Friday, 2 April 2010

Green Men and Women

All of a sudden, they start appearing. How come I never spotted all those Green Men before?

Green Pair in Rotterdam


Green Man in the making


My Green Men [and Women]

to be continued and updated...

Links:

Wikipedia

Green men in the Netherlands

Heads- with-leaves

Green Man East Anglia

Susanna Duffy

Green Man Canterbury



www.gafpa.nl

Friday, 26 March 2010

Matthaüs Passion

Both familiar and ever new, St. Matthew Passion is a major event in the cycle of the year. Good for contemplation, very inspiring. The altus of the opening chorale "O Lamm Gottes" sang with an intensity that worked like gilding on a Russian Icon, or on a medieval polychrome statuette. It gave me goosebumps.

I noticed a Green Man carved in the church benches.



Vegetation Spirit-oncoming resurrection-how fitting.


Fraser-Golden Bough
Holland boys Choir - Pieter Jan Leusink
Martinikerk Groningen
Matthaüs Passion


www.gafpa.nl

Sunday, 7 March 2010

Mother and Child -running for life


The folds of her dress are based on "Guelders" style of Medieval (polychrome) sculpture.

www.gafpa.nl

Thursday, 18 February 2010

Friday, 12 February 2010

Lectern





Oak, completed today.
Partly based on a lectern in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves




Mark the book on medieval Dutch sculpture. Very inspiring.







www.gafpa.nl

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

GAFPA goes official

My website has a new URL:

www.gafpa.nl

The old URL is no longer in use:

www.gafpa.tk


The name of this website was suggested by Flemish writer Willem Elsschot's prophetic novels about bluffing and conning . Written around 1933 and 1924/1938, they have lost nothing of their freshness. GAFPA comes from Kaas (Cheese) in which a middle class Belgian vainly attempts to bluff his way into the trading world by selling Dutch Edam Cheese. His firm needs a name and one afternoon's work results in the acronym GAFPA:
General Antwerp Feeding Products Association

GAFPA has that typical Dada-like association, making it the perfect name for my gallery.

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Reminiscences of childhood



It was a time when you could still park your car in front of the department store in the centre of town. No circular roads or circulation plans. Sunday afternoon, fivish, after dark. Return from a visit to our relatives in the southern part of town.
I used to look through the window of our Volkswagen Beetle. Neon signs, shop's windows, the church tower, statues.

Bronze statues.

The Big Nude Lass.

(My mother told me the locals called her so: t Grote Blote Wicht)

Their mother must be dead...

(I felt pity for them, every time we passed)

Is that a statue?

(It was, my dad told me)


But He looks so different there...

(a stern and grim Christ of the Sacred Heart, whitish sandstone)

Reminiscences of childhood. They have no order



www.gafpa.nl