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...

Empty Pages

My niece visited me again on Saturday evening, her gentle way to help me through Kevin´s absence.. He was gigging in the UK, in a big venue in Brean on the West Coast, everybody attending in 70´s "Glam" fancy dress.
We wanted to have a nice dinner together -she should cook, I can´t!,- and to look at the film about Beatrix Potter. But once again neither of us had any idea that it was a festive day here, -one more!- and all the shops were closed!
So we had the last pizza that I had in the fridge, and instead of Miss Potter, I made NanoO pose for me. I suggested to her she should read, it would be easier for her, and for me. She took a book, I took my sketch pad, and here we are.
After a while only I noticed that she was reading an empty book. I asked
"Do you read an empty book because you can´t read?"
She looked at me with an expression of deep but resigned despair on her face:
"I read empty books because they are the only ones I understand!"
For a girl actually finishing her doctor thesis on Proust, quite worrying I would say....!

He gets Rumblies in his Tumblies!

Today I want to say a big big thankyou to my partner Kev Moore playing a very special role in my painter career, forcing himself to eat kilos of yoghurt every day -vanilla is his favourite, and straciatella is not bad either...
What has this to do with me as a painter, you may ask...
Very simple. In this way he provides me continually with the enormous yoghurt pots which I use to put the water in awhen I paint, especially with gouache or acrylics. I use a lot of them, because I am quite delicate with that, and hate to use a pot twice. Considering how much I paint everyday, one can imagine how many yoghurt pots I need ...
Sometimes, he really looks like a big bear eating honey, my Kevin..

Toro, Arte, Alegria and B.S. Wattenbuttel...

It seems to be done now, I will have in 2009 and 2010 a bullfight paintings calendar printed and published in 7 countries from Eastern Europe and Germany... and, what is very important for me, I have established a kind, respectful and fair contact to the publisher company. I have worked myself in industry in Germany, and I know how difficult it is sometimes, due to the competition in the market place, to keep fair and kind... so happy to see that it still exists!

And yesterday I made an appointment for a visit to my art studio from a Scandinavian art lover group, called "Arte y Alegria". Three of them came to me, loved the Studio and my paintings, and I guess we will have some nice hours together when they all come at the end of the month. We might even organise something for them, with music, and spoken poetry... Kevin has such a fantastic voice!

By the way:Kevin wrote a new funny poem yesterday, B.S. Wattenbuttel, illustrated with the following picture, which I adore!

Darkness in my soul...

Yesterday afternoon we mounted my exhibition in the Eye Clinic. The first painting I put on the wall, in front of the entrance door, was the biggest one, the one from Polop I presented in my last entry (but without the gay flag, of course!).
The reaction came at once:
"It is so dark and so big... don´t you have something else?"

Saying that, his face told such an horror story that if I were not so well-educated, I would have left at once, with all my paintings. Instead of that I humbly hung the painting where he said, on another wall which is most of the time hidden by an open door to another room. The other paintings, luckily, were brighter... although by one of them, the man said:
"I guessed Hamburg..."
and it was featuring a harbour here in Spain... 2 kilometers away from the Eye Clinic location! My fault I guess, as i painted it in northern colours...

I wanted to show you today some photos of the exhibition, But I was so fed-up that I couldn´t do any... and the rest of my day was spoiled! People sometimes are so cruel with us, artists. I don´t even believe they mean to be, and perhaps it´s only me who has such an extremely high sensitivity...

But don´t worry, I´m fine now, and all my energy is back.
I have just started the new "Give me a Title" competition on Planet Goodaboom. Feel free to participate and... there is something to win!
Here is the painting featured in the competition:

Solo un recuerdo... Just a memory!

Just a memory... the title of a song written and composed by Kev Moore!
Solo un recuerdo, my first contribution to Kevin´s Music Career as we met: I translated "Just a memory" into Spanish... but this is another story, and he might tell it to you one day, and even sing the song to you then... in Spanish of course.

