Myriam Berenschot - Illustrations

When asked, Myriam defines herself mainly as a teacher, offering painting and illustration workshops, but she also works as an illustrator on commission for her own pleasure.

Schooled at the Academy Minerva in Groningen, she started by following illustration, graphics and abstract painting, but later decided to add a teacher-training course to the mix to broaden her prospects for the future. Finishing with a first class honours in 1992, she then decided to head off to Indonesia for a six-week break with two other colleagues.

Upon their return to the Netherlands the three of them set up their own studio in central Groningen. As well as pursuing their own work, they offered and developed a range of classes from beginners to advanced, for both adults and children. During this time Myriam was also busy giving portrait and watercolour classes at the Volksuniversiteit in Zuidlaren, Drenthe as well as painting workshops at children’s’ birthday parties.

The studio was put on hold in 1998, with the life changing arrival of new members to the various families coupled with moves to new houses and neighbourhoods. During this period Myriam continued with her own work and started making decorative coat racks on commission. She enjoyed being able to work on a smaller scale again by choice and left abstraction by the wayside choosing to go back to her preference of painting realistic and detailed works.

By 2005, and with her youngest daughter Ella in school, Myriam decided to pick up where she had left off and start up the painting workshops for children again. This she has been doing ever since at the neighbourhood playground association: Het Buurt & Speeltuinvereniging Helpman Oost ‘De Helpen’. Shortly, she will be branching out to include evening classes for adults. Also, she plans to resume the painting workshops for children’s’ birthday parties. Other work has included illustrating the plans for landscape designers, as well as giving drawing lessons for the SKC (after school reception) and illustrating a nursery school newspaper.

For the future, Myriam is in the process of joining forces with a couple of colleagues, each with a different creative discipline to her own. She says, instead of being an island in one’s discipline, as so many artists seem to be these days, she wants to see more of a mix between art and music and intends to achieve this through her liaison with them. This could pave the way to a whole new genre of workshop.

If you're interested in seeing more of Myriam’s work, or finding out more about her workshops: Myriam Berenschot

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design 

First published in the Connections magazine #21 Autumn 2008 

The Colourful World of Leona Leppers

Hurtling through the Dutch countryside on a particularly grey Monday morning and travelling in a north-easterly direction away from Groningen, Kim and I headed for the little village of Ee (pronounced ae) to interview our next artist, Leona Leppers.

Both not having an awfully good sense of direction, even with the electronic route finder chatting merrily away on the dash board to itself, we wondered if this time we hadn’t gone a little far in pursuit of an article. But perseverance pays off and as we rounded the corner we were pleasantly surprised when we saw the house. A jewel on the landscape, this little house could almost come out of a fairy tale book with its garden filled with colourful objects, candles, mosaic slabs and streamers fluttering in the wind.

Leona opened the door with a welcoming smile, clothed and be-jewelled from head to toe in her amazing Technicolor creations and invited us in for coffee. Inside, the house comprises of two main rooms with an adjoining kitchen and Leona’s work can be seen from floor to ceiling in every nook and cranny. Just when you think you have seen it all, you discover another creation.

Creative from an early age and having previously worked as a drama therapist the dramatic change in her life came when her contract wasn’t renewed and she decided to look for something else. She was asked to take part in a fashion show entitled ‘Regal & Kitsch’ where for the finale she created a queen’s costume using the materials, which have now become her trademark style. Later she continued by making bags on request, which in turn has led to soft jewellery, interior objects and workshops for women interested in learning how to make her colourful designs.

The colours she uses are bright and the materials sumptuous, fluffy and velvety making you want to touch them and pick them up. Her designs are decorated with beads, unusual bits and bobs, shells, felt, in fact anything she can lay her hands on to decorate. All this she finds at markets and in curiosa shops, saying she has a nose for finding what she wants. This makes her work always refreshingly original. Influences in her designs come from music, and from travel books on India and Africa as well as religious icons taken from Christianity and Buddhism.

Leona doesn't live in the house anymore; she lives a stone's throw away over a little bridge in a larger house. There just isn’t enough room for her family any more, comprising of two sons (aged 9 and 12) and her partner. The little house is used as a gallery and studio for her work. She also has the intention of starting up a Bed & Breakfast in it for those wishing to escape the pressures of city life.

The house is also very symbolic of her life and personal growth over the years. Having first found the house when it was more or less condemned, with a mud floor, straw walls and no electricity or running water, Leona has breathed life into it and lovingly restored it to its present state. She has made it hers and filled it with a riot of colour and life, it is a haven where she can be herself without the need to explain herself in any way.

