As will be clear from what I have written recently, big plans are afoot. Myself and Astrid will cycle from Amsterdam to Hong Kong, with the expectation that we will arrived in the middle of December.
Since this is such an enormous undertaking, and since I would like to present the whole story in a more visual way, complete with map, I have decided to put the journey on its own sub-site. I will continue with HFTD on my return.
My parents, my sister, and her boyfriend arrived on Friday. This is nice, of course, but unfortunately I have had very little time to see them, for obvious reasons. Hopefully they will be able to entertain themselves while I am running about getting ready for the show and for leaving.
In the two and a half years or so that I have been living in Amsterdam, I have naturally collected quite a lot of things. It’s strange to think that I came here with only the things I could carry all that time ago.
With going travelling, the problem of what to do with it, and Astrid’s stuff too, has of course arisen. The most sensible thing seemed to be to put everything in storage somewhere, and after some searching I was able to find a company with fairly reasonable prices, and who would better yet pick up our stuff for free.
The condition attached to this offer was that everything needed to be packed up and sitting on the pavement at 8.30 this morning, and needed to be in the van in half an hour. Also, they were not willing to make two stops, so we first had to get everything together in one place at my studio.
This was where things went a bit wrong. The idea was that Astrid would hire a bakfiets yesterday and move everything to mine while I packed up my own stuff, but she fell ill yesterday morning. The storage company were not willing to shift the appointment, and so I had to move all Astrid’s things. This left no time to pack my own, meaning that I spent all night doing it instead and consequently got only an hour and a half sleep. Not the best start to a day of moving.
Daniëlle kindly came to help us with th moving, which turned into quite a dangerous business of dodging bikes, trams, and cars on the Kinkerstraat whilst lugging heavy boxes and suchlike at a frantic pace. Finally though it was all in the van, on time, and we were able to set off for ’s-Graveland, the middle-of-nowhere location of the storage company.
Getting everything into the space available was actually a bit easier than expected, and in fact we were able to hire a smaller (and thus cheaper) space than we had planned. So, the first thing about this trip which has cost less than expected.
By this time I was about ready to fall asleep on the floor, but that was not to be just yet. The woman in the office filling out our contract was new in the job and got just about everything wrong, making the whole process seem to drag on forever. But eventually it was done, and our stuff is safe until we return.
In the evening we made a trip to a travel bookshop on the Overtoom. Here we bought maps for (almost) the whole route to Hong Kong; another larger outlay of money, of course. Also, I can imagine things getting a bit trickier later on, since the quality of maps for Kazakhstan |eaves a bit to be desired. Time to learn the Russian alphabet, perhaps.
After ten days of waiting, I was able to pick up our passports today, which have been away getting visas for Russia. There was a bit of uncertainty about whether it would all work out OK, since we are applying much earlier than is usually allowed. This was because we wanted to have it sorted before leaving the Netherlands (Russia is the first country for which we will need visas).
Sigh of relief, it was нет проблем – here it is.
As mentioned, I will be taking part in an exhibition at het Glazen Huis (the Glass House) in the Amstelpark, opening this Sunday 15th March at 15.00. The exhibition is called Groene Vingers (Green Fingers) and is organised by Stichting ZET. All welcome!
In the meantime, I have been very busy trying to complete the work I will show. This will consist of a video, and also a series of “Kijkdozen” (literally “Looking-boxes”). To construct these, I have been making a lot of use of the robotic cutting/drawing machine I built last year, which has meant many a long day peering over the thing waiting tensly for it to screw up for the hundredth time.
Further to this, I have been all over town buying the things I will need – card, glue, fabric, LEDs, wood, plastic, foam, etc.
All this will hopefully be covered by the budget we managed to obtain last week. I was thinking about all the time I spent as a child cutting and sticking bits of paper and card, and how much fun it was then. The difference is that now I can spend €50 on card and glue, and it doesn’t come out of my pocket money.
There are a lot of downsides to a life trying to make art, but getting to do this type of things is definately one of the perks.