In honour to the dead mayor and its beautiful town Polop, I have totally changed the theme of the exhibition which I will mount on Friday in a local German Eye Clinic. (It´s not just for German eyes, it´s an eye clinic run by Germans)

I decided to exhibit landscapes from the region, of course some views of Polop itself, some of Altea, another beautiful town by the sea, a tourist centre but still with its own charm. A town of artists too... And some views of others villages in the mountains.
All painted in pastel and ink, the basic drawing in ink made in situ, and the colours -my colours, nothing real- having been added at home later.

I hope the doctors from the eye clinic do their job well and their clients will be able to see, that they feel compelled to take them home... at least as a souvenir from their wonderful time in the clinic...

Don´t´believe this exhibition is a commercial trick, it is not. i just feel the need "to exhibit my feelings" about the tragedy in my own way. All these paintings have neither been exhibited nor shown to anybody before. Just to you, 2 days ago, with the first sketch of Polop, and now today, this view of Altea Harbour.
This is not about selling paintings, it´s solo un recuerdo...

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?

The Coffee Cup Club

2 days go I had an idea, which I think is a good one. Faithful to my character not to think twice, I brought it to life yesterday, opening "The Coffee Cup Club".
And today I present there "Mona Piedra", The first Lady in that place.

If you want to know what it is all about, and why I had to contact Paolo Coelho today, just PRESS HERE!

Kev Guevara...

I guess you will read it somewhere else: it is raining ropes (direct French translation) and thundering on Planet Goodaboom since last night. I´m normally not so unfond of rain, always succeeding in finding in it a certain romantic component, at least in the sounds it makes on the roof... well, and the melancholy it awakes, this is romantic too! But enough is enough, we have spent the whole summer under the rain in the United Kingdom!
Kevin, according to his weather affected disorder, is fedup, totally fedup. I hear him moaning all the time, in the background but still louder than the thunder. He was trying to write his new novel, but he was disturbed all the time, by phone calls, and perhaps by me too, and when at last we left him alone, the electricity started collapsing all the time. At the moment it is quite stable, but Kevin has lost his famous patience and decided to write an outraged essay about the weather in Spain. I thought I shouldn´t miss the opportunity to show the public how he looks like when he is fedup, him from whom the whole world says:
"He is The Nice Guy of Rock"
He is indeed, but when it comes to weather, he is unforgiving!
Anyway, I made a fast ink sketch of him, coloured it, and look, here he is, in the worst mood you could ever see him. I cannot help to find a certain similarity to Che Guevara, today...

By the way: do you know what is going on in his head while I am tenderly massaging his back?
Have a look to his Ashes on the Wind!

Our little house on Planet Goodaboom...

We had a green molecules rain this afternoon on Planet Goodaboom, just upon our little house. I wonder if they are some kind of primitive Martian Creatures... Our hair curled up to the sky and our heads felt like millions of tiny antennae, but until now we haven´t be contacted.

Busy busy at our little home today! Much painting and writing...
Especially Kevin, who is becoming a words machine, cannot stop writing anymore, short stories, diary, travel tale... if I am his muse, as he claims, then I must say: I do my job pretty well!

Who knows where it came from but that afternoon I saw a woman´s head. Only the head. The female eyes were staring at Kevin. The mouth opened, and from the lips there extended a very long tongue which ended in an enormous crawling yellow spider. The spider scrabbled all over Kevin´s face. Then the head disappeared suddenly but came back some seconds later, and the same scenario happened again. Awful! At the end, quite annoyed that a female tongue was licking my Kevin´s face, I took a pair of scissors and cut the tongue. The spider exploded in a thousand blood tears on my face and the head disappeared for ever.
Whoever has already read Kevin´s new short story "Room without a view" , knows where my vision comes from.
Who hasn´t, should be careful if he/she has sensitive nerves...

