“I was born in 1954 in a place called Schevingen and I grew up in The Hague. It’s funny, you did a story with Raimond a few weeks ago and we grew up in the same Primary School. We grew up in the same area and now we are both in Lismore.
I went to Visual Arts school in Amsterdam. Even after I got my Diploma I didn’t want to teach something that didn’t come from me. Living in Amsterdam turned out to be far more confronting than I realised. I was on my own and the academy was a small school of arts which was a pleasure. The teachers were artists themselves but the exploring, making mistakes, struggling was a big part for me. Just to look after myself was confronting. I got a little room in a place filled with creatives in the art and film world. The first day I got there a cat had shat all through my room and I had no idea how to cope with that. I remember going to Central Station to a telephone and I rang my parents crying. I went back and had to deal with it. I still topple just thinking about that. I ended up staying and got into the rhythm of the heart and soul of the place. I still live like that. Occasionally I will do something stupid so I can build up again.
I’m still friends with a couple of people from the Netherlands who were in the academy and even though we don’t see each other, maybe every two years, nothing has changed. We used to go to coffee shops and it was at one of those we would play pinball machines and I met a girl named Elly. We fell in love. I didn’t know…she actually had to tell me I was in love. I didn’t know that sort of love. She grew up in Amsterdam and always knew she wanted to be an Architect. The next year her family decided to move to Australia as her brother had fallen in love with a Qantas stewardess. He had gone to Sydney to meet her and never went back. Her father didn’t want to go to Sydney. He was a Musician, a piano accordion player and he had fun with his friends playing the pub scene. He wanted to stay in Amsterdam but my mother in law and sister in law wanted to come to Australia. I remember seeing a school photo of her after moving here at Mackellar High School sitting so straight in a uniform and thinking how different it was to life in Amsterdam. Elly was asked what she wanted to do when she left school and she said, an Architect. She was told to forget it as that wasn’t a job for a woman. This was in the late 60’s, early 70’s so she quit school and found a window dressing job which ladies didn’t do then either. Life was so different then. She decided to go back to Amsterdam for a while and that is when we met. She was in the coffee shop we always went to.
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After my studies in about 1974 we decided to go to Sydney and I loved it. Everything was possible then. A failure was not negative so we decided to stay. Elly found it easier to stay as her family lived here but I had to apply a few times. Finally I was allowed to stay as they considered me an asset to the Australian community in Arts and Culture. We had to stay for a year before we could go back to the Netherlands to pack up.
In the meantime the family had moved to Georgica here on the North Coast. We had taken a trip up here with my sister in law to visit friends in Dorroughby and when we went back she wanted to move here. Her parents decided to sell their place in Dee Why and come too. That’s how we ended up here. We moved to The Channon and I started working at the Tafe here in Lismore. I was offered day workshops which suited me. I started teaching here doing workshops from my heart, teaching from my own self, this suited me. I have to teach from my own experience which creates a process of hundreds of drawings. Judging and appreciation or the rejection comes later. Once I realised I could teach painting and still arts from the heart of the individual it made sense to me. I now do workshops at the Byron School of Arts and other places. I won the North Coast Portrait Prize one year.
Years ago we had a vintage shop here in Lismore called Aprons Away. I used to make props and dress the window. I would make life size sculptures of people from cardboard. I was having exhibitions in Sydney.
Elly passed away 13 years ago with cancer. I still live on the property we shared back then. Her nephew and his family still live on the property too. I am very lucky, I don’t pay rent and it’s lovely. My wife is buried on the land. She never wanted to be cremated as she was terrified of fire. Once we had a bushfire come very close to the house and it really affected her. We had to go through all the red tape as to where on the land we were allowed to bury her. It ended up close to the spot she planted her first garden to welcome her sister.
Quite a few times people have said to me…How come your paintings look so Dutch? I do really relate to the Dutch Masters especially Rembrandt. I realised for me it’s a bit of homesickness but a positive one. When I’m here I feel Dutch, when I’m there I don’t. I couldn’t live there again. There is no tourist season any more. It’s all year.
A couple of years after losing Elly I met Claudie. I was stunned and I wasn’t sure what it was. I never believed it could happen again. Claudie had to tell me. We met through mutual friends and we started doing creative things together. We were always having fun. It was such a pleasure to be with her, it still is. She is full of surprises and she’s an enormous help to me. We work well together. Claudie and I are having an exhibition in May based on a series of works called Nostalgia Forever. I never thought it could happen again. It’s a completely different relationship to Elly and that is really fascinating to me, It’s renewing, it’s refreshing and I’m discovering more about myself as well. We’ve been together 8 years and it’s still very happy.
I love the people of Lismore. I think Lismore is a really special place. It’s a wonderful place. It’s very real, it’s not pretentious in any way. We have a resilience I haven’t seen any where else. I love it here. The flood was terrible but it did something good as well… This space (we were sitting at The Quad) People come here. It’s a gathering place for community. It’s like a Village Square where nice things happen. The Gallery, the music, The kids have somewhere to play. I love driving everywhere here. It’s so beautiful.”