Find out more about Leona’s colourful work on her website at: Leona Design

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design 

First published in the Connections magazine #19 Spring 2008 

Bollywood

My own experience of a Bollywood film came as a result of a trip to India and a visit to the local cinema in Jaipur, one evening. Treated to a fantastical spectacle in a cinema decorated with incredible opulence, I enjoyed a film, which was totally contradictory to the harsh realities of life in India.

Named after a combination of the name of the city Bombay (now known as Mumbai) and Hollywood, this is the Hindi film industry. Featuring a cast of thousands these musical glitz and glamour productions, often with a ‘boy meets girl’, storyline are perfect in their use of opulence and total escapism.

Starting with the first screening in 1899, Bollywood as an industry has grown to such an extent that it makes up to 800 films per year, with 14 million Indian people visiting the cinema every day in India alone. The same popular actors are featured in most of the films, which results in an actor/actress often being busy filming for more than one film at a time.

Seemingly, Bollywood’s appeal is on the increase as this has led to big US film companies, such as Warner Bros and Twentieth Century Fox setting up offices in India with obviously an idea for future collaboration.

With an Oscar nomination for ‘Lagaan’, in 2002 Bollywood films have been gathering momentum and have managed to cross over to the extent that they are now not just viewed by Indian families alone, but are also being shown in cinemas throughout the United Kingdom. Here, in Groningen at the Noorderzon Festival, a performing arts festival (and shortly to be seen at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival), the ‘Bollywood Mysterie’ was to be seen. A musical and visual feast of Indian music and film as portrayed by Gerry Arling with support from The Mondriaan Quartet, traditional Indian musicians and the spiritual music of the Californian composer, Terry Riley.

It is also possible that if you like the idea, you can sign up for Bollywood dancing lessons.

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design 

First published in the Connections magazine #17 Autumn 2007 

Suzanne Postel – Murals, Frescos & Portraits

My meeting with Suzanne Postel came out of my curiosity to find out who the artist was of a rather imposing mural covering the entire side of a building contractor’s office, along the Korreweg in Groningen. Having cycled past many times in my daily travels, finally one day I jammed on the brakes and went inside to enquire.

I met Suzanne at her studio along the Eendrachtskade, which is spacious enough to serve as both work and exhibition space. The studio is filled with marvelous paintings at every turn and the area in the back, where we sat and drank coffee, has a wall that is a collage of small paintings, images, and photos of friends and family. I asked her how it came about that one of her murals was on the side of a building contractor’s office. She told me that living nearby meant that everyday she had looked out upon the building and a set of filled in windows that had been painted a rather unimaginative white. This made her fingers itch to do something about it, so much so that she approached them and offered to paint the offending building with a mural. The result is a set of very impressive classically robed women, each standing in a niche bearing a tool or implement relevant to the building trade.

Although always an artist at heart, after her student days and completion of her studies at the art school Minerva in Groningen, she decided to leave Holland for France. Here she lived for a period of ten years where she helped in setting up and running a naturist camping resort with her parents. France was an exciting and challenging period in her life, but she missed painting and the Dutch culture and returned to Groningen in 1999. In her own words: ‘I wanted to cycle across the market place with my children and buy sugar waffles’. Once back in Groningen she set up a studio and has established herself as a muralist and portraitist.

Before starting a piece of work, she does a lot of sketching, takes photographs (in the case of a commissioned portrait) and adds to a scrapbook. A book full of ideas this scrapbook is filled with images, material samples, and text, often poignant lines from poems. A particular favourite is the poet Jean Pierre Rawie. From this process arises a series of puzzle pieces that when put together become the basis design for a mural or portrait. Then turning to canvas or masomite (a specially treated art board) the initial idea is laid down very quickly as an acrylic base. After that she will work further on the idea in oils until its logical conclusion is reached and she is happy with it.

Other strong influences in her work can be seen to come from paintings from the Renaissance and Impressionist movements and from the world of dreams. According to the Chinese one should live out ones dreams in order to move on. One particular dream that she has turned into a painting is a self-portrait of herself, angry and with a dripping paintbrush in her mouth. What it means she is not sure, but it needed to be painted.

With regular commissions and exhibitions, as well as doing all her own public relations, and giving painting lessons to students with an age range of twenty to sixty. Suzanne is not only able to follow her passion but has been able to make it into a successful business.

The opening of her current exhibition entitled ‘De Hoge Lucht’ (The Light from Above), took place on 24 June 2007. The event was opened by Jacque D’Ancona (a renown Dutch journalist, amongst other things).

For more information about Suzanne you can visit her website here 

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design 

First published in the Connections magazine #16 Summer 2007