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.
