Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Holland Journal, from Ellie -- Part 2

Wednesday, 17-June

I went alone to Den Haag (The Hague). I still don't know what a Haag is--I'm getting perilously close to buying a Dutch-English dictionary, now that my visit is drawing to a close, of course. The letter G is pronounced like an H; the letter W is pronounced like a W, not as in German, where the W is said like a V; the letters IJ are pronounced like a long I. The word 'wine' sounds the same but looks like "wijn." Gouda cheese is pronounced “Hooda.”

I think one of the amazing things about Holland is the ubiquity of Dutch. This sounds like a stupid thing to say, but Rotterdam has 150 nationalities, and they are all speaking Dutch, even within ethnic groups. It seems to me that in London and New York, the different nationalities speak their own language with each other. Even in High Wycombe, a much smaller city but with a large ethnic population, the different groups speak their own languages with each other, especially the Muslim women. But here, not so, and this has been true for Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and now Den Haag. Interesting. And it makes me feel provincial to be so surprised! I am just not used to seeing blacks and Indians and Asians speaking what I think of as a quintessentially northern European language, as their first language. Which reminds me of a funny moment we had, several nights ago when we went out for supper and ate at a superb dim sum restaurant. Our waitress spoke no English, we spoke no Dutch or Chinese. It turned out that she did speak French, so I ordered our food in French in a Chinese restaurant in a Dutch city.

Back to Den Haag. I had found out about a huuuuuuuuuuge market area with 520 stalls. My mind was filled with images of strange foods and objects and antiques and odd things unimaginable. It was a disappointment; after an hour I was hot, hungry, and had a headache. It was completely crammed with people, Muslim women wearing headscarves and pushing strollers and filling the tiny walkways, not moving; piles of shoes being pawed over and identical from stall to stall; cheap clothing and handbags all nearly identical; piles of vegetables (some of which I can't identify) and fruit (quietly fermenting in the midday sun), one seller doubling the price from the stall next door; mountains of nuts and figs; meat sellers, watch sellers, trinket sellers, tacky-cloth sellers, fried food smells; no way out; bumped by handbags---Help!

My antidote to the market was the Mauritshuis (pronounced Mow-rits-house) Museum, a beautiful mansion that now houses Dutch masterpieces, cool and quiet and hushed. Lovely atmosphere, and an exquisite collection of Rembrandts, and about four Vermeers, one of which is so fine that I may have to go back there just to stand in front of it. It is called 'View of Delft' and one of the very surprising things about it is that it's big. I think of Vermeer making such small pictures. I also wasn't expecting to be so bowled over by his technique, which involves such tiny droplets of color, like a string of pearls, to make the highlights along the side of a boat, for instance. And in this museum, as well, you can walk up to a painting and look at it a nose-length away. How simply and perfectly he paints a woman on the canal bank; if you look at it, you can't understand how so little can communicate so much. I read that he used techniques that are similar to the impressionists, making things look the way they feel, rather than strictly how they look. And this was in 1650. He gave tiny highlights to things that couldn't really have had them, strictly speaking, but that needed them; and he made some towers taller because they needed to be taller for the composition. I am again struck by the difference between seeing even a superb print and the real thing.

I came back from Den Haag in time to take a bicycle tour of the city with a small group. Rotterdam was obliterated by WWII and it makes me very sad to think what it must have been. Our guide said it looked pretty much like Amsterdam. What was destroyed was the center of the city, the oldest part. They rebuilt it with all sorts of 1950's ideas, like the city center should be a place where people work and shop but not live. Now they are seeing the error of this and rebuilding again to introduce high-rise apartment buildings in the center of things, because after business hours the place is barely alive. They put in a shopping area that is a pedestrian zone for ten blocks, the first pedestrian zone in the world. Of course, it is dull as ditch water! And now there is much debate about whether they should improve it or whether the boring and ugly 1950’s look has historical significance now. Much the same debate that goes on with furniture conservation!

That's the news from Holland today, Ellie.

