MY FAMILY AND I

My grandfather was a furniture maker. Even though he was a very good one, it did not have his passion. His desire was to be a painter. That he could not fulfill his dream was partly due to the situation in the family.

His father was a furniture maker too, but his passion was alcohol. Despite his craftsmanship concerning drinking, he was such a good furniture maker, that he could keep his job for a long time. Even arriving late and still quite drunk. But the inevitable had to occur. After many warnings he was sacked to immediately find a new job.

Often the evil came from the fact that salaries were paid in the bar, owned by the wife of the boss. That there still was food on the table was because after a certain moment the wife wrote ‘double’. The extra money went to the unfortunate family. For years the family lived on the edge. And then all got out of hand. My grand-dad and his brother were sent to an aunt and uncle.

My grandfather never told me this. I heard it from my parents much later. One thing was sure; alcohol is a bad substance. He protected himself against it by diluting his dark beer with liters of sparkling water.

No doubt this aunt and uncle saved my granddad’s life. He spoke with great respect about them.

One of the stories he told was that he sculpted their gravestone. Had he done this to show them that he was capable of much more than furniture making?

Although he finished the art academy in the evening hours, they forbid him to become an artist. He had to choose a decent occupation; he had to become a furniture maker… Apart from all the furniture and interiors he produced, he painted the to be made objects for his clients (and gave the paintings away).

My grand parents lived in the apartment below us. We visited them often. There were many interesting things to be seen. The chimney had a built in clock of which the numbers lit during the night. On the walls hang still-life copies of paintings by Chardin. There was the watercolour sketch of an old man in chains being breastfed by a voluptuous woman… And then there was the big cabinet with the sculpted lion heads. At least once a month my grandfather asked to look outside, to see what strange things that pigeon was doing in the trees. Then to his great astonishment, the sculpted lion head of the cabinet was smoking his cigar! I played the game many, many times…

All his life he remained a painting furniture maker. His brother was a framer.

I have wandered much with what to become. After high school I chose to study for analytical chemist. A tragic mistake, my chemistry teacher was a very good teacher. During the months between the exams and the entry to the chemistry school, my mother found an article about the school of furniture making. It must have been the smell of wood, the half finished chairs hanging from the ceilings, the hot glue tables in the workshop of my granddad, that made me choose for that profession instead of analysing blood and excrement. Some years of my life I dedicated to work the wood. Even though I thought to be a talent, thanks to the imitation Hepplewhite cabinet I built, I went in another direction.

At first I saw my future paved making interiors. I loved (and still do) the chairs of Marcel Breuer, so I inscribed at the arts and crafts academy. But the woman is danger. In the first year we were allowed to have a taste of the other disciplines that were given at the academy. Is it hard to explain that the naked female models made me rethink my future? Why produce chairs for them to sit in? Why not paint them?

Never did I design a chair for the muses to sit in. Instead I desired to hold them in my hands after having drawn them… This has led me to become a hobby framer in spare painting time.

Would the two brothers have been proud of me? My furniture grandfather was my favorite grandfather. I went fishing with him. I loved the stories he told. It is a pity he did not live long enough to see me fulfill his dream.

His brother is a different case. My granduncle Bertus was a mysterious man. I remember him as the ill-humoured man with the big Opel. In those days not everybody could own a car. Let alone one as big as our living room. That car made me long for a visit. There was more, luckily there was much more, because not often I was allowed to sit in it. I recall a ride to a church for a wedding. I sat in the back, with my legs straightforward. The bench was too big. During the ride nobody spoke. It could also have been that it was a funeral we went to. This did not make much difference for granduncle Bertus and his wife Rietje.

At home they sat under the lamp. He had a big cigar in his mouth; opposite she sat with her elbows on the table. Every now and then she’d fill his glass with gin to the top without ever spilling a drop, while complaining about the bad quality of the potatoes of that year. Life was hard; many bills had to be paid and the Opel was expensive. She always wore an apron with a flower motive; he always his overall. In the back of the miserable garden was his studio. From time to time he had to go there to throw frames in acid or glue them together with clamps. Because of the acid and other very dangerous liquids, it was forbidden for me to enter the shed or even get near. This made framing a mysterious occupation.

The two brothers competed with each other. My granddad’s paintings ended up in overwhelming frames. They drowned in them. All his life he wandered why…

And there was the son. If I remember well, his name was Joop. Joop worked at the DAF-car-company. He owned a Daffodil, the Dutch pride. The car was very popular amongst the disabled. It was the first car with an automatic shift.

Uncle Joop had beautiful black hair. No doubt he had seduced his wife with it. But from externalities come no steady marriages. She left without a word and I was forbidden to ask anything about the matter. Those were still the days of the travelling circuses; I fantasized much. She might have run off with a lion trainer...

It made visits to Bertus and Rietje even more exiting. Maybe the bride would, all of a sudden, rush back in the living room and throw herself in uncle Joop’s arms, crying for forgiveness. It never came to that, the only thing I saw was uncle Joop sitting in a corner, sobbing. He did not eat much. He was very skinny…

Granduncle Bertus had a strange tic. I could not keep my eyes off of him. In many westerns, the evil guy has a tic that gives away his bad character. He lisps, coughs all the time, limps or has a deck of cards that he shuffles nervously. My granduncle lisped about every five minutes. In the right side of his mouth he continuously slurped away spit. Because of the repetition I was hypnotized by it. I waited for it to happen over and over. You could say I hung on his right under lip. It brought me into a tunnel in a direct connection with his mouth; I could not see anything else. It became a time notation. Like, this visit was twenty-nine slurps long. I could not escape it. What was I to do? I was forced to sit up straight during the whole visit, while my father and mother talked about for children incomprehensible matters.

For years I have been fascinated by Bertus’ slurping, till not long ago I studied old-fashioned framing. Granduncle Bertus has become an average dead soul. 

How could I know that he filled his mouth with a glue substance? Slime is an ancient binder. The Rijksmuseum, the National Gallery and the Louvre are filled with centuries old slime. If you keep silent you can hear the lisping and slurping…

I don’t want to look like my granduncle. I want to be able to go out with the models without spit dripping from my chin. I want to kiss them without staying connected by wires of slime. I don’t want an apron with a flower motive or bad gin. Only the car is ok.

I have tried everything. I applied for a job as a mailman on Stromboli, I threw myself in the arms of a rich American woman; still I keep on putting frames in the clamps. My career as a painter leaves much to wish for. I cannot stop framing. As a result I am a big promoter of the slick modern frame. That is the entire influence I have over my life.

This I wrote a long time ago. Times have become sunnier. Not only do I live in the south, my career is moving forward. I married a Spanish beauty. I have no fear for wet lips. But not everything is safe. Danger waits around the corner. I live next to the bullfight arena and in winter travelling circuses have shows there…

Barcelona, March 2004 (corrected in 2020).