Four Witty Art Drawings got published in brandnew Dutch magazine De Horizonvreter

Am absolutely thrilled to announce that four of my Witty Art drawings have been published in the first edition of the brandnew magazine ''De Horizonvreter'' (literally: ''Devourer of Horizons'').

De Horizonvreter is a Dutch magazine, entirely and solely dedicated to "The Strange, The Odd & The Unknown". It features a collection of short stories, poems and art by Dutch writers, poets and artists, all dedicated to the fantastic, the grotesque and the bizarre.

What makes this magazine really stand out is the enormous high level of dedication put in by its editors (it took over two years to realise this first edition!) and that they've asked all contributors for an autonomous piece of work - all works, short stories, poems and the artwork, were collected first and then put together, in what can't have been an easy process but somehow the endresult feels like a very natural, almost organic one.

The editors chose the following four Witty Art drawings to be published:

"But We Just Got Here" (above)  en "A World To Be Blamed" (below, both from 2013) accompanying the short story "Clowns" by Martijn van Koolwijk, a piece pretty much written in a newspaper-like style, about a young documentary filmmaker becoming a clown, thus ultimately meeting his gruesome fate....

"Not There, Not Anymore" (2014) accompanying "Eindeloos Vakantie" (''Vacation Without An End'') by Olivier van Nooten, a darkish, Roald Dahl-like tale about young love, disapperance and murder with an unexpected twist.

"Shall We Dance" (2013) accompanying the short story "Kerstmis Aan Boord de Terminus 969" (''Christmas Aboard The Terminus 969'') by Joachim Heijndermans, about a distant-future Christmas spent in the dystopian surroundings for an almost abanbonded spaceship... 

These are all short stories written in Dutch, so if any of my Dutch followers or anyone would like to order a copy regardless: De Horizonvreter costs € 8,40 each (amount is including postal costs) and for that amount you'll get a grand total of 45 pages full of fantastically strange stories and ditto art. You can order your copy via email: dehorizonvreter@gmail.com.

If you are not able to read Dutch but would like to own a copy anyway, feel free to order yours too - but do know that, if you are living abroad, international shipping costs ofcourse will be charged.

 





 

Witty Art Live tijdens Horen & Zien & Schranzen op 26 juni in Schiezicht!

Op 26 juni a.s. is Witty Art LIVE te zien tijdens Horen & Zien & Schranzen in Schiezicht Rotterdam!

HOREN & ZIEN & SCHRANZEN
Poëzie, kunst en eten. Een totaal programma met live performances, art improvisaties, poetry on demand inclusief een overheerlijke vers bereide maaltijd. Samengesteld, bereid en geserveerd door een samenwerkingsverband van De Lege Ruimte en Studio PuRRR.

Kom ook Horen & Zien & Schranzen op zondag 26 juni in Schiezicht aan de Mathenesserdijk 272B in Rotterdam Delfshaven. Aanvang programma: 16.30u (inloop 16u). De toegang bedraagt slechts € 5,- inclusief maaltijd. Kaarten bestellen (en meteen via iDeal betalen) kan via deze link. 

Meer informatie ook op de eventpagina op Facebook:

Podiumprogramma:
Voor deze pilot een compleet Groningse line up van bekende en minder bekende dichters, schrijvers en singer-songwriters:

Fieke Gosselaar (Groningstalige dichteres en schrijfster van spannende verhalen); Melvin Bonnet, (cabaret en lied); Bill Mensema (groot schrijver); Richard Nobbe (dichter en filosoof); Joost Oomen (dichter en vol liefde); Kasper Peters (dichter en momenteel stadsdichter van Groningen) Lou Lou (singer-songwriter).

Plus live art & poetry on demand van Rotterdamse makelij:

Typewriter Poetry
Een gedicht op maat, speciaal voor jou. Ter plekke geschreven, correctie: getyped door dichter/schrijver Irene Siekman op haar vintage Triumph typemachine. In ruil voor een kleine donatie krijg jij je gedicht meteen mee.

Witty Art Live
Kunstenares Christy de Witt maakt tekeningen en schetsen geïnspireerd door het werk van de optredende dichters en performers. Miss Witty improviseert live: zij put inspiratie uit het verbale en vertaalt dat naar het visuele

Tante Timmie Kookt
Al dat Horen & Zien gebeurt niet op een lege maag. Tijdens het programma serveert Tante Timmie Kookt een overheerlijke, verse en voedzame maaltijd. Dat wordt Schranzen geblazen!