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Thursday, 18-June

Bruce got out of his conference for the afternoon. We took the train to Delft, a ten minute journey. The train leaves about every twenty minutes. It's enough to make you tear your hair, knowing how easy train travel could be.
From the train, Delft looks completely uninteresting. All you see is the backside of town. But get on the other side of the station, and a mini Amsterdam unfolds. We were hungry when we arrived, and we found a cute restaurant with its dining room on a barge pulled up to the bank of the canal. We had lunch with the delicious Dutch beer that has become my staple. Across the canal (about 20 ft. away) a group of students were playing pickup soccer and the ball kept going into the canal. Finally a water taxi went by and fished out the ball for them. In another half minute it was back in the canal, and they were trying to hook it with a chair tied to a rope. I got the feeling the ball spent most of its playtime in the water.
Then we went to the Old Church, meandering through canalled streets, rubbernecking and trying not to back up into the canals. The Oude Kirk (pronounced owda kerk) was built in 1240, with some more added in 1520. Vermeer, who was from Delft, is buried there, in the church floor. The grave stones on the floor are extraordinary because they are carved in high relief. You really have to watch your step because there's a lot to trip over. The legible stones were 17th century, but many, many stones that still had deep relief carving were completely blank where the writing had rubbed away over the last six centuries!
Next to the Oude Kirk was a museum, where I THOUGHT there would be a Vermeer or two. Guess what--Delft has no Vermeers!! Rather sad. Anyway, in the Museum, which had excellent Dutch masters, we learned a lot about William of Orange, also known as William the Silent, who apparently founded Holland, having rebelled against Spain in 1648. He had four wives, the last of whom warned him that his best friend had a "creepy manner"---and sure enough, the guy murdered William, and the museum is actually where it happened, with the bullet holes in the plaster.
Delft, and most of what we've seen of Holland, is made of bricks. They don't seem to have much in the way of stone, which makes sense, being essentially one big bog. When you think about all the bricks that were produced just to build Delft, with all the streets paved in brick as well, the mind reels. Our next stop was the Nieuwe Kerk (the New Church) which was started in 1394 and finished in 1476. Quite new. William of Orange is buried in a crypt there, where all the royals are buried. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't even know Holland still has a Royal family!
Supper was in a strange restaurant where everything is served, and eaten, in the manner of the 16th century, or thereabouts, and, alarmingly, no silverware appeared. When I said we needed forks, our waiter explained that in the 16th century they ate with their hands, and we were expected to do the same.
It was a lovely day out in Delft! -Ellie.

Holland Journal, from Ellie -- Part 1

Hi from Rotterdam. A five day journal, starting on June 14.

We arrived yesterday, a flight of one hour and ten minutes. We flew in over a sea of windmills, literally: the windmills are all over the sea as you approach Amsterdam, like fields of wheat except (from the air) it’s little white stalks with three twirling blade. Then as we flew over land it was more fields of white stalks. I was reminded of the Duke of Plazatoro's line, that owing to an unusual amount of rainfall, the streets are filled with water (or something like that!), for truly there are canals and canals and rivers and more canals criss-crossing the landscape. On the train from the window I saw what appeared to be boats in dry-dock, all in lines, and then saw that they were berthed in miniature canals about eight feet wide. And bicycles absolutely everywhere. At the train stations there are covered bicycle racks that stretch for what looks like a city block. It's my kind of biking territory--not a hill in sight.

Our hotel is a throw-back to some sort of Soviet-style ethic; pretty grubby, in modern parlance. There are two cigarette butts on the carpeted staircase that I'm tracking to see if they ever get removed, the hallways smell like mildew and when you look up the ceiling tiles are either water stained or missing, the room has an eau-de-stale cigarette, the pillows are dinky and the towels likewise, and the dining room floor has a fair amount of food debris. All night long there were punctuations from across the "courtyard" of loud Dutchmen, but thankfully it didn't keep me awake because I had no idea what they were saying. The noises from the other guests are, ahem, audible and sometimes of an intimate nature....

This part of Rotterdam looks like the set of a sci-fi movie: tall cylindrical buildings with round windows; ovoid buildings; sunken shopping areas dipping in front of you; pointy buildings….I'm sure there are some old buildings, or an older section, and I look forward to finding them this afternoon. I'm trying to stick to a plan of schoolwork in the mornings, exploring in the afternoons. I'm a little excited because I found a reference to a Dutch architect that was very influential in the chair-making trade of the seventeenth century, a Huguenot named Daniel Marot, and perhaps I can find a reference while I'm here in Holland.

