inspiration

‘'I have never done it before, so I think I can' 

Pippi Langkous,  Astrid Lindgren

Grandiose and compelling on a square inch

In her BirdHut in Vogelswerf Saskia van Herwaarden has created her own universe. Visitors and inhabitants are sure to enjoy their stay. Her drawings and installations enchant and inspire. With a light touch, no frills, a wink of the eye and no empty promises of a greener future. Because Saskia uses what others chuck out: stuff from her parental home, street-treasures and garden finds, from (old) paper to natural pigments, all is welcome in her new dreamworld. The result is environmentally friendly and of a poetic beauty. Forever curious about the small world surrounding her, Saskia intuitively researches the essence of living and sometimes dead beings. These days paper and ink are among her favourite working materials. Mucking about with large brushes and fine artists' brushes, using natural inks and pigments. Brush is dipped into ink and touches paper, an image appears. Animals come to life in a brushstroke, hare bird dog toad snail, sometimes ink becomes tree, of human form......Sometimes everything all at once: metamorphoses, transformations, because that is what being born and dying is. She has once heard someone say art can offer solace, she feels that is a beautiful idea.

huge thanks to Ingrid Geesink

studio

click on photo for Gabri Wijnakker's interview with me in my studio

Who are you?

Mijn naam is Saskia van Herwaarden, meisjesnaam Van Dijk; ik ben in 1963 in Maastricht geboren uit een Deense moeder en een Nederlandse vader. In mijn vroege jeugd, van 1966 tot 1971 hebben we in Engeland gewoond, vandaar mijn liefde voor de Engelse taal en het Verenigd Koninkrijk. Mijn gehele jeugd hebben we de lange zomervakanties in Denemarken doorgebracht bij familie, daarom noem ik Denemarken ook wel mijn tweede thuis. Ik heb afwisselend in Maastricht, Parijs, Rotterdam en Amsterdam gewoond om tenslotte te verhuizen naar ’t platteland. Momenteel woon ik samen met mijn man, twee zwarte labradors en een springer spaniel in gemeente West-Betuwe.

‘Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable’ César A. Cruz

Where do you work and what do you make?

I am mainly busy in my garden studio 'The BirdHut'. I experiment with all kinds of materials in there. In 2011 I 'discovered' cloth and started working with (recycled) cloth and I experimented loads with natural dyes. I have returned to my first love: painting on the flat surface, mainly ink-wash on all kinds of paper and making collages. A large project that has been ongoing is the doll's house I made in my studio. This is called 'The Dwellingand the stories about it have been published in my blog.  

 

How come your weblog is in English?

I have kept a blog since 2011 called ‘‘Tales from the BirdHut’. The main language is English as the first online group I participated in has members spread out all across the globe and our shared lingua franca is English.

‘I walk over the marsh saying I AM I: and must follow that furrow, NOT COPY ANOTHER. That is the only JUSTIFICATION for my writing, living’ Virginia Woolf 

‘Art might simply be the awareness of how we might create self. That we do. What happens, and then, what we do about it. The story. And the expression of that.’ Jude Hill 

Any future plans?

Commit myself wholly to art-production. February 2022 I decided to stop all other work-activities and focus completely on my artwork. 

I would love to publish a book with stories from The Dwelling , oh yes, and a birthday-calendar, cards and hold beautiful exhibitions......gosh enough to dream about and look forward to.

‘ The residual purpose of art is purposeless play.’ John Cage

‘The reason we are here is not to suffer or work, but to have a really really really really good time.’ Laurie Anderson

more info on my CV