I have started hanging out with a lovely all women group about creativity and upcycling based in Kolding, called Vokesfritteren. The group is led by my friend and colleague Sara Mosberg Iversen. What I like about this group is the positive and supportive mood, a bunch of lovely women, different ages, meeting together to do origami, sew, embroider and cut out paper. To me the focus of the group seems to enjoy time together, sharing each other's skills, drinking coffee and simply creating together. Certainly there is also a sociopolitical angle to it, with upcycling and making artefacts to be used, outside the frame of consumerism and brands. But the tone is positive, there is never pressure in feeling guilty about personal choice, only mutual support, smiles and sharing: material and time. To be honest I am fed up with the negative cycle we are surrounded by, in which: - Corporations pushes us to throw away stuff and buy new, through inbuilt obsolescence, bad design, and various tricks like updates on digital products that worsen the performance of our digital products, forcing us to buy new, stealing from our resources even when we do not want to spend. - Politicians, activists, stupid celebrities-wanna be clever saints blame us for our "expensive" lifestyle, when we cannot be made accountable for it all the time. I would have liked to keep my old phone and my money, but because of stupid updates my phone became as slow as a snail. I was forced to change it, and to be honest I am not even so fond of the new one. It feels to me as if people are being punched in the face everyday on both sides and I hate it! Anyway, I want my art to be like the Voksefritteren: simple, cheap, warmth, making people feel good while enjoying an aesthetic experience. Contemporary art is often about shocking and making people feel uncomfortable, showing people the ugliest sides of society, all the time. It feels to be thrown back to the Middle Ages where it was chic to cultivate your feeling of guilt and everything people did or thought of doing was a sin. And then we complaint that people, especially the young ones are stressed or depressed. Enough of my political runt, I think we have enough of that, I do not want to punch anybody in the face, I want to inspire people to take a moment, to feel and use you their eyes to get through their soul and enjoy a contemplative moment. Here are the sketches I have made during our embroidery-mending session, trying to capturing the mood of our session, during which we were mending old clothes with small embroideries. To be honest I suck at embroidering, but it was very fun to be there and I learned a couple of new things:) In this set of sketches I liked to focus on how the participants were enjoying themselves, some would concentrate on their needle work, as if they were meditating. Others liked to chat and share a laugh, focusing more lightly on their work, while still making astounding things. It reminds me of myself when I paint in the evening, while watching TV with my husband. While I drew the women, I noticed the poses and movements of their hands, so I thought why not drawing their hands? Unfortunately it was tough, as they were moving fast, but it also revealed to be a good exercise to sharpen my technique, which I should do more often and here are my attempts :) In these sketches I have used a simple cheap sketchbook, so it was a challenge to keep the water in check.
Observing the working hands felt amazing, as if the hands were dancing with the needles and the fabric. I tried to focus on capturing the lines that the hands were composing in the air and in space. I followed how dynamically the negative spaces in between the palms and fingers, in between the fingers with each other and with the needles and fabrics. I conclusion, having lately focused so much on the natural forms, I have started feeling overwhelmed when trying to draw people in movement, I think we could say that it is the most challenging subject ever, and the only thing to do is practicing and do it more often. Like diving into cold water, for me it helps to do one bit at a time, gradually, I like to start focusing on one line at a time, like the contour of the head, the forms of a sleeve and then trying to avoid panicking developing the sketch, expanding it one detail at a time, and focusing on it. Thanks for stopping by Bertie XXX
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Consistency has never been one of my virtue and this unfortunate blog is a proof of that. But I still want to try to keep it moving :)
I call this painting "Expectations". This is a special painting I did in 2005, the year my daughter was born. I tried to represent the hopeful and anxious emotional state of mums-to be, I never thought in my life that I would become a mom, but then it felt all of a sudden right. Here I want to show how I fantasized about my daughter, taking her to the park to play, baking and eating ice-creams together, and then slowly it became reality. Now 16 she is taking a college year in science and growing up far too fast. This painting was used as a book cover by friend Paola Cerutti and for her book "Come una mamma" and now I have sold it to a nice ex-colleague of mine, who found something special about it. For me it symbolizes the obsessive worries of pregnant women, always thinking of what will be happening, full of hopes and anxieties for their babies. At the same time, I was already engaging in my theme about humans mirroring themselves in nature. Here the figure of a woman merge with night sky, her dress is the same dark colour as the sky, with the dark sky suggesting the mystery of pregnancy, how you cannot foresee the result of the process, you do not know what is going to happen right? The woman sees an embryo in the crescent moon, while caressing her belly. In a way she is seeing the inside of her womb reflected in the moon, a sign of the obsessive thinking I was going through during my pregnancy, it felt as everything reminded me of my pregnancy. But at the same time, embryos look a bit like a crescent moon, don't they? ;) Thank you for stopping by Bertie xxx I am here again after a break, I was busy with multiple tasks, including preparing for my little exhibition at Bolbro Brugerhus in Odense. I came in contact with this Bolbro Brugerhus online, through my Danish painting groups on Facebook. They had already exhibitions booked for 2022, but they were interested in my material, so I got invited to exhibit a few pieces at their cafè and to do a full exhibition in 2023. So I worked towards selecting which works would fit in that room, finishing a few pieces, and framed them with the frames I had available. Since I had to exhibit a few works I kept with what I had. Here you can see a few images from the exhibition :) I must say that I feel proud to collaborate with Bolbro Brugerhus. Located in the area of Bolbro, in Odense, not far from the city center, it is one of those institutions that make a difference for people living in the area, especially aging people and families. The center coordinates a series of activities, including exhibitions, arts and craft courses, the cafè, where my paintings are being exhibited, offers meals, coffee and cakes at a reasonable price.
To discuss my exhibition I came in contact with another local artist, a lovely woman called Susanne, who invited me to collaborate with her at Havnekulturfestival, a cultural event at Odense harbor. We will hold a painting workshop for kids, where she will supervise with acrylics and I will watercolors. The event will be at the end of May 2022 and I am really looking forward :) My exhibition at Bolbro Brugerhus will go on from March to the end of April and let's see what happens :) Thanks for stopping by xxx Bertie |
AuthorFreelance illustrator and painter. Archives
May 2023
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