That's all for now, Ellie.


Yesterday, Tuesday, Bruce got away from the conference and we took the train to Amsterdam. The train is a marvel of smoothness, quietness, and timeliness. It is expensive, but it's about half price for Dutch residents (those with Dutch bank accounts), so it's nice to know they are getting around cheaply. We rode on a double decker train past canals and cows and sheep and lots of waterfowl. Saw some windmills of the grain mill type, though none of them were wearing sails.

I'M IN LOVE! Amsterdam is exquisite. The first sight is the train station itself, absolutely huge and beautiful mid-19th centuryish spires and brickwork. The next sight is outside the station, a parking lot for bicycles, probably about a hundred thousand of them. How does anyone find their own bike? A miracle. The bicycles are a big part of the utter charm of the place. They are actually the main mode of transport, as far as I can tell, and as a result the city is quiet. Peaceful. The other transportation is the tram. Yes, there are some cars but they are outnumbered. It's quite a sight to see the intersections: a complexity of bike lanes, tram lines, and cars. Each group has their own light signals. The bikes are large and the seats and handlebars are set quite high so everyone sits very upright, old ladies, old men, businessmen in suits, young women in skirts, scarves and jackets billowing in the wind. It's a truly beautiful sight, I hope it's the sight of the future for all cities, and of course it's a sight of the past.

The second thing you notice is all the canals and bridges, close to the sidewalks. There are as many canals as there are streets, because they run in the middle of most streets. So to the mix of bicycles, trams, people, Vespas, and cars, add BOATS!

We went to the Van Gogh Museum. It was the most rewarding time I've ever spent in a museum. I thought, stupidly, there might be a dozen paintings by Van Gogh, and then paintings by others. As it turns out, half of the entire museum is Van Gogh. It was stupendous. Seeing his paintings, probably 70 of them (more?) in chronological order, close up, was strangely moving. What you miss by seeing prints is the thickness of the paint, the three-dimensionality of the brush strokes, which makes it seem as though the painter has been here recently. I don't know why it's so interesting to see paint in little blobs, but it is. And it is fascinating to see the colors Van Gogh sees in things, and how he outlines things with the opposite color. I stood in front of these pictures, bending in, peering at the brush strokes, getting inside his mind, at least a little bit. What an incredible luxury to look at so many of his paintings from ten inches away.

When we came out (having bought some large prints, of course!) we wandered over a bridge or two, dodged a thousand bicycles or so, looking for a bite to eat, and found an Argentine restaurant with a man playing tangos on a mandolin, right next to a Greek restaurant, a Spanish tapas bar with a man singing Spanish songs (beautifully, in fact) and playing the guitar, and sat at a table on the cobbled street.

After supper, we decided to look at Anne Frank's house, which was about eight blocks away. We found it, a completely ordinary Amsterdam house, three windows wide and three stories tall, just like its neighbours. It ordinariness is unnerving. It is obviously someone's home, and there are no big signs saying "here it is!" And right here, on this ordinary leafy street, with the ubiquitous cute canal in front, such misery, such fear, such horror. Unlike Dachau, which looks so cruel, this house looks completely homey and safe.

More later, Ellie.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Gilt Footstools Concluded

Picking up where we left off several months ago...Just a quick review: here is the gilder's pad and gold leaf. Pick up gold with a brush.

