My second day in the Netherlands I took the train an hour an a half to Zwolle, where Pien Rotterdam picked me up to drive to Heino to visit an old castle that was turned into a museum. This museum has two locations, here in the countryside and then in Zwolle, but we only visited this one so I could see some of the more rural areas. Her great-grandfather, Jan Voerman (his son also an artist of the same name) was a well-known Dutch painter and a ton of his work was on display, so that was a great way to connect then to now.
The main reason really for meeting was just to meet! We had corresponded on and off for years and since Pien lives in the north, it was easier to meet in between. Plus, it's SO EASY to get around, the train travel is quite straightforward and easy. In fact, leaving the country made me sad because I knew I'd be returning to my home country where they would never make airport to train and bus connections so easy, where life without a car is too hard in most places. This is the old ice house on the estate, and we saw it on our little walk in between lunch and tea.
To be more present and have manners, I didn't take many pictures at all. Pien and I exchanged paper and artwork and it was wonderful to see her pulp printing techniques, artists' books, and other bits. I was happy to hear about her journey to book arts and her dedicated expertise in language learning, specifically English as a second one. While historically the Dutch had a giant empire, she reminded me that now it is a tiny country and that becoming bilingual was her way to open her world to the vast possibilities afforded through reading books in English. This was the perfect way to spend Easter Sunday.
Because of a train crash right before I arrived, the lines were messed up to other cities, so instead of visiting other places, I took one last jaunt through Leiden before meeting my family in the afternoon. Here is a bit of a Neruda poem.
This poem is by Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani, and is translated to "Travel Safely!" here but I've seen another option as "Happy Journeys!" and both seem apt.
Since it would be open before other places, I walked to De Burcht to see this old fort on a manmade hill.
It's pretty basic, with nice views from the upper level, and a random toothpaste bench made mostly of wood inside the middle. I couldn't find any info on it (there is even a squirt of toothpaste sitting further away from it).
There are plenty of museums in Leiden and I picked the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, a science one, which starts with a little video in a theatre set up to be like the ones where they dissected bodies.
The exhibits begin with humans trying to figure out the world outside of them, especially the challenge of moving from Earth-centric to helio-centric worldviews. Paper engineering in its early uses!
Invariably, then the focus shifts inwards, to figure out what the heck is going on with human bodies. All of this history made me very glad to live in a time of sterile surgical fields, antibiotics, and barbers just cutting hair rather than bloodletting or doing surgery.
This female anatomical model was used in medical training and carved of ivory (to show that the owner was rich AND smart), likely from the late 17c to early 18c.
A friend back in Chicago talked about how hard it was as an art director for a TV show to find an iron lung and that in her research, she found a woman who actually needed one but as it broke down or needed parts, she would have to source from museums.
Once I heard from my sister that the family had landed, I scurried back to the hotel to get my bags and jump on the train. I got off the bus to get to the hotel in the museum district right before the big rain started. As my family got settled, I ran around to get a lay of the land. This Vermeer show at the Rijksmuseum was the whole reason we were visiting, but we were a bit derailed by the little one getting a 24-hour vomiting bug.
This is the view if you turn around from the previous picture, and I find it hilarious that they have to emphasize that hot dogs = American. HAHA.
After going up the stairs to the exhibit, I didn't take photos and wish that everyone else would have done the same. It is so not fun to go to an art show that is packed, elbowing your way to see tiny paintings, only to have to wait for people getting shots with their phones. The reproductions are better in the books, folks!
The rest of the trip was a lot of family juggling and figuring out where we could seat 7 and please older and younger tastes (impossible), but I did manage to drag my parents on a very windy day to Zaanse Schans to see the historical village with windmills.
This was the one mill I wanted to visit, the paintmill, De Kat! I got a few pigments to test once my beater is fixed. The wind had the mill going full speed.
View from the upper level of the mill, where I almost fell through the floorboards.
Samples of pigments. I only got the natural ones, not synthetic, but was very glad the gift shop sold hot chocolate!
My mom wanted a break from walking in Amsterdam with another hot cocoa, so we stopped at the Cafe American and they served us the fanciest kind: a big glass of steamed milk with a wooden stick inside with a chunk of chocolate at the end. Stir, stir, stir, to melt it away. While I couldn't do what I would have liked to on my own (like visit the PAPERMILL, or see Asian art at the Rijksmuseum directly next to the Vermeer exhibit...hard to be so close and have to skip it for immediate family needs) it was overall a good time, and our first jaunt like this with the whole family, ever. I came home to way-too-warm temps at home and was very cranky about that. Now it's snowing and my car is in the shop with repairs that will be way more expensive than my flight to Amsterdam. Real life is relentless! If you have time, join me online for an artist panel Thursday at 7pm.
Pien Rotterdam
Kasteel Het Nijenhuis
Voerman show @ Museum De Fundatie
De Burcht
Rijksmuseum Boerhaave
De Zaansche Molen
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