The pictures of September 15th, 2001

On September 11th death grinned worldwide. Four days later life laughed in my neighbours backyard with the birth of a foal. My neighbour made such a merry uproar that I left my loyal easel and made my way to mother and child. To Femke the world was only one minute old when I saw her lying on the grass. The sky was cloudy, but on the green a brown gem was glowing with such a radiance of innocence and lust for life, that the images of four days before, branded on my memory, faded away for awhile.

Foal 1-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

I haphazardly made some snapshots, for she had not caught her breath fully and yet she was trying to stand up. I had no pretensions whatsoever with these snaps. I merely tried in a rather silly way to catch some of this lovely light in a dark box.

Foal 2-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

Within ten minutes she was balancing on four firm legs. Still a bit shaky, but she was standing straight up and without any hesitation she went for the right spot with her mother to drink. The day passed and the next day Femke already plunged into the brook, for she didn't know of any boundaries and she hadn't had the need to learn how to brake.

Foal 3-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

A few days later I picked up the photographs, but looking at them I recognized nothing of these precious moments. Femke herself was barely visible and the cloudy day had hazed the whole spectacle. First-rate sloppy work.

Foal 4-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

It is in the end of January 2002. The still life I was working on is finished and mucking about in my studio I find the photographs. As I go over them again, I notice that I am putting them in a kind of order. Then I realize I am visualizing her very first step. It is not easy to see, because of Mother Maaikes prominent presence. She continuously sticks closely to her daughter. As a painter I can not stand her presence. As a painter? I realized that I was beginning to feel like doing something with this theme. Angrily I threw the pictures in a corner. Was I out of my mind? I simply hate working from photographs. Off course, at the start of my career as a painter I sometimes used them when making my urban sights, because one cannot work easily in the big city, but as soon as I could quietly work in the fields I painted from nature. To conquer what you see. Photographs are a dead element in many works of art. They are used too often and too easily. If a miraculous virus would kill photography tomorrow, the day after a considerable part of the population of artists would also be extinguished.

Foal 5-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm. Foal 6-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm. Foal 7-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

But I picked up the pictures and felt like a little Taliban. Inflexibility in doctrine is the abortion provocatus of many a work of art. What if I tried to alter the miserable, insignificant photos of Femke's into firm portraits? And what if I expelled the mother to begin with? Just the foal. After all, for the first ten minutes she had had to do it all by herself.

Foal 8-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

I pulled myself together and sawed fifteen small panels of approximately 7 x 13 centimeter. Fifteen white little boards; fifteen phases from lying to standing up. September the fifteenth.

Foal 9-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

From very simple sketches I made line drawings in oil, which I fully worked out in one colour. The one-colour paintings turned out well. In fact I did not dare to go on with them for they were just fine. I realised that if I ruined them, they would be gone. Forever.

Foal 10-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

At that moment I remembered the two gentleman I recently work with, who they are trying to distribute my work in print, in the form of calendars. Of course the idea for a horse-birthday-calendar was quickly born and as I suggested this idea to them, they reacted with great enthusiasm and took action.

Foal 11-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

Its is now March and this calendar will definitely be published, and possibly in quite large numbers. And perhaps, who is to know, the small calendar will also know nothing of boundaries, and so Femke's first steps could leave a trail that is much longer than it was on September 15th.

Foal 12-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

Anyway, the small brown oil-sketches were photographed and have now been recorded. With that the road is clear to make full colour paintings of them. If I will succeed in this isn't clear yet, for I still hesitate. Besides, painting is like moon-walking: exciting, but one wrong step and you are bouncing into deep space.

Foal 13-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

The question remains: Is one small step for a foal, a giant leap for a painter?

Foal 14-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.

Foal 15-15, 2002, o/p, 13x7cm.