For almost two weeks I have not been someone’s teacher and I have savoured every single seconds of that time so far…and when I glance over my photo feed on my phone I can only state that I am having such a lovely time. Last week I met up with K in Leuven and suddenly she wondered what the time is and normally both of us are quite good at guessing but now we seemed both to e totally disconnected and that made me even smile. When we kissed goodbye I felt for the very first time since a very long time truly free of mind.
Over the last two weeks I have been so spoiled by so many things and people. That the trees putting on their colourful coats and that there is a lot to be experienced while the sun is out longer makes me feel hopeful as well. Hope is a very strong sensation it can be enough to get back into a certain modus that you need in order to deal with all the s**** . No, the world and humanity is not perfect. The mainstream media plays the devil’s advocate when it comes down. It feels a lot as if newspapers and social media prefer to rain someone’s parade.
Well…I refuse to let someone pour down the deluge on mine. Hit me…this time I refuse to just give in easily. Don’t get me wrong , I am stil a too big of analytic person to ignore all the shadows that circle around the fun stuff. But if you can not be hopeful on time such as Easter then when can you be? Yes, Stallie still prays and I do it in a very private way. I can do it while I walk through Brussels or when I drive back from work while my son is listening to his music. Personal I don’t need a lot to make me feel connected with something that perhaps so many of us don’t need anymore.
Last week I finally got into that one museum that I have longed to visit for such a long time. I had walked past a few times but never got in. Last week I did and honestly it is a like a cathedral filled up from top to bottom with art that can take your breath away. It is a museum that houses quite a few works that most of us know but on top of that is even more. Rembrandt is just one of them who is hanging out there and his Night Watch will never be on its own during office hours. The painting attracts so many admirers from all ages. Momentarily it is being restored but even behind it’s seen though vault you can still see and foremost sense what Rembrandt managed to put down on a canvas. The impact of that work of art is huge and it will remain surely an art lover magnet.
The thing with me is that I always look for the hidden gems in these places. This simple provincial girl loves getting lost in museums. Yeah…I know I get lost even without intent but in a museum I do follow my own trail and I might be found in the dark corners. It is where I suddenly find back something that my parents taught me and is really look at what is in front of me and then just a tiny bit further. Not just read the little plate that might be plastered next to it. In a museum I find back a bit of the essentials that I need to function 100% my true self.
In art there is something hidden that not necessarily everybody will spot….honestly I don’t think we can but we keep trying. Many artists have not written down why they have created why, where and when. Oh yes, there are the many official portraits we are blessed with. In London there is even the National Portrait Gallery where you can take a stroll along side many famous faces. But still I doubt that we will ever find out in what state the artists was in while they were at work or while there were trying to create something new….
Since that social media is created also visiting art museums have changed immensely and I am not sure that is has been for the better. Oh no, please don’t think that museums should ban phones and cameras…I would not go that far but there is something on my mind when I do see certain people at work with their phone and perhaps even how they behave themselves. Yes, I do have taken pictures of some of the major highlights that the mini brochure of the Rijksmuseum pointed out to me. One glance of these pics and I start to smile but still…
Still…I do try very hard to disconnect in a museum or when I am surrounded by something that has been created by someone else who is so much better with their creative minds and hands. Art speaks and carries a message and some of them will keep people wondering and be amazed. When I saw for the first time a Van Eyck painting I wished to know exactly what type of flowers where in the painting and why he had chosen exactly those and not the ones we had in our garden at home.
Most of my live I have spend visiting exhibitions and museums all over the world that did prohibit taking pictures. As a student I still had to relocate an art catalogue or book in the university library and go and stand in line in front of a photocopy machine (we art students spend a fortune on photocopies and right of reproduction) to take the perfect copy of the picture that our professors had shown us in class.
That we are now in the possession of a build in camera on our phones opens up possibilities but I do wonder how many of us have on top the picture time been mindful enough when being close to the artwork. Inside of me there is still a bit of scrutiny when I take a picture of art work. It is as if that picture will never ever to enough justice to the real thing.
