Hoe voeg ik een achtergrond plaatje in?
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Please note that we use computers as less as possible, therefore we are only online at Tuesdays and Fridays to check emails unless agreed differently.
We don't take commissions for now.
We think a glimpse in the personal life of an artist is always nice as it reveals a bit about the personality, the way of thinking and working.
In Germany we live remote, in the middle of a very inspiring forest surrounded by greens and wildlife. The ideal day starts with an early morning walk to breathe the fresh air, see small leaves dancing in the wind, singing their song. A deer crosses my path, clouds in many colours sail above my head, I see a little ochre here, a little green earth, a bit of greyish purple there and some light pink announces the rising sun. Little drops of dew shimmer in a spiders web, the rain left a tiny swimming pool in a leaf.
The field crickets sing as the damp rises from the grass that warms up in the first sunshine.
Returning home, I have a look at my vegetable garden where the first beans flower, the carrots sprout and a beautiful huge green cricket looks back at me from his corn-seat.
In the winter it is all white except from the red brown squirrel who tries to find the last nuts, I see the feeding-place is almost empty and go for some nuts in their shell as I also go for some ashes. The ashes guarantee a save landing place for the bees when they fly around to find some winter flowers, when they land in the snow, they will die.
I take some wood inside to heat the stove and start my day with lighting the candles in memory of loved ones, burn handmade incense or take a little incense stick. The sun reflects in the icicles against a deep blue sky as I take my sound bowl to make it sing. These winter days don't start with a walk unless I get up late.
In autumn I enjoy the most beautiful colours possible, my favourite season; the smells are amazing. Collecting some resin from old wounds or recently cut trees to take the autumn with me and bring it back in the winter season. Spring pretty much looks the same, instead of looking for resin and chestnuts, I look out for the first morels and the signs of sprouting herbs. I make hundreds of pictures for inspiration, to use this branch for a painting or that colour, always having a jar with me to collect nice earth colours to make pigments of. I listen to the trees, feel their energy, the energy of nature, the universe, I listen to the advice of my guides and my deep inner voice.
We grow most of our own vegetables, using the moon calendar, and drink from our own well. In our big kitchen we prepare everything ourselves. We grind the grains for flour of which we bake bread, make pasta or bake a quiche, we even make our own croissants including the dough. From local cows we get milk of which we make cheese, cream, buttermilk and yoghurt. I've over 150 recipes for different cheeses from all over the world. Is there anything nicer than having a slice of homemade bread, with homemade cheese and mustard from the seeds you harvested a few months earlier? Or have a brunch with a homemade veggie sausage or croquet on bread? Here we make our own sauerkraut, dry and pickle what we can't eat right away; we make crisps for a cosy evening together with friends or when we have visitors coming over for a few days. We make tempeh or tofu from soybeans, partly grown in our own garden; we literally make everything ourselves. Who comes here for a workshop can count on a homemade veggie or vegan lunch or snack depending on the time of day. We usually eat what is available in that season, directly from the garden. We live just like many people we know, a very anthroposophical life, working with nature instead of against it.
Once or twice a day I meditate, visit places deep inside or far away, listen to whatever I hear or get through, it is here where I find my answers, find solutions and get idea's I can think about during my morning walks, figuring out how to make this or that. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes days and sometimes it has to ripen like a good old cheese and years later I finally know: this is how it is going to be made! I use often Hemi-sync for mediations or I meditate just with nature.
I don't waste precious time on television, we are without for almost 20 years, or things like watching movies. We avoid screens as much as possible as I think screens obscure the space, the world, they are placed in. I simply don't like movies very much although I find it interesting how they are made and like to listen to friends from the industry. The same with theatre: I will not easily visit a theatre but I do like to peak behind the scenes when I get a chance. Because I've learned a bit about 3-d animation (I've worked with 4D cinema), I can appreciate cartoons. I've never really liked movies as they disturb my own images; somebody else decides what you see how, what is important, in my opinion it kills your fantasy, your own creative abilities. I like to read books and build up my own image of the world described in them, make my own analysis and decide what is important, I also like to spend time studying a wide range of subjects. I like older literature the most; Goethe, Kant, Theodor Storm, Schiller and Kafka being some of my favourites. I can appreciate some modern literature as well; my thesis was about the iconography in Natura Morta of Josef Winkler, one of my favourite living authors in the German literature, another name of our era is Marlen Haushofer. I read Dutch, German, English, French and Swedish, a bit Turkish and hopefully soon also Arabic and some other languages as I learn Chinese (mandarin) and Sanskrit.
