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Stilleven





I hope I'm not confusing you, my blog audience, by bouncing between making work in the outside world and still lives in my intimate box room. I'm finding it quite thought provoking moving quickly from one to another, seeing shapes, arrangements and colours reflected from one approach in the other. I also like the blurring of the disciplines shifting from staged still life pictures one day to observing and framing the moving, changing world the next. It feels like they are coming together in some way, watch this space...

 The title of this blog post is the Dutch word we take our English word still life from. It came into use in the 17th Century to describe a genre of painting very much in fashion. 

 Hearing the Dutch language always makes me happy as it reminds me of two of the best years of my life living in Antwerp, and also my Belgian 'family', a lovely collection of people that are still great friends 20 years since my pal Matt and me first moved there. I'm not good with languages and despite lessons twice a week for over 18 months I never mastered Dutch. However I still have strange dreams where everyone speaks it and i understand everything, just don't test me in my waking hours. 
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