Scharloo - Curacao

Once a house of some rich and prosperous family...

but time, weather and all kind of other factors have turned them into this dilapidation



but with increasing cultural awareness
the Scharloo neigbourhood is slowly being turned into a part of
the city where true architectural gems can be found!

Every journey...

Art again

(click for details)

Ah, it is so good to have all my stuff available and being in my studio again! I just finished some new art pages that I want to show you right now, cannot wait another day, for it has been too long that I posted something creative. Hope you like them, if so (or not, then why?) I would love to read your comment.

Ik ben zo blij dat ik weer al mijn materialen om me heen heb hier in mijn werkkamer! Heb zojuist een paar nieuwe bladzijden voor mijn journal gemaakt en die wil ik jullie direct laten zien, ik kan geen dag wachten, want het is veel te lang geleden dat ik iets creatiefs heb getoond. Hopelijk vind je ze mooi, zo ja( of juist niet, waarom dan?) dan zou ik heel blij zijn met je reactie.

Kura Hulanda (the hotel)

Before I start up blogging about my daily Sint Maarten routine, I want to write and show pictures of last week's trip to Curacao:

Art throughout the hotel

Dutch influences, yet so Caribbean!

Room 104

One of the hotel's murals

I feel at home here...

One of the things I simply have to do whenever we are on Curacao, is visiting Kura Holanda in Otrabanda.

Otrabanda (which is Papiamento for: The Other Side) is a neighbourhood that is located on the south-west side of the Annabaai, the harbour's entrance. It is the neighbourhood where my husband grew up and it holds of course very much memories for him. Part of it has now been restored and turned into a most beautiful hotel. So imagine, both Caribbean and colonial houses in fantastic colors and a now splendid setting, saved by an initiative of Jacob Gelt Dekker. You can read more about this development, hotel and museum (I'll write about that in a separate post) here

Once again I spent some hours there and enjoyed every minute of my visit

Should you ever have a chance to visit Curacao: go there too!!

Back home!

Last week in Curacao has been wonderful. We have lived on that island some 25 years ago and although the houses have always been colourful, many of them even have stronger colours today. Quite a treat after these greyish weeks in Holland!

I will write more about Curacao in one of my posts this week, so stay tuned...

After an absence of over five weeks, we are happy to be back home.

This animal seems to have made his home in our garden in the meantime, he is quietly lying in the sun and fully at ease on his branch of the Neem tree

(click the picture for more detailed view).

I wonder if we keep seeing it in the next few days.

Now I'm off to my studio, try to make something, don't know what to start with, we'll see.

Happy monday!

Time to relax...

After having been in Holland during four weeks, we are back in the Caribbean. We're not home yet, but on the island of Curacao and we will travel to Sint Maarten next Saturday.
For me this is a real extra vacation, for we are staying in a wonderful appartment with the Caribbean sea just a footstep away! So, swimming, sunbathing and relaxing are the most important words this week.
Oh, and not to forget: taking pictures, reading (there even is a kind of library here!),blogging and reading other blogs (I did not have much time in Holland for that). And when there is time left, I could even watch a few movies. The only thing I cannot do is upload pictures, in one way or another this does not seem to work with this local provider. The pictures of this island that I made yesterday will have to wait till we are really back home.

Hope to see you back soon!

Goodbye Zevenaar!

This morning we went to 'down town' Zevenaar to shop for the last things before we leave tomorrow. The first picture shows a city centre that is rather characteristic for old Dutch cities. Places like Zwolle, Deventer, Utrecht etc. have all been built in this modell: church (es) in the middle, marketplace nearby and shops all around them. And although these cities are of a larger scale than Zevenaar they can give you the same kind of feeling when walking there.

Of course it is still winter and most people prefer to be inside, but I can imagine that this little town in the province of Gelderland is a lovely place to be (and live) in summer.

Goodbye Zevenaar, till next time!

Ikea fabrics: for bags, for pillows?

'Delft blue'
in fabric this time
bought on a Dutch market, couldn't resist them, but
no idea what to do with it, suggestions anyone?

Dutch markets

Buttons galore at Doetinchem's market

and the fabrics, so plentiful and yummie for a Dutch woman living
in the Caribbean...

Imagine a big marketplace full of stands with fabrics like these, some for only 1 euro per metre!
Every week again, the day depends on which city you visit. But every Dutch city does have a weekly market, whereas fabric shops are very hard to find nowadays.
The Eastern part of the Netherlands has a very rich history in the textile industry and compared to other provinces of Holland, the markets in this region are still considerably big.

The cold has gone, it is not freezing anymore and today we have rainy weather.
For me however it was a beautiful day, with a visit to my beloved fabric market!
Tomorrow I will post some pictures of the fabrics I purchased

From the archives

Nothing new from the Netherlands today. Lots of people have been skating on lakes and canals, but it is definitely not my thing, far too cold...

So today a picture I found on my husband's laptop, of a quilt I designed on the computer and pieced by machine, it is hand quilted. Picture shot in our garden some 3 years ago on a one-day solo show

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

Beauty

It is winter,

it is coooold,

but so very beautiful...

Zevenaar, The Netherlands, 1 hour ago

Pioneer people

When moving last week I came upon an old National Geographic copy from 1986. In it is a story about The Oregon Trail, and when rereading the article I was once again struck by the look on the faces of these early settlers, how tired and hungry they must have been!

Although the situation here at present is not ideal , with the very cold weather, hardly heating in the house (except for one room in the attic, no possibility to cook yet (but we do have a microwave!) and having enjoyed the last shower about a week ago, I think the situation is by no means comparable with the pioneers who were travelling the Oregon Trail in their search for a better life.

We on the other hand have the luxury of plenty of food, a good house that will be quite comfortable in let's say a week, our own wonderful house in the Caribbean that will welcome us in a few weeks and of course the big advances of our time like traveling by airplane and communication through the internet...

It's minus 20 degrees...(Celsius, don't know about Fahrenheit!)

You can see where we were today!

Holland in winter, it is a long time ago since it was cold like this...

Ice on the window in the living room, it really is cold

Today we travelled from Zevenaar (in the eastern part of Holland near the German border where our son is living) to Hoek van Holland, which is in the most western part of this small country. It is a 1 1/2 hour drive. I can on ly say that it was very cold!

Update from Holland

We have been working so hard, it is a huge job and we are really racing against the clock!By now the bedrooms are almost done and then we can move stuff to the first floor. The living room must be totally empty to tile the floor. I have had no time at all to post, to make a little art, but that will come once I will be back again, so I hope.For now we try to reach our targets, getting the house ready enough to live in. Outside it is very cold, snow and freezing weather, but because of the building activities I hardly get outside, and that's o.k. with me, because I really hate this kind of cold winter weather.But no complains: inside it is a cosy mess, and we enjoy each other and everything is going in a very nice spirit so far.
I will try to post whenever it is possible and when there is some time left!