MY OWN ARTISTIC ENDEAVOUR

My own artistic endeavour fills me time and again with astonishment and joy but sometimes also with regret, when I reach my boundaries and can go no further. Free experimentation, in which I follow with great interest and attention what slowly develops, is also an exercise for an open and attentive approach to communicate with those things that cross my path. I also need this approach in the creative-therapeutical process, where I create things together with another person.

In my sculpting, I concern myself with how to infuse the material with life, soul and spirit. It fills me with joy, when the marks and traces of the developing process reveal the dynamics and the way in which the piece has been created.

In my drawing, working with ink and brush brings me the most joy. Here, instance and also chance play the most important roles. The time span of the drawing process is only seconds long (because the animal does not stand still for very long). I try to capture the gesture and general impression. The animal is always directly in front of me when I work. That way the general mood is present: the weather, the calm or unrest in the enclosure, my own state of being and so on.

Photography. I always have my camera with me and take photos every day, especially of medicinal plants. For years now, my husband and I have occupied ourselves with that very thing. To be outside together studying interesting plants and capturing them in photographs, not only brings us happiness but also helps my husband, who uses the images in his monthly published medicinal plant portraits, which are used for medical lectures, articles and books. A picture is not successful when only the raw image is present, but when the camera is capturing the unseeable nature and power of the object. It is a basic principle of art to make visible what otherwise remains not to be seen. When portraying people I find shooting in black and white most appropriate. An important part of portraiture is to have the subject shown in a mood that is closest to his actual nature.