Back, with Fringe and Horns!

www.goodaboom.com

Planet Goodaboom, Friday 28th September 2007



Yes, that´s me, with my new Scottish look, impossible to miss with my wild fringy hair and my sharp devilish horns, just back from one of the northerly world ends, specifically the Butt of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland!
Again 3 months have passed since my last entry here, not such a shame this time as we have been travelling 10 weeks in our wheeled box through remote lands, most of the time without any internet or phone connection. It might sound egotistical, just to disconnect like that for such a long time -and our families don´t miss one occasion to blame us...-, but to tell the truth, what a relief, and what a sensation of freedom!!!!
We had been thinking to put mobile internet in our Boomobile, but it seems that it will be for another time... we can always argue that it is still too expensive, and still not a reliable technology...
But of course it would have been nicer, to put our travel tale with photos and sketches gradually online, and surely much more interesting for our readers. We have just started now to put our travel tale, "10 weeks in a box" online and we can just hope it won´t have for you the taste of cold coffee! You´ll find there Kevin´s daily reports and photos and sketches from me of all the places we have been. I made only ink sketches on the site, without colours, because everything was grey, due to the incessant rain falls. I´am colouring the sketches now, at home, with pastel chalk and with the memory of how colourful it could have been.... or not! In fact, just putting down the colours I fancy, and never mind the truth !!!!

All these sketches have been made from inside the Box. In our travel I could never venture outside to draw or paint. Much too wet and much too cold. Luckily our Box has many windows and Kevin always parked it in such a way that I had a 360 ° panorama view. Thanks so much to him by the way, for his patience and his ability to manoeuvre the Boomobile, very difficult most of the time as I always insisted to go to the most isolated and least "roady" parts of the countries!
I also painted some watercolour sketches, more or less inspired -and more less than more!- by the views outside. I´ll present them gradually in my Carnets de Voyage, just need to polish them a little bit to make them presentable, and to digitalise them. Quite a lot of work!

I hope you will enjoy with us our 10 Weeks in a Box!

Cutting my teeth

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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!

Two Proud!

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Planet Goodaboom, Monday 26th March 2007

We were back working the Street yesterday, but to be honest, we totally missed the time table: we started at 14h instead of 11h! I just felt lazy, somehow, something which doesn´t occur very often, and I couldn´t really convince myself to face that kind of work. And furthermore, we didn´t even realise that they had changed the time in the night, so to add insult to injury it was also one hour later! Some German man, who had been in the Street Gallery early in the morning, came back in the afternoon and mentioned to me, that they changed the time, pointing at his watch in a comically impatient fashion. I guess he hadn´t noticed that I was not one but 3 hours too late!
By the way: I hadn´t even noticed that I still had my painting trousers on, which actually look like one of my wilder creations. The same guy called me and said:
"What is the price of this painting, Miki?"
I was surprised.
"How do you know my name?"
Well, he just smiled, pointed to the signature on the painting he was just holding in his hands, and to my trousers....
Indeed, it couldn´t be more obvious! I realised then just what I was wearing.

It was very windy and cold by the sea yesterday, and we couldn´t set up the easels. Never mind, I put the biggest paintings on the ground and the ingenious Kevin created very sophisticated, anti-wind devices -gigantic plastic clips to hold some of tiny frameless paintings in their display rack, which was itself anchored to the table with even BIGGER clips! The paintings almost disappeared within this mighty construction! But well, he was very proud of himself, this the most important thing, I guess...
Due to the weather, there were not many people walking around, but I still got a lot of attention and compliments, well, my paintings did!. We also had some very funny entertainment by a spanish saint woman called "Puri", a short name for "Purification". Kevin will tell you the story, I would miss out too many words to transmit the glory of the situation...

I -unfortunately- sold one of my favourite sketches, and to tell the truth, I haven´t many. A fast sketch of a village in the "Ribeira del Duero", a famous wine region north of Madrid. I was there two years ago, on a painting trip. Sold to a Spanish Art collector from Madrid, who worked in the past in El Prado.
I must say: I am quite proud!

So plenty of pride all round, for construction, and sales! (Despite, I´m sure, Saint Puri´s admonition that Pride is one of the 7 deadly sins....we´re working on the others!)

