Unencumbered

When life appears, it is the unknown. But to be able to welcome the unknown, you have to be unencumbered.

Bram van Velde

Today, the weather completely contradicted the forecast. No clouds, no rain, only a breeze from the east-northeast. A bit of a disappointment since this might very well be the last expedition of 2015. The year of encumbrance is soon to begin.

As always, at the birth of the day, it seems as if things don 't yet have a face; as the morning evolves into adolescence, everthing becomes inexorably exterior, frontal. Then it is time to go home, even though it hurts to leave.

It has been a good thing, finding this spot in Zeeland. It has freed me from the perspective of the Schelde, and I feel that it has given me new ways to avoid routine, compelled me to confront
A Bigger Space.

Cependant, tout reste à faire.

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Fail better.

All before. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.

 Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett

Still quite dark as I arrived on my spot. Warm, for this time of morning (night). Slightly hazy. By 6:00 light enough to start work. 

Soon after, visited by a fidgety weasel who came to inspect my drawing case momentarily, indifferent to my presence, it seemed. 

A hare hopping along the base of the dike.

Between 6:00 and 7:00, just as the sun rose, it seemed to set again. low whispy clouds coming in from the west, and increasing humidity and mist from the south-west. Getting colder.

At 8:30, witnessed a double kidnapping. A young blond woman and her dog passed behind me, running fast. The woman was pushing a buggy, presumably with a baby inside, the dog was dragging a man who was leashed to the dog with a belt round his waist and a length of rope. The man was staggering so pitifully that he couldn't even cry out for help. As I didn't want to get involved, and the day was reaching adolescence anyway, I decided to pack up. If anyone is interested, they fled in the direction of the Belgian border.

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Sub silentio

What is essential is not to know whether we are wrong or right - that is quite unimportant. What is important is to discourage the world from concerning itself with us. All the rest is vice. 

Samuel Beckett

As different from last Wednesday as one could imagine. The forecast had predicted as much, but the weather in the following days will probably be even more clement.

Cool, but almost without wind (east). The wind turbines hardly moving. A full moon in the west, reflected in the placid river. No clouds, except the man-made one from Doel. Early morning mist oozing from the land onto the water.

The nitty-gritty. Nothing hidden and all of it invisible. Bare space, in a state of nature. Full frontal nudity. Void, Vacuum. Âme qui vive. Blank. Rien à quoi se raccrocher.

Hang the drawings on the stays of my umbrella, but the dew keeps the ink wet.

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Panta rhei

Twelve degrees C and a 26km/h wind (even southerly) suffice to benumb one's fingers, I found out today. Started tingling hours later, after return home.

Greeted just after 5:00 by a shower. Since I am facing the wind headlong, no chance of deploying my umbrella and working at the same time. Drink coffee and eat bread during shower.
Have to watch my unprotected back: even at this early hour, zombies (with a vivid interest in things artistic and 'creative') might be lying in wait, silently creeping up from the rear... As it is, I am left in peace.

Skies clear up. Wind doesn't let up. Keeps me awake and active, if somewhat tearful. With humidity at 70%, the ink doesn 't dry, despite the wind. Cannot wait, have to bring tissue paper into play. In this wind, it requires some skill to rip a finished drawing off the block and get it into the portfolio (without inadvertently signalling to passing cargo ships) .

Around 8:00, clouds sail in from the east and it starts to rain, heavily. Quite wet by the time I reach the car.
Good innings.

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Impossible

'People fear the impossible.'

Bram van Velde

'I am up against a wall, but I have to move forward. It's impossible, isn't it?

 Yet you can still move forward, gain a few miserable millimeters.'

Samuel Beckett

It is frightening.

Arrived before 5:00 this morning. It took fifteen minutes to see where I was.

Despite my best hopes, the weather was mild, placid. No wind, no rain, no nothing, only space and light.

How to explain this. Can it be 'explained'?

What I value in Zeeland, is the virtual absence of perspective, that intellectuel construct, that conventional falsehood, as far removed from reality as words are from the thing they are believed to pertain to. This universe, this space, this light make the impossibility of my endeavour even harder to ignore. That is exactly what I want. 

When I draw, I do not express, I do not represent. I do not depict. Because there is nothing. That is frightening. What can be the relation between the sheet of paper in my lap, and the nothingness around me? It is impossible. On days like this, I rather anxiously try to avoid any horizon, that most perfect of lies. I fail constantly.

When there is no wind to articulate the space, no picturesque cloud formations, no rain, just nothing, the senses grab at anything to make the invisible palpable, the flight of a flock of geese or the reverberating call of an oystercatcher. Feeling your way in the dark.

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Fifteen km of silence. Rilland, Zeeland

Found my 15 kilometers of silence!

First drawing excursion in Zeeland since ages (15 years?): I now share a car, at 29 Euro a go. Set off this morning at about 04:15, arrived half an hour later on the spot, which I had carefully chosen beforehand, and which for reasons of privacy, shall remain unspecified. Suffice it to say that in my new spot, I am no longer restricted by perspective, having a ca. 200° view of the Westerschelde. I am facing due South, Het verdronken land van Saeftinghe is just visible on the far side.
The tide was low and ebbing, temperature mild, little wind (eastern). A slight mist came floating in from the east, onto the expanse of water.

I was wary of human presence in this new place, but it turned out reasonably quiet. At 6:53 the first human being showed up; a man walking his dog. At 7:50 a cyclist passed by. Then 5 minutes later, two older men carrying bags and tripods climbed over the dike and proceeded to photograph everything and anything within view, for about an hour, all the while edging closer to where I was. Luckily, I am more or less protected by my fisherman's parasol. In these conditions the only protection I need is from prying eyes, from those who presume that a person drawing is a tourist attraction. These people reduce my fifteen kilometers of silence to mere meters. The distant din of the port of Antwerp doesn't bother me, nor the rumble of the constantly passing freighters. One has to be especially on guard with these nature photographers, though: they carry gigantic telelenses and aren't averse to spying, as one of my gentlemen proved. And they talk.

All  morning swarms of swallows (swifts?,martins?) flew about, quite low, and all the time landing on the 'beach' to gather mud, apparently. The photographers trampled through this scene of course, luckily they missed the spoonbill, which had appeared at around 7:30, wading beyond the surf, fishing.

I'm very much looking forward to the next time, perhaps with a bit more weather.

p.s.: click to enlarge

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Seehund

Arrived 5.40. High tide.

Light rain. Wind northeast, though not cold.
Rain stopped after half an hour.

And I saw a seal. Swimming downstream with the tide.

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