It's November times flies away, the past year has flown. I'm busy organizing my final show. Mid-December I'll move back to Amsterdam. After the intense heat and my falling in love, I notice that I painted intense and well, I made 48 paintings. The series, I called Incanto, because this canvas, Incanto (43 years), has a central role. Here in Montevettolini I rediscovered my heart, I have seen what is all for me about in life. painting is life and life is painting. A conclusion which is almost too simple for words but very true. I want to make a final presentation and everyone is welcome. In each room I hung paintings. So I have three exhibition halls: the living room, studio and gallery space on the first floor. The opening was very successful due to many visitors, and the good reactions. The inauguration of this series was made by the village priest: Donal bert Bodino. Here in this medieval village I have experienced intensievely the value of the life and I'm also very warm received. I so want to thank everyone who has helped me and who has made this project possible. My photos tell the rest. I will miss Montevettolini but certainly I will come back! I am going to continue to pack up, because December 20th is the opening in St. Moritz (CH) and then in Amsterdam half January . Incanto goes on tour, and thanks to my love and muse Cor I ameven though in the possession of the Incanto tour t-shirt. Have fun viewing the picts, I quickly address because I have enough to do!

Autumn has arrived. After a big thunderstorm it's cold here. From 38 to 18 degrees, which I'm not used to! But perfect for work. I'm much inside, unfortunately its immediately humid weather...again! Fortunately, the Internet and my Skype phone are working good, so I can call often for free to Holland. Yes, I like being so isolated on a Tuscan mountain, but only if I can often speak with my friends! I experienced a very intense summer. After years, I had a true romantic holiday on Elba. Now I'm totally cool and relaxed, since September 18 I've started to paint a lot. And you can see it here. The whole house is filled with canvases. I have a lot of inspiration. Increasingly, I find that I often paint Cor in my works. This summer I made many photographs with my cellphone, especially panoramic photographs. The cellphone makes so crazy panoramas. This has really inspired me to make many paintings. Also I decided that this new series, is called INCANTO (= fascination, magic). A series about my astonishment of the present, on the oddness of our current time, the current space, the present, NOW. I feel now that everything is in place, comes together, that its all about life, that the heart of the matter of your soul finally determines your own energy. And that this energy leads to specific works. This approach suits me fine. Although I still often have difficulty concentrating me immediately. By the still a bit strange environment, arranging for the house, shopping lists and other orders. However, this environment starts now to feel a bit familiar, a diesel like me needs a lot of time, due to my .... slow start! Nowadays I'm painting much relaxed, because I've found a resignation. Painting is life, life is painting! My ambition as an artist is and remains a clear individual process. Suddenly I see the red wire in my work. I paint my live panoramas! In this series I also use panoramic formats, but also my series BAUC is full with panoramas of my life in Amsterdam, when I lived between the construction views. That is why I do not manage to paint in Tuscany the construction views of Amsterdam, I don't feel here that energy. Now I have a different focus and energy. I enjoy and experience the views that I have experienced this year here in Tuscany. Yes, of course, love plays a big role in my devolepment onto painting. But my research into the unknown, the come back of the human figure in my paintings, a new color palette, are all a result of this new experience with a different energy. The realization that my work deals about my live panoramas (from the past, present and future) gives me rest, so I can continue to paint as relaxed as I can. I paint about, with and in time. Speaking about time, I now know the dates of my final presentations. I also know when I will be moving back to Amsterdam. This gives peace but also stress, because these deadlines are definitieve and soon, and of course I walk behind...slow diesel .......... but I must confess those deadlines benefit my productivity! End of November the first presentation of my series INCANTO in Montevettolini (I), than at the end of December in St.Moritz (CH), and in 2009 in Amsterdam! Watch out for my index page for the exact details.! More on this later .... Photographes of INCANTO will be after 29th November on this site... curious?? just wait.

July and August are really heat months. I travel a lot between Amsterdam and Montevettolini. My love is very big. This makes me much more clearly, even the difference between Amsterdam and Montevettolini. Nature-town, brown-green, stone-plants, Netherlands-Italy go on and on. And ofcourse I want to capture all this on the canvas .... ARGGGGGGGG. impossible! I took a decision and realized that I should just paint instead developping plans and ideas, no only paint! Not rationalizing, not thinking, not speaking to the world with insights, nooooo. I should only use the poetry of life, and experience, understand and paint this! In July I was really looking for that balance between Amsterdam and Montevettolini. Big questions as shall I still paint construction views of Amsterdam, here? what's the point? or simply try and continue with this concept? because if I paint from a loss I can create great works. The loss is visible in a picture full of admiration. Nevertheless I was not there. In one month I painted to 10 different types of canvases. First a construction view, than a portrait of Cor, but then again a construction view with flowers. I really lost myself in the possiblities of painting and saw no more. Until I had made the painting Incanto. Incanto means magic and is the last canvas above, it is a great panorama pinting. Yes, very in love I made this canvas. It all comes together. This canvas, I never planed it, thought from a concept, no I created it from the underbelly, from my instinct. I used some photos as inspiration but the implementation of all my thought and feelings shines from the cloth. So once again I decided I should stop with concepts, frameworks, series to remember. I have to do more! Because painting is life! And if you live and work openly, you make pure and powerful work. Writting this down I realize that it seems so simple but it is so difficult! But that's what we do! The quest, love, heatwave and distance to the Amsterdam hectic live, is increasingly clear to me that it is so important to stay in your own heart, to stay in your own centre, and to continue so in all honesty to do your own thing. Not thinking too much, remember, responsibilities, plans, but follow your instincts and just DO! So far my summer insights. Oh yes, unfortunately, I had a sunstroke, due to my broken bicycle. So I had to walk with bike and grosseries up to the mountain in the heat of the day. Now I'm cured again and happy with a new experience!

