SHARING WITH ME

The end of the year is not the best time for me. It’s not as if I am down in the dumps, but Christmas and the New Year seem to have become frenetic commercial symbols and the « buy, buy, buy » syndrome just leaves me cold. Swanie, my granddaughter was not in the mood for the silly season fêtes either. I took her to Strasbourg for her « Christmas Present ». It’s a city virtually on the German border which has a long and rather sordid history: part of Alsace or part of Germany. The Alsaciens have their own dialect which is close to German. Perhaps the present generation has not adopted it but my generation still chatters on in the street…. Strasbourg is one of the nine largest cities in France with nearly half a million inhabitants in a metropolitan area spanning across the river into the German city of Kehl, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. The city itself is the seat of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Ombudsman, the Euroco...

If you don’t like squiggles: if you don’t like fantasy: if you don’t like odd-looking animals - stay away. So many people object to  Basquiat or Tanguely and yes, there is a lot of their work that I don’t particularly go for either, but Karel Appel and his works on paper, I do. I can giggle, act as a child or search for faces or anything as his work is not always titled. Encounter, 1963 Big Head, 1963 Woman's Face, 1961 The Harmonica Player, 1947 Karel Appel (1921-2006) is rich, diverse, raw, intense and alive with energy. He was a Dutch painter who explored many forms throughout his long career lasting over 60 years. And looking at his work, knowing a little about his life, I am sure he remained « a child » right throughout his life. If not a child, open to many ideas. He was independent, radical and his spirit led him to shun established categories. He is certainly famous as a founder of the Cobra group (1948) which I came across the fi...