Last week I also wandered through the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. That is surely a museum to visit when you are in town and they have also one of the most advanced luggage vault systems…yeah Stallie managed to forget her own created code and needed assistance to reopen hers. Check it out…it is in this museum that I suddenly witnessed something that I had kind of forgotten about since COVID-19 and that is how humans behave when they are close to art with a phone. It was in front of the sunflowers that I suddenly saw a girl posing next to it…and all I could do was wondering:’Why??? Why would you do this? ‘ I would have loved to have picked her brain and so many others who were moving around whole holding on to their life lines.
The Stallie who walks through museums is probably the most to her true version you will come across. I am then in connection with the past, the present and the future. I don’t hide but I do go totally silent and yes I might observe others and listen into certain conversations. Over the last decade I have travelled a lot on my own and been to some art temples that most of us have on our bucket list and it is then that I manage to fuel up.
In most these art palaces or tiny off the trail galleries I end up I do get so much more than just a glance at art. I make sometimes memories for a life time and most of them I don’t have pics of because or I had my phone locked up in the obligatory wardrobe/lockers or I did ran out of battery and forget to take extra juice for my phone or I just did not feel that the picture would do justice to the work itself…getting the picture here…If not let me tell you the following…
Over the last 20 years I also have traveled with my mother and we do then more than once end up booking time slots for art museums. We both then after a gigantic breakfast take off and check in order to meet up with art. My mother and I did not talk to another when we visit museums…but it is my cool and awesome mother who always manages to see the things that nobody seems to notice when out there with me. She is the one who suddenly will break the silence but not with me but with strangers or even with the artwork itself. And believe me she is the most mindful person in the whole museum.
On a sunny day in Zurich the two of us visited an other exciting museum called the Kunsthaus. It was there that my mother who walked out of exposition room with oily and wet fingers. ‘Mum, come on there was a sign that said you could not touch the stones called ‘olive stone'.’ ‘Hey, I wanted to check if that stone was really covered in olive oil.’, was her pregmatic response. ‘And?’, I asked her. ‘Not as good as the one I cook with.’, was her reply while she had her iconic pokerface on. ‘Do you have any tissues?’, she then asked. 'No, I don't', was my dry reply and I then pointed at a sign to the toilets and she walked passed me while not showing any remorse.
Ladies and gentlemen everything that I know about art is something that I have been reading or did pick up while listening to others talking about the art they loved or studied. It were my parents and some amazing passionate art historian professors who have been pumping so much info and historical facts into my mind. It are those people who walk along my side when I am in a museum. Any museum…and most of the time I try to keep my mind very open and my senses are fully activated because there might be gems hiding in the darker and less crowded spots of these places.
Nope…Stallie has so far in her life never taken a selfie in a museum and is not planning to pose next to any artwork. I let the art rather speak for itself and try to push out all he other distractions and events taking place around me. I want to suck up as much of what the artists did intend and will go back to my center where I will try to calm down and just let the beauty in…it might come in gentle waves or rather be tsunami like.
For those who think that they can catch with a phone those precious moments that they are granted access to art and creativity I have got bad news for you. Unless you decide to create a very nice photo album with one of these amazing photo album apps and if you have taken the time to really look and use your senses. That moment you were there standing is a unique moment…it can not even be caught on camera. The light, the sounds, the smell and foremost the overall vibes that the art itself will try to resonate are never ever the same.
That many of us try to capture that specific moment on is in a way a rather an attempt to cloone that unique moment. It is already gone by the time you press on your button of your camera and all that is left of is a specific memory but if you have not taken enough time to really connect then the picture will never reflect that moment...ever...believe me. That is not how art works...any art....even most professional photographers will agree with me. Some of them have to wait for decades before they can capture that one picture they were aiming for and dreaming of...they live through it...they sense it...and that particular sensation you can't copy with your camera...
My mother is the living proof that art needs to be lived. Nope…this exceptional cool and unique mother of mine will never takes pictures in museums and will rather prefer to buy a postcard in the souvenir shop that she might even mail me or my sister. And no, it might not be the hot shot of the museum she will pick out, rather the one work that everybody seems to ignore or rather has been standing towards with their back while checking if the pics they took were not blurry or have nobody other then themselves in it. Sorry you lot out there with phones polluting the view of others…you are missing out on a lot more than that one perfect picture. But who am I to tell you that…art speaks for itself…ask my mother she knows best and still uses the best olive oil there is in order to cook her delicious dishes.