Due to bad luck and illnesses I have had to start all over again a few times in my life, luckily I'm interested in so many things and believe very much in "live is what you make of it". That way I've been a specialized nurse, worked in hospitals with children and with elderly in care homes, I've studied constructional and civil engineering where I specialized in Monuments (restauration), maintenance and fire safety/ water management, bridges and tunnels. I just love to calculate constructions or concrete and asphalt; I've done extra courses (like minors) and some certificates in electronics, mechanics and airplane mechanics. I've been a firefighter later on, my dream has always been to become an organ builder, I got a job at an organ builder and got ill again. I started studying German Literature and Art history and soon I asked permission to do a free program and got it: over 18 years of a wide range of courses at university followed. I followed many (academic) courses in different directions in the Netherlands, the USA, UK, Germany and Switzerland. Among which Neuroscience, different health subjects, marine biology but also art courses like silkscreen printing, engraving, 3d animation, drawing and art therapy. I've set up different art projects and one of them was for the Syrian refugees we welcomed in our village with a welcome party; we showed them about our lives here and they about their lives before war and their journey. Art-therapy allowed them to work on their trauma's by practicing and learning art. A huge cultural exchange resulting in new friends.
I've worked since I was legally allowed to, from newspaper rounds to factories and from music school (concierge) to agriculture and supermarkets, shops: I liked it all. I've had many chances to learn with people by joining them a few days or longer as a kind of apprenticeship, with council officers, CEO's, cleaners of the street to a (prime) minister and a baker. All that made where I am now; I will never stop learning and still have many wishes, follow courses and learn new languages: it is a growing process and I believe very much we are here to learn, to help each other out, to help each other grow and to experience, learn things we only can learn having a body. So: never give up, always look at what is possible and believe me: you can do way more than you think you can. Think in solutions instead of problems. Look at the nice things in life, even if that is just a birdie on your windowpane when you are too ill to get out of bed. Enjoy the raindrops because you are healthy enough to go out and are able to walk through the rain. Even when you can barely move and have pain the whole day: there is also nice stuff out there! I know pain can be too much and suffering as well, I've seen that with friends but that are the real extreme situations I'm of course not talking about.
Music is important in my life, I like almost everything, from classical music to Trance -which are my favourite kinds of music- and everything in between. Next to the very much loved church organ, my favourite instruments always have been the oboe, the cello and the harpsichord. I started Cello lessons just before I was accepted at Art School and will pick it up after graduation. Next to that I learn to make Trance music myself.
At Pagoda of the Ancient Muse we believe we're all connected, everything alive and not alive; every living being, every soul and all dead material that actually isn't dead to us. The universe connects us, we are made of the same particles, we are of the same source, the same energy and as such: we are that energy, parts of a big network.
This means we respect our environment of which we are part and do whatever possible to avoid pollution and compensate for the pollution we cause.
As an example: Acrylics are no longer in use for paintings, there's still art made with acrylic present but no new art is made with acrylics and no acrylics are being bought.
To apply alcohol inks, felt is used; the standard felt coming with the tools is not real felt, it is made of plastic microfibers. Those are all replaced with real felt of wool, where possible from sources that are really sustainable, we also make more and more of our own application felt from wool from local sheep who sure are not exploited, like the sheep of our neighbours.
Traditional Art is usually already very sustainable as it uses natural resources and everything possible is home- and handmade.
We always look for other, better ways to work more sustainable and admit we always can do better.
Marit is a diverse artist combining many techniques and materials who loves to make art with a meaning. Using symbolism and iconography of different cultures and religions. She likes extremes like working with many vibrant colours vs working in black & white. She tends to work very small, searching the limits of her tools and eyes, big work is the other extreme but here she likes to hide small details. As a former Construction and Civil engineer, she likes constructions which we can see back in her "mystery boxes" with hidden places, tiny books popping up from drawers hidden in a carousel. After a free program Bachelor with Art History, Book-science, Neuroscience, Physical Anthropology, Languages among other directions, she now follows an MA Traditional Arts in London. She lives and works in two countries: Germany and the UK, fascinated and inspired by their nature and rich culture.
Her field of research is on how the Iconography has been influenced over the centuries from the Asian world over the Islamic to the West and back, secondly she is interested in pigments; their use and symbolism.
Marit has a strong feeling that everything is connected, we all are connected in life and death, living beings and dead material; which isn't truly dead. She never cared about details like age, gender or colour and always refused to be forced in whatever box, although society often tried calling her too black or too white, too young, too old, girls shouldn't: "I'm not my age, gender or colour and you are neither". We are all energy, part of the whole, made from the same matter the whole universe is made of. We all are part of that universe and as such we have the universe in us. Call it nature, God, Gods, the source; in the end it is all the same creating energy that is around us and in us.
Her studio is not just a place where art is made, we like people to feel at home here, feel welcome. A big part of time and money is invested to bring love to the world through positivity projects and offering help in many ways, like education for children, a day out, concessions or help with providing food for those who need it. We help refugees as well as locals or people living far away, for example through initiatives as KIVA. Sometimes something very sad happens like the drama with Grenfell in 2016, we sometimes respond to such things, most of the time anonymous. Not just humans are worth to invest in, other lifeforms, nature and culture are also important to us.
