The Christmas Cafe Crem Competition

I´ve got a new idea!

“Oh dear”, you might think, “Miki is on a roll again!”

Yes, I am, the simple truth being that I can´t live without new ideas…

So here it is:

I am here announcing officially the Christmas Cafe Crem Competition. The rules are quite simple, and there is a big box full of Christmas stuff to win.
For more info and participation, please go to Café Crem, or contact me here...

Bad a Boom!

In the middle of the night, a big bang awoke me. So loud that I really thought, in the first moment, the world is exploding, or at least our little home. But in the bedroom, everything was ok, except for the fact that my Kevin was not laying in my arms. In fact, he was not laying anywhere. The clock showed 4.AM.
I was still gathering my mind as I heard a shout coming from downstairs. It sounded like
"Frigging Computer!"
I got up, went down the stairs and found my Kevin sat on the sofa, in full Guevara Gear, all green in the face, tapping like crazy on the keyboard of his frigging computer.
"What are you doing?"
"Well, I´m trying to deactivate the remaining 5 power stations in America!"
Oh God, I thought.... my Kevin is not the most patient one, concerning computers.
"And?"
"One just went up in the air... and the next is about to!""
One second later a big Boom came out of the computer.
"My God, Kevin, we are supposed to be Good a Boom, and not Bad a Boom! What will people think!"
Kevin went even greener
"Baby, I have just blown up 2 American power stations, and you are just concerned about what people will say?!"


By the way: Have you an idea what I´m writing about, here? A guess?
Well, we are watching every day, late in the evening the American series "24". We love it, and are quite engaged in it, having all the time discussions about everything that happens there. So engaged that my Kevin, tonight, dreamt of it and woke up with the imperious necessity to try to help Edgar to deactivate the override device.
After the 2 explosions I forced Kevin to go back to bed.
I wonder what they will say in CTU tonight, when they see the mess... will they be able to trace Kevin´s frigging computer?

Cutting my teeth

www.goodaboom.com

Planet Goodaboom, Sunday 1st April 2007

This is Dutch Esmee, my new child... a pretty girl, my Esmee, isn´t she? To tell the truth, I had some troubles with the birth, as Esmee´s Grandparents were not quite happy with her first teeth... Well, Esmee´s Grandfather was a dentist, specialising in prostheses, and as he says, his attention was focused on teeth aesthetics his whole life. Esmee´s first teeth looked a little bit too aggressive, as if she wanted to bite everything she found... what babies normally do, don´t they? Anyway... Esmee had to go back into mother´s belly, and mother had to work on her dental genetics. Half an hour later -a second birth is always much faster and far less painful than the first one...- Esmee was reborn, with a gentle soft mouth, and I got a gigantic bottle of red wine from Grandpa Frans!
Also: Thanks and Cheers, Frans & Henny, you are wonderful people, and I have no doubts: the best and youngest grandparents in the world!
By the way: Frans is not only a dentist, he is pianist too, and a very good one! Have a look at his website.

Frans told me when he was making teeth prostheses, there were sometimes old ladies bringing the prosthesis back and telling things like:
"The gap between the front teeth is too big!"
or
"The teeth are not white enough!"
Frans had to find a diplomatic way to tell them that, at their age, the rest of their teeth weren´t exactly snowy white either!
One wonders that old ladies are still bothered with such imperfections, but somehow, it is nice, that women fight for their beauty until the last moment!
Frans told me, that he always felt bad when they brought the "dental art work" back. So he said, he could understand my feelings when I have to retouch a portrait...
But honestly, it is not a problem. A portrait is a difficult work, and it´s normal that I might have to do some tiny changes when I think it is finished. I exactly know that a tiny detail, which bothers the eye, can spoil the whole painting because the eye of the observer always focuses on that imperfection. And in the final analysis my job is only finished and the painting only complete when the client is happy!

Art and Ice Cream

www.goodaboom.com


Planet Goodaboom, Monday 5th March 2007


Wonderful day again for the Street Gallery yesterday. I guess a thousand people must have stopped to look at my paintings and I ask you: where else, if you are not a really famous painter, would you get so many visitors in one day to your exhibition? Whatever one still may think about my choice to „work the street“: it is obviously the best place to touch my clients! (Kevin: „you are such a naughty girl, Miki!“)

And as you see: even the youngest were interested in my art! That one –a lively work of art himself!, with even the colour of the ice cream matching the colour of the sweatshirt!- had really to be dragged away by his parents from my paintings, he wanted to stay there! I guess the parents were scared the ice cream would land on the paintings, and indeed I was scared too although, honestly, I think it would have been funny, somehow, to see the reaction of the parents and if they would offer to buy the painting...
It reminds me, many years ago, I was painting a watercolour landscape in nature, sitting on the ground, in Provence. Suddenly I saw an enormous tongue licking my painting and the whole landscape was transformed into a dog´s breakfast, quite literally! I glanced back and saw behind me a gigantic Saint Bernard, whose tongue, having finished with my painting, moved on to my face for dessert... By the way: the dog´s owner did not propose to pay for the painting, but thankfully kept HIS tongue in his mouth!

I ask you again: have you seen many times such small children in a normal exhibition? This only happens in the street. I am fascinated how such small children are really interested in paintings... and many times it happens that they start explaining the paintings to their parents! This was not the case with that one, as he cannot speak yet!

The problem with my young admirers is that they don´t buy my paintings. They prefer to spend their money on ice cream, I guess, and I must confess, in their place, I would do the same!!!!!!!

Nevertherless it was a very successful day yesterday in the older age category. I´ll tell you next time... if I can find the time to leave all my kiddies for a while!

An English Cloud with Bow-Tie

www.goodaboom.com


Planet Goodaboom, Friday 23th February 2007



Some days ago, quite frustrated at not being able to express myself in English as I would really love to, I looked for a French Blog Platform, and found quite a nice one. I started a new diary there, and if I have the discipline to go on, I´ll perhaps publish it in Goodaboom, for the French speaking people. I have already been moaned at by my compatriots, who consider it as a serious case of betrayal.
I was browsing through the entries there, and I found the blog of a mother publishing the last drawings of her very young child: a pig with glasses, and a train making a cloud with a bow-tie, „looking like an English gentleman“, the mother commented. English people out there, don´t be offended, i´m sure the woman referred to the bow-tie part of the drawing, not to that of the cloud!

Anyway: as I saw these pictures, I had to leave a comment:
„What a pity that we lose the freedom of our imagination when we grow up!“.
These drawings remind me of a conversation I had with Kevin some days ago. About dreams, and the way how they may be „created“ in the brain.
I think, when we sleep and our brain doesn´t underlay the laws of reasonability and logic it has to follow to be able to survive in „the real world“, it takes a little bit of its inspiration from everywhere in its memory and connects elements in a kind of surrealistic way. Connections which are „prohibited“ in a state of wakefulness.

And so it is in the woken brain of very young children. Everything is still allowed, no rule tells you that a cloud cannot wear a bow-tie, at least not loud enough to impede the imagination to flourish. This could be the reason why these children´s drawings remind me so much of dreams...

99,99 % of people lose that ability when they grow-up, I guess. Only the ones who have a strong enough character to flout the common laws, may keep this ability of wild, unallowed connections in their brain.
I would call this ability: „Creativity“.
In this sense children are surely the most creative creatures in the universe!

PS: I just found that it exists in the weather science a „Bow-Tie Effect“ related to clouds! What a genius