Everything counts

Yesterday was a day of reminding myself of what is really important. First of all my dad and I went out together. We spend the afternoon and evening driving around Friesland, the province where my parents live and where I grew up. Having quality time together and enjoying the beauty of nature, arts and architecture, is one of the best things that can happen to me when I'm home.

We walked around in a ‘museum village’ called Allingawier (you may try to pronounce it if you like.... :-). This village used to be a fishermen’s village when it was still located near a lake. These days the place is surrounded by fertile grass lands. It’s one of the examples of the Dutch ‘winning’ land from the water.

But the stories of the people who used to live here made me think. It struck me how much they had to invest to live, to sustain themselves. Every tool, every animal, every season counted. And was treated that way. Compared to that, what different times I live in - an era of instant gratification, where value and worth is measured by the immediate usefulness of something, of a life for that matter.

Painter of compassion

The thought that everything has worth came back to me when we entered a gallery in Workum named after the artist whose work it exhibits. Jopie Huisman (1922 - 2000) was a self-made artist. A hard life and a war taught him a very important principle: Everything has value. He started gathering stuff that other people would throw away: toys, clothes, shoes, tools, an old piece of wood. And he would paint them – every single detail found it's place on a piece of linen. When you look at his paintings it’s like looking at photos.

About this piece of work (on the right) he says: “This wheelbarrow I found in a carpenter’s workplace that hadn’t been used for years. For me it's like finding a treasure. It tells the life story of a man like it was written in a book. It’s a monument - subconsciously - erected by the man and left behind for himself, as a silent witness of his battle for bare existence. When I started painting, in my imagination I hugged the man and promised him that I would pass on his story.”

Jopie Huisman, also called 'painter of compassion' is an inspiration to me. He shows me that there's a story hidden in everything, no matter what it looks like on the outside.