Back again on Planet Goodaboom!

www.goodaboom.com

Planet Goodaboom, Saturday 24th March 2007


Yes, we are back home, and this is the way it looked as we entered Spain on the 21st of March in the middle of the afternoon. And you won´t believe it, but some hours later, as we drove through a region called "El Maestrazgo", about 300km south of Madrid, the car thermometer was showing - 6°C outside! So people, if you consider moving to Spain because of sea and sunshine, better stay home... anyway, already too many people are living here, it´s becoming insane! Better regularly read our diaries and get the taste of Spain from a distance!

Kevin will surely soon make a word and photo reportage of our travel to Germany and to France, so keep an eye out for our travelogue.

The first thing I saw when I entered the Art Studio was three half finished kiddies anxiously waiting for me with wide open eyes... oh God, I thought, I had completely forgot them! Of course, two weeks before we left I had started 3 portraits on commission - one English boy, one English girl, one Dutch girl- and had to leave before I could finish them...
It will be so difficult now to go back to them, I have completely lost the personal relationship I had established with them while I was painting them, absolutely necessary to make a good, lively portrait. But well, I am not so worried, I just need to make the first step, sit in front of one portrait, empty my mind concentrating only on the child and start. But well, this tiny step, at the moment, appears to me like a giant one! But it will be wonderful to paint again, after 10 days artistic inactivity. I deeply miss it.

I guess, the best thing is to start at once! Also: write to you soon again!

Buying my place in Paradise...

Planet Goodaboom, Friday 9th March 2007

My parents live in a flat in Tarbes, in the French Pyrenees, in the first floor. Underneath there lives alone a very old Catholic priest, he must be about 90 years old now. A very funny figure. I remember when I met him for the first time on the stairs there, I was on the way to my kick boxing training. My mother told him that, and he suddenly got very bright eyes, asking me if I had seen the film „X“ –sorry, I don´t remember the name!- with a woman as a kick boxer... he said that he loved the film. And as he said bye to me, he started wildly throwing his fists and legs in the air, in the manner of a kick boxer!
He is also the one who bakes special butter-laden cookies for Maya, my parent´s dog... he knows that my parents don´t want that the dog to eat too many cookies, so he just waits until they turn their backs and he feeds her with all the cookies within 2 minutes! You should see his innocent, sinless eyes after!
Anyway... some days ago he went to my parents flat and saw some of my paintings there. He was fascinated by the abstract ones, especially the one with the very bright colours, „La dame en noir“. Which I gave my mother last year for Mother´s day:

The priest said that he was something of a connaisseur in art and literature, and made many compliments about my work.
„You can believe me, I know what I am speaking about, she is a great artist!“
Oh God!

He spent a long time sitting there, and watching the Lady in Black, At the end he took a very sinful look and asked, with a very shy voice:

„Can you ask your daughter if she can give me one painting? Just a tiny one? I know it is very shameful of me, but... it is so beautiful, I can´t resist!“

My mother was quite embarrassed to tell, me that, but why? I feel quite honoured, I must say! I always feel honoured when somebody loves my paintings so much that he wants to hang one at home, either paid for, or not!
So I have chosen for the priest today one of my favourite „Impressions“, called „Phantasm“, and Kevin will put a beautiful frame around it. My mother thinks it´s too much, but as I told her just now on the phone:
„It might help me to get a place in Paradise!

A Baby in a Rose

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Planet Goodaboom, Tuesday 6th March 2007


I told you it was a successful day 2 days ago in the Street Gallery...but how successful, I didn´t even know myself at that moment! One of the clients who already bought a painting from me came today to my Gallery and bought a further three and a CD from Kevin (see his entry in his diary). It was wonderful to see how they hardly could decide which one they should buy, they loved so many... what a nice compliment for me! Above all because these people were the same who bought my miniature painting 2 weeks ago, saying that they have no place on their walls. They haven´t indeed, but they have children who still have space... I hope they will like the paintings their parents bought for them today!

I wanted above all to tell you about the old Spanish lady who bought a painting from me on Sunday. She is one of these women living in the countryside, and who normally never leave their villages in their lifetime. But some travel companies here organise cheap week-end trips to the coast for these old Spanish people and for most it is their first trip away. They accomodate them in some of the nice hotels by the beach –one of them, Kactus Hotel, is right at the corner of the Street Gallery- and organise there on the Sunday afternoon big sales of things like oriental carpets or modern kitchen appliances. These poor people get the trip cheap, but they then spend such a fortune buying all these extras! Anyway.. my old lady looked at the paintings and came to me, asking:
„Are these paintings signed by any well-known painter?“
I didn´t really understand what she meant. So I said:
„well, yes, they are all signed... the paintings are from me!“
„Yes, I can see they are signed! But I know exactly what I want!“
She sounded a little bit stressed... but whatever she wanted, and however she expressed it, I kept smiling and told her, that I am famous in the area. She was quite happy with that answer and asked me for the price.
„Which one?“
I asked.
She didn´t know. She just wanted a painting from a famous painter, I guess. As I told her the price of various ones, she looked very sad.
„Look, I have already spent too much money on the carpets... I have almost nothing left... and my husband loves paintings so much! It is for him...“
Finally she found a painting which she really loved. It was inspired by a photo from Anne Geddes, featuring a baby in a rose. In fact it was not for sale, it was just to give people ideas for personalised paintings.
But my old lady insisted so much that I gave her a price. Of course it was much too expensive, and normally I don´t let people negociate with me. But I felt some kind of sympathy for this woman. I never had that before but, after 4 rounds, and her leaving and returning each time, finally even showing me the bill for the carpets she had just bought, she succeeded in getting the painting from me for less than half of the price I had first said!
I wonder if her husband will really appreciate it, when she comes back home after having spent so much money. But she was very happy, and wanted me to make a photo of her, me and the baby in the Rose!

Art and Ice Cream

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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!

God comes through The Wall

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Planet Goodaboom, Saturday 3rd March 2007


No, it´s not a painting from me, although I am fascinated by the likeness... it is just a fracture in the wall of a house in Villajoyosa, a small town on the coast 30 km north of Alicante. We were there yesterday, and it´s been about 7 years since I have been there.

The last time, I remember, I was there alone to sketch the old town with the rainbow houses.
A funny story... A young man came to me. He was a seaman by day and a flamenco singer by night. He said he was totally fascinated by my sketches, but somehow I had the feeling –a kind of feminine intuition...- that it was something more earthly which attracted him to me. Anyway... in spite of all my efforts, I could not get rid of him, and although he left me for a short time he returned swiftly with his 5 nephews and nieces, all small children between 3 and 5 years old. Then he insisted that I accompany them to meet his mother and say hello, they had never seen a foreign artist before and it would be a big honour for them if I would enter their house. The 50 children´s fingers were already grasping my arms and legs and dragging me, so I had no chance to say no. I had to cross the whole city with 5 children flapping around me like an insane skirt! I really felt like a big Spanish mamma! And those who know me understand the ridiculousness of the situation: I have always panicked at the thought of becoming a Mother!


Finally we reached the house. The children released me and rushed into the house to tell the good news to the grandmother (I guess they told her that their uncle was bringing his new fiancé, and not some foreign artist!!!) I used an instant of his inattention to escape from my sailor´s net and run away hell for leather. I was really panicked, I could see myself married into the bosom of a big Spanish family without even having time to realise what was going on!
I never came back to Villajoyosa then, out of fear to meet him again!

But yesterday I was not alone there, and I guess Kevin would have effortlessly convinced any seaman and flamenco singer to go away from me, if necessary....
The city had not changed at all. I have never in my life seen a place such as this where life and death are cohabiting in the same spot.
And if I had only 3 words to describe it, I would say:
„colour, chaos and romany“

Smaller than the bank note!

www.goodaboom.com


Planet Goodaboom, Wednesday 28th February 2007


I was back in the Street Gallery last Sunday, after 4 weeks pause forced by the police and even more by the weather. And as I told: it was a successful day!
It seems that people had missed me and were happy to see me again there with all my paintings.
If I were arrogant I would dare to say:
„I bring the colour to that town!“


I sold that painting, called by Kevin „The Solitary Pine“. By the way, since I have know him, he is the one who gives titles to my paintings! This is the reason why they suddenly all have English titles...I hate to do it myself, perhaps because I hate to look at my paintings when they are finished: past is past!

This was the first one of a large series of miniatures I painted last year. My wise father had told me to do it, suggesting that many of my clients are older people who already have a long life behind them and have filled their house with a lot of stuff, and surely haven´t much place for a new picture on their wall!
How right he was! Many clients told me the same already. And this was exactly the point with my old Norwegian lady on Sunday. She loved my art, and wanted one at any cost, but had no place on her walls. She chose the smallest one!
Lucky for her, I would say, as the smallest also happens to be one of my favourite landscape paintings.
It was a very strange feeling, at the end, as she paid me: the note was bigger than the painting! I can tell you: this is an immense feeling of happiness, because it demonstrates so obviously that for some people, art is more important than money!

So... the solitary pine will soon hang on Norwegian walls. There are already many paintings from me decorating Norwegian walls, as these folk are my best clients. Norwegian love art, and love it with a natural simplicity. When they see a painting which they like, they don´t think twice: they just buy it, wherever it is, and without even asking who painted it.
Nice!

The Last of the Mohicans

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Planet Goodaboom, Monday 26th February 2007

Yesterday, after 4 or 5 weeks pause, I exhibited again in the Street Gallery. Against my expectations based on former experiences with the local authorities, one week after my request for renewal of permission I received an official letter from the town hall, saying that they agree. Hurrah! It feels as though I have won a war!

I thought I had no chance, because in the meanwhile I am the only painter left exhibiting there, you might say: the last of the Mohicans.
Did I already tell you the story of the Street Gallery?
It started 3 years ago, from a collective painting exhibition organised by the local Lions Club. I met there a Spanish painter, Concha. We were both exasperated by the lack of exhibiting possibilities in our area, and had the idea to try to make the only pedestrian street of the city OURS, at least on Sundays, organising an exhibition of paintings from international painters there. It took three months till we got the permission – a perfect example of the „mañana“ principle-, and we only triumphed because Concha & me are the kind of people who take it to the wire until we get what we want! We were sent backwards and forwards through all the departments here, the culture centre, town hall, police, traffic, economy, simply because nobody really wanted to make the decison. It even became a political matter! But finally we got what we wanted!

Well... we were 7 at the beginning... 4 Spaniards, 1 German, 1 Swedish and the French Miki. Unfortunately it is very hard to work the street, and we had to face all kind of calamities like sudden storms, electrical shorts , sewage smells from the overworked drainage system, Dogs fouling path AND paintings! etc. But the worst were the critics: many people could not understand that professional painters like ourselves could „demean“ themselves by exhibiting their paintings in the street, and most of the time under very unfavourable conditions. They thought the street was the wrong „frame“ for our paintings, that it would totally diminish their value. So one after the other my painting companions deserted the Street Gallery. Just Concha and me were still there last Summer. Unfortunately, in the autumn, she gave up, too. I then wanted to stop myself because I found it too hard to stay there alone, and anyway it didn’t correspond at all to the original idea of having an international gathering of painters working in different styles and techniques. But in the last 3 years the Street Gallery had become quite well known in the area, people really enjoyed it, and they tried to convince me to go on. But it is only thanks to Kevin, who motivated and helped me so much all the time, that I am still there... and very happy about it!
As hard as it is, it is really the best way to reach the maximum number of people with my art, people coming from many different countries and social backgrounds and occupations. It is also the best place to observe the public reaction to my work.
In the meantime people no longer think it is a shame to exhibit in the street. I like to think of it as striking a blow against the collective prejudices...

And as if the gods wanted to reward us: it was a very successful day yesterday, I´ll tell you about it next time.
And the curtain fell on the Street Gallery with an astonishing sunset...