold

Ay much".

He smiled

Then he opened the book

And held it before me

Strange that I should have gone so suddenly blind.

Stephen Crane

The physical presence of books in my life is given.They are everywhere. It is unlikely that I can pass a bookshop, a sale, or shelf without stopping for a glance. I don't know why. The reason can't be that I have always read and that I have to write simply to feel good.

No, I like to be in the presence of books. Like to look at them, feel them.

The books that I have read are like old friends. The ones that I have not read are accumulating patiently on my bedside table, under the bed, on shelves, in hidden corners, on top of cupboards attracting disapproving glances from the ones that do not share this hobby.

Living without books is simply not an option. Space for books is a problem but buying them is apparently not.

But the life-cycle of books is funny.They are reborn many many times.

I am writing a book and millions of other people are also writing a book - and everybody is hoping to publish it one day.

All the non-published writers are hoping to share their story and get recognized. Otherwise we all would not write. A rare minority of people writes for themselves. The hope to be a good writer one day has been around for thousands of years. And millions of people have written books before us. Beautiful books, pretty books.

And all the pretty books like the ones on the pictures here end their life in a dusty corner or in a box with others. For years and years they live in darkness and neglect, forgotten until they are re-discovered. And re-evaluated. Given a new price and a new life. Called antiquarian then. And there are the ones now who are looking and collecting them, often not so much for the content but for their age and the way their were printed and published.

And now they are even more attractive because gilt decorated, pictorially blocked and hand bound hardcovers are simply not made any more. The paper is yellowish in color and has tiny age spots. But the binding is intact and the book smells of old. Everybody is free to interpret old in exactly the way he wants to.

But the pretty ones are the ones that are saved. Millions of other books are not so lucky, they really land on the rubbish dump or are recycled. With them the thoughts of their creators. It gave me a strange feeling the other day when I visited a recycling company shredding thousands and thousands of books. I was free to choose from the mountains of books lying there whatever I wanted. There are so many books around, some making their way though hundreds of hands and other are never opened.
I ask myself the question should I write a book?. There are so many. Is there something new still to be said.

The answer would have to be YES.

Paintings of 2008

Here are some of my paintings of 2008 - mostly acrylic on hardboard or canvas.

EXPLODE

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON

ICE-CREAM DRIPPING OFF YOUR MOUTH

MY BRAIN YOUR SPINE

MANY OPTIONS

LIQUID CANDY

THE EYE

A sad-funny postcard from Schwarzburg

There is a charity shop in town called the SPCA. People can drop off everything they do not want anymore. Really anything. And they do. From the sales of the donated articles an animal shelter is funded and maintained. This shop is my Aladins cave. I buy many things there like ribbons, fabric and buttons that I use to decorate my handcrafted postcards. Today I found a pack of old color postcards - all written in german.

One of the cards comes from a city named Schwarzburg in Thueringen and was written at a time when this part of Germany was still socialist Eastern Germany. The Berlin-wall was still intact and the German people lived in two separate states.

The postcard is not dated and the sales price for this card at the time was DDR 0,20 Mark.

The text has been printed with a typewriter and is signed "Hildegard" at the bottom.

Hildegard is writing to a woman named Berta and to Mrs. Kopp. Both women obviously lived in West-Germany. Hildegard thanks these women for the gifts she has received. Clothes that she could not buy in East-Germany.

Strange things happen in life. In South-Africa in a charity shop I find a postcard written in german by a woman during the time of the cold war.

The picture No 3 in the right hand corner is the " Rehabilitation Center KARL MARX"

Hildegard will remain unknown to me, I d'ont know if she is still alive but her postcard is representing history better than any book could. Nearly every german familiy had a relative on the " other side". My grandfather's brother lived in East-Berlin and when he was 65 he was allowed to visit us but only himself and not his wife. NO visits to the WEST before the age of 65. He always took back with him to the other side a bottle of cognac, a packet of coffee and cigarettes.