If you want to review the start of this saga, check it out here!
At this point I had a proper gilder's tip, which is from the tail of a squirrel. You can see one lying on the table. My left hand is applying water, my right is applying gold. The goal was to get both hands doing separate jobs.
After you've applied the gold, the extra bits are brushed off. There are always cracks, called "faults," which are covered with more bits of gold.
Then the gold gets burnished. Here are three burnishers made of agate. The tiniest microscopic burr on the agate will tear the gold.
Burnishing is rubbing the surface. The danger is that your hand slips and dents the surface. This happened a lot! If you rub too hard, the gold buckles under the considerable pressure and comes off.
Here they are, burnished.
I would have liked to leave them like this, but the client wants them to look old and worn, so I coat them with a gelatine solution to tone down the shininess.
They are further toned to look worn and weary from use. Hessian (jute cloth) wrapped around a piece of coton wool makes a toning pad.
Basically, you're gently marring the surface by rubbing scratchy fabric on the gold. It goes without saying that you can easily go too far...
Further toning is done with watercolors, to mimic dirt. I allowed it to pool where dirt would have collected. I used raw sienna, after trying several. The colors are from dry earth pigments.
Now it's time to make feet. I designed them, based on my idea of what would look nice. I start by finding a piece of mahogany big enough for six bun feet.
The timber in the lathe. the chisel is an impressive size!
This is my first experience with a lathe. It's completely terrifying. The danger of ripping off my arm seems a milisecond and a milimeter away. But the square shape is very quickly reduced to a cylinder!
Now I'm marking the feet, allowing for space between them.
This was scary and tricky: to hold the chisel with one hand and gauge with the other while the timber is spinning.
More turning action. It's really nerve-wracking because I could ruin everything in the blink of an eye. I can see how this could be fun, once you get over your terror. It's so sculptural.
Feet coming in to view.

Now I just need to cut them off one by one on the bandsaw. The last one is dicey because I don't want to lose my fingers.
Back in the lab, the feet get stained with water walnut.
Then they get coats of Special Pale shellac. I put four coats on.

The shellac should be applied with a brush of Russian Squirrel, called a mop. I don't have one yet; it's about $60. I ended up borrowing one for later coats.


The feet are left to dry on kebab sticks.



Up close, and then I sand them very lightly with 0000 wire wool.




Finished. Unfortunately, the client likes this upholstery and didn't want it changed. I think something blue or burgundy would look good, but I'm not in charge of this one.


The underside. You can see it's just wood.
A close up of the surface, gilt and toned. (I still liked them better shiny!)
The photography studio.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Evening Stroll from EB

It's eight o'clock, a fine, windless evening and I've decided to take a stroll out in the back of our place to check on things.
What things?

As I head out from our back yard, I walk past the allotments for Ditchfield Cottages. Our neighbors' gardens are on my left. Some are productive but small, some a little shaggy, but Tony's garden is outstanding: all is order, fecundity, health. We think of him as Mr. MacGregor because he dresses just like him, in a tweed vest and tweed cap, tending his vegetables with seriousness, and guarding against the ubiquitious rabbits. Everything is draped in rabbit-proof netting. His peas are bearing luxuriantly, his broad beans are heavy with produce, his brussel sprouts are standing tall. Not a weed of even the smallest variety is in sight.

As I walk down a footpath I see fieldcorn planted on the right, only about ten inches tall. Long way to go. I go through the stile and turn right, toward the woods. On my left there is a small farm with a dozen sheep, recently shorn, who are near the path and gaze at me. Down I go through a skinny opening between the hedges that are taking over. Around this part of the world, it isn't keeping up with the Jones', it's keeping up with the hedges. Going through another gate the view opens up to another corn field, grown in soil that looks like ground up bones. The flintstones are encased in a chalky soil that is actually white. It looks hopelessly infertile, but that's apparently an illusion.

In the next field, there are bales of hay all over the field. This looks recent. Walking along edge of the field, I notice a new incarnation of wildflowers, all different since my last walk this way a month ago. Now there are purple thistles, and tiny morning-glory-like pink flowers creeping along the edge of the path, and Queen Anne's Lace, and lavender-colored flowers like a tall clover.

At the end of this field there is a field of barley. The last time I saw the stalks, they were green and standing bolt upright with beards waving. Now, things have changed; their heads are full and heavy and bent over. The field is nearly golden, and the feathery heads are making an exquisite pattern, thin lines in a rough and tumble collage, with the valley of trees and tiled roofs beyond.

I go through another gate and into the woods. By day, this wood is dappled and chirpy with birds. But now, it is hushed, and very, very dark. I go in fifty feet and then there's a strange scuffling in the underbrush. I'm too old to be scared but I am scared. How creepy the woods have become...! I turn back to the grain field, trying not to look back, but I do and there's nothing there, of course.

Now the bells of the parish church begin to sound. