The Sugarhouse has become my Keep or Donjon. It's the castle of my mind. My days are swept away by the soft winds of the Scheldt while I go about my business of doing.  A 10 meter roll of Chinese rice paper is partially unravelled.  I doodle shapes and textures with bamboo brushes wet with tints of chestnut browns and buttery yellows as I chat with my friend May about reanimating a charity project.

The night before last I could not sleep and listed to lectures about why we create and felt true love to my incurable desire to communicate profoundly. And during my nocturnal awakening I recounted thoughts of love and matrimony and realized that we can be as we are together and apart.

4. May 2012 water mixable oils on linen. Sometimes I think I'm more Chinese in my paintings than I am in other aspects of life.  A couple years ago at the Art Innsbruck in Austria I met a collector who insisted I must be Chinese because of my color usage.  I feel that in this painting and he was right.  I'm also Norweigan. This summer I'll head to the hills, literally, to Bergen, Norway where I start my journey to my great grandfathers birthplace. The closest I've come to Norway is cycling in Sweden's Skaneland and reading Nooit meer Slapen (Beyond Sleep) by Willem Hermans. I expect fjords, rain and spooky cages of jagged mountains. I've heard if you are far enough north that the sun circles around the sky in the summer.  That is if you see the sun through the rain and the clouds. In the meantime I will practise being cold.

In the meantime I'm sketching out my project for Iceland. Having learned that 1 in 10 residents are published it seems fitting to work through my personal tales. Preparation is necessary and I would like to avoid cumbersome supplies as well as long drying times. I believe that paper, ink and a Mac book will suffice.  Of course in addition to a wind parka, long underwear, a fleece and hiking boots. I will try to refrain from taking photos as I have learned from love that any attempt to capture beauty is an act of corruption. WOW that sounds harsh.  Never the less I am more interested in telling a story than in freezing time.

Below are two sketches from my moleskin dated July 2011.  Keeping a diary is proof that we are clairvoyant and know much more than we are prepared to accept at the time.

to free or not to free/anything to avoid the truth

Living next to Rockoxhuis is truly a gift, the most loved mayor of Antwerp who invested the majority of his salary in charity... thus the arts.  According to legend Rubens would never have been discovered was it not for the patronage of Rockox. They were buddies and used to hang out one block away from yours truly. The gardens are beautifully maintained in the original manner in which they were planted.  In the cellar orange trees wait the winter out until they are placed in the garden each summer. The museum is scattered with sacred, satirical and pornographic paintings.  He clearly bought what he loved. 

Henry Miller is right - to paint is to love.  Clearly my dissatisfaction lies in what I fail to see.  In the past I threw caution to the wind when it came to, well just about everything.  Things are different now. Especially since I read a quote from Nan Stone which began to haunt me ,"you're important, but the world is important  - what are you going to do for it? It's a dialogue between you and your strengths and a world that needs them."

Today is different. A new page, a new chance. I've plunged into portraits and find the medium is adhering to my whims. Painting portraits from memory is just the cure I need.  I won't post them quite yet, as I really don't want to offend my friends, family or loved ones. I know it's risky business being a painter, in more ways than one, however I love the sentimental path of recapturing the essence of those I adore without them being present.

I guess this is the Recantado part: it's MAP time of year and I'm rounding up all the loose ends while preparing the 5th issue for publication. Switching from painting to texting is taxing and I wish I had spent more time learning Mac Speech.

Commuting from Antwerp to Winterthur.

I received permission from Winterthur Tourismus to use this video as I wish for my promotion. Here's a short extraction. This was a challenging afternoon speaking German to a Japanese film crew.  Interesting yet mostly fun. What more can I say.

This is actually a very complex painting which I began the year I arrived in Switzerland.  It was full of turbulence and reflected the conditions I found myself in.  I completed the painting last week.  It is now anchored, clear and balanced. This painting has integrated my past and has become more vivid and less intense. I know I've used this quote before, however more vivid and less intense does apply to me.

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