After months of rain, January through May, apparently there is since June finally the sun! I've just started this month with a beautiful birthday. I'm enjoying painting again. aalso because the sun is shining and I'm often working outside. Now I feel that I'm in Tuscany, due to the delicious sun. The painting is now very exciting. After years I'm also fallen in love. And this radiates from my canvases. Suddenly I paint again people in my canvases. Inge said that this is because I now live and work in isolation, so the people who normally I have around me, now I paint. While when I still lived in Amsterdam, between all those people I just needed silence and space; so my choise to paint empty space, rest and desolated city views. Last month I realised that I have first to get used at the new sourroundings, my living space, and then only when I experience this space inside I can paint it. Also I notice that I have to think and rationalize things less, and must paint more. Just paint from the incouncious. I discover that I use the space around me and my new interest for the color GREEN. I'm starting to get focused into my paintings and enjoying painting. each time I'm also look forward to start a new canvas! I'm looking for a combination between Amsterdam and Montevettolini, between city and nature. I just go on and continue. A novelty is that I now make many small preliminary studies, which helps me a lot and which I love to do!

At last I have my mega electric bike! A english trade EZEE, the Forza. I had to wait long, but finally I am the proud owner of the FORZA and very happy! And I manage to bike with full bicyclebags into the mountain.

Last years I am working at paintings about construction views of Amsterdam. Because I'm interested in the relationship between availible and claimed public space. I see a construction view stuffed into a little alley, outside any spatial proportions. Bright colors contrast with old brown colored facades of 17th century buildings. I'm fascinating by the contrast between available public space and construction caos, read company planned / construction project; actually it's disproportionate and symptomatic of our time. Now I'm already months in tuscany and discovering by bike the public green space. Much has been built here, so I do not get lost along mountain torrents or so, but see, enjoy and experience a lot of public space around me. My eyes can wander and explore the distance along the green space, the mountains.At once I realise another use of public space. Here where there is scope to watch, there is a clearly visible demarcation. All over fences, shutters for the windows. Everything indicates that owners of space clearly establish this is my land and strangers are not welcome: é terra mia! (It's my territory!) That strikes me precisely because in the Netherlands all home interiors are visible from the street. The missing curtains, are inviting you, you hear almost call, come inside it's cosy, let's have a cup of coffee. In a country where there is lack space, the use of public space is very open, low fences, shutters limits. While in a country where there is a lot more space, the amount of fences and delineations is high. It's very typical. So I photographed many fences. I think now shall I paint fences? I think it is only a notice of this and it doesn't convinces me not really. So much yet for watching, writing, drawing and experienced.

The good weather has finally come. Nowadays there is often sun but also often rain. Worse for walking but great for the flowers and olive trees. Outside everything is nice. Inside on the other hand there is a battle going on in my studio. What to do, still painting construction views?or green rabbits and frogs?And what to do with Amsterdam, with or without Dutch house facades, and this beautiful nature around me? I know it all is not as good anymore. but after a lovely morning walk in the spring whey I'm full of inspiration. I go on with the green colors. I've also discovered a new fascination: fences! Here the wideness is so huge that you notice immediately every land deposition or big fence. Many areas are surrounded by high walls with hedges. Territories are well insulated, sometimes you can peep through the fence but mostly it is a heavy steel construction. Much glory and richness here, but unfortunately, also many burglars. They don't like to courious strangers over here. I think the relationship wideness and deposition is very interesting. Even here in Tuscany is a private space classification, with its own framework. The contrast of fully construction views of Amsterdam with Delayed sweeping panoramas attracts me. Who knows what's suits. Next week I will start with my first large canvas, Part 1 of the triptych. Each canvas is 270 cm wide and 185 cm high. I'm looking forward to do it! On the picture the canvas is very white and pale. Up to the first green monster!

Montevettolini is between Pisa and Florence, and on the edge of the Val di Nievole. The valley is named after the river Nievole, the valley where Leonardo di Vinci comes from. 10 km further on is the birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci, the village VINCI. The valley is clearly an inspiration for the imaginary landscape in the Mona Lisa, famous painting of Leonardo da Vinci. There is much room, anywhere I can look far and wander in the distance. When it's foggy it gets more exciting, since my fantasy starts to create her own imaginary landscape. The wandering in the distance I have forgotten in Amsterdam, Amsterdam forced me to see details, the tightness of this investigation. My perception of (public) space is different here in Tuscany then it is in Amsterdam. The experience of public life on the street is different. The village is quiet, almost extinct. Now with the beautiful weather brings me more often against people on the street, but 2 people per day is the average. Over the weekend, I met the local painter, during a wonderfull diner party at my place. It is important to organize nice dinners, that helps you to feel more at home. The sun shines outside, it's heavenly here now, because I can open the doors and the warm weather is doing well. I always feel more at home!

I have created enough chaos around me in my studio to calm myself, so I finally can start to paint. I need chaos, bustle around me otherwise I'm to afraid to make the studio dirty. The energy of my own junk encourages me to make clear images. Yes yes, still busy with construction views, yes Amsterdam remains in my mind; what is it for a beautiful city! And the stupid thing is that you only realize how beautiful and good lthings are when they are gone. In order not to get too melancholic back to painting. I'm fascinated by the contrast between the stretched open space of the Tuscan landscape and the tiny cityscapes of Amsterdam. I'm looking for a combination of these two opposites. This is getting day by day more exciting. The construction views remain present, but they start to change. I want to paint looser and a more associative way, in which the colors and the imaginary landscape are the main thing in the picture ..... to be continued!

It's beautiful outside, the sun shines! However, it is moist! Fortunately, I now have light in the kitchen. The home begins to live! With the painting it's also starts to come. I learn here what patience and calm means. and I must say it suits me!