Over de locatie: 

Schiezicht
Schiezicht is een plek waar je je ding kunt doen. Gelegen aan de Schie, in Rotterdam Delfshaven. Schiezicht biedt ook de ruimte om je idee uit te voeren. Van buurtactiviteit tot workshops en brainstormsessies, buurtbijeenkomsten en kinderactiviteiten en nog veel meer!

Over de initiatiefnemers van Horen & Zien & Schranzen:

Studio PuRRR
Studio PuRRR: studio & projectruimte (in wording). Creatieve & culinaire projecten. Kunst, koken en kostuumontwerp. Een initiatief van kunstenaars & ondernemers Deborah van de Beld (House of Westenwind) en Christy de Witt (TWC Works). Homebase voor o.m. Witty Art en Tante Timmie Kookt. Bij gebrek aan een eigen ruimte ‘op poppend’ op diverse plekken in Rotterdam.

Tante Timmie Kookt | Een initiatief van Studio PuRRR
Tante Timmie Kookt graag en lekker èn deelt haar kookkunsten graag met anderen. Smakelijke, voedzame maaltijden voor een goede prijs. Ontbijt, lunch of diner: Tante Timmie Kookt het allemaal (ook vegetarisch!). Tante Timmie Kookt is een project van Studio PuRRR, studio en projectruimte voor creatieve en culinaire projecten. Studio PuRRR is een initiatief van kunstenaars Deborah van de Beld & Christy de Witt.

De Lege Ruimte
De Lege Ruimte is een Rotterdams podium voor muziek, theater en poëzie. De Lege Ruimte is een initiatief van Irene Siekman, podiumdichter en theaterregisseur. In haar werk zoekt ze naar dwarsverbanden tussen beide disciplines. Daarnaast is ze actief als organisator, presentator en docent.

Creative destruction gave life to my series 'Once Upon A Time... Never Happened!'

So, a bit earlier I wrote about The Making Of ''Once Upon A Time Never Happened #4'' which offered a little preview of this new series. And now, I'd like to share with you how this one came to be.

Basically, this series emerged purely by coincidence and out of destructive rage. I was drawing, working on another Witty Art Series of a couple of Singles, I can't even remember and it doesn't matter. All  I know is that it just wouldn't go the way I had in mind. The ink didn't flow, my hand didn't direct the pen, the paper was not the right kind, etc. 

In short: it all sucked big time.

It's one of those moments you frustrate the hell out yourself as an artist, because you try so hard to make exactly that what you have in mind, and nothing, absolutely nothing you try seems to work, in fact, anything you try only seems to make matters worse. 

It's when everything inside of you screams: ''Stop! Let go, you idiot!'' and when all ratio in you says and knows you should, the artist in you just cannot give up. Because giving up, basically means you failed - whereas you should have nailed it.

Now, I do realise not all artists nor all creatives are like that. But I am. I get terribly frustrated when I find myself not able to recreate the image I had in my head and the feeling of disappointment when I have to abandon a drawing and leave it ''unfinished'' or even ''mislukt'' is all-absorping. In fact, it's a feeling of pure sadness and loss and I can even really mourn ''the ones that didn't came to be... ''.

Anyway, here I was, being totally frustrated and angry and all, at which point I just teared up this particular drawing. I totally tore it to pieces. And as always when I do that, I felt relieved. No way back, let's start anew.

Untill I caught a glimpse of the pieces lying scattered on the floor. There was something about them that caught my eye.

Something new, something promising and alluring.

Somehow, these separate pieces of torn paper seemed to tell a story of their own. The way they were arranged, seemingly random, all of a sudden made sense to me. I picked the pieces up from the floor and started rearranging them onto a sheet of blank paper, playing around with them, moving them up, down, left and right all over the surface, taking some pieces out and by then I'd started drawing on to the underlying paper as well. Connecting the separate pieces, tying them together. 

Creating a whole new image from one I'd so eagerly and willingly destroyed earlier.

From this process of 'creative destruction' came my series 'Once Upon A Time... Never Happened!', in which I've mixed different classic techniques and media such as drawing with ink, graphite and charcoal, adding coloured ink and watercolours, using both drawing, collage and text into a whole new series of Witty Art. 

There are five of them so far - and I really would like to explore this use of mixed media a la Witty further, taking it up a notch or two and work on bigger-sized canvas, perhaps adding the use of digital media as well. But that all will take some further exploring and experimenting, which I can only do once I have set up my new studio again.

Which, hopefully, will not take that long anymore.