Mein liebe gute Berta!
Meine liebe gute Frau Kopp!
Vom ganzem Herzen moechte ich mich herzlich bedanken fuer das herrliche Paket, war das eine Freude! Diese wunderbaren Sachen. Das gibt es bei uns nicht zu kaufen. Alles passt grossartig und gefaellt mir sehr.Ich muss euch wirklich loben, Ihr seid so lieb und gut mit mir. Die Kinder haben an meinem Geburtstag einen Ausflug nach Lichtenstein gemacht. Reiner besuchte eine bekannte Familie und ich musste den grossen Berg mit hoch. Dann nochmals 80 Stufen, ich war erledigt. Dann hatt ich auch noch das Pech, dass mein Stuhl umkippte, war der Boden so uneben, und ich kullerte den ganzen Abhang hinunter, der Hund hinter mir her, der dachte ich machte Spass, aber mir war nicht danach.Mir tut heute noch alles weh. Hoffentlich geht es dir und Frau Kopp gesundheitlich , was ich Euch von Herzen wuensche.
Nochmals innige und Herzliche Gruesse
Eure Hildegard

Impressions of an hour

La Vie est belle souvent, mais tu dois regarder...
( I was told by a friend in Mauritania)

From time to time I like to do a little experiment. I sit back and imagine a friend had called me and requested that I show him the wonders of life in just an hour's time. I invite you to come with us today. Let me show you what I found.

At first I would show my friend this night-moth comfortably resting on my window since the early morning hours. A lucid light turquoise colored beauty.

Then, the wind breathing clouds onto the bright-blue canvas of the sky. The blue of the sky is sometimes so strong and bright that it can make you dizzy.

Until the blue has lost and it's color has been weakened and is shining through only occasionally through a crocheted-like cloud cloth.

Freshly cooked steaming hot pasta is one of the greatest wonders of life for me. Bless Italy. With oil, garlic and Parmesan. Perfect.

A while ago a big old beautiful tree had been cut in one of the alleys of my town. I took some of the cut-off rings home and painted them white. They have now a new life as rests for books and cups and glasses. But one wanted more. A seed has found new life in old matter.

I would not forget to show my friend the roots of a giant tree in my garden.

An adventurous and exhausted beetle caught on his back in a glass vase. The extended breath of god has saved him in the form of my hand.

A cat-child in deep and peaceful sleep on my couch.

Child or Cat? Cat-child. Peace from within.

And the last thing my friend has to see in this hour are the new swallow-nests in some old dusty enamel pots stored on a shelf on the veranda. It is the second year that the swallows have been using these pots as nests.

There are 8 swallows nests all over the house.

Do you remember walking over meadows?

It was the sweetest most mysterious- looking place anyone could imagine.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

I found this old color print a couple of months ago in a second- hand shop. The painter's name is John McPherson. Flower fields, squirrels, pheasants, big trees and birds in the distance. Can you imagine how it smells? Can you hear the birdsong?

It shows a scene that reminds me of the area where I grew up in Europe. My family lived next to the river Rhine, close to the french border. The natural environment next to this mighty river is very special. There are many estuaries with river-arms stretching into the interior of the country. Along these river-arms abundant vegetation grows.

The whole region is a nature reserve today. When I was young meadows where everywhere. Just recently I read in an article that meadows are disappearing. There is no more room for undisturbed growth.

In my childhood meadows were part of my life. They were everywhere. In front of our house. Even our garden resembled a meadow. On week-ends the whole family packed a picnic basket, squeezed themselves into a blue beetle-Volkswagen and headed for the woods.

Woods are always friends with meadows.

And after lengthy walks all family members would lie on inflatable mattresses or in the grass, eating, drinking, talking or sleeping. Not without the occasional curse when bitten by mosquitoes. My mother taught me how to make a little crown out of flowers.

Flowers of all colors grew in abundance- waist high for a little girl- and playing on a meadow in summer was like diving into fairyland. The time passed quick.

When did you walk the last time bare-foot over a meadow?

Watched a bee......

doing acrobatics

The beloved friend of my childhood " die Pusteblume".

Meadows had dark openings....... food for scary children fantasies

Meadows had delicate flowers

and with their grasses, herbs and flowers they gave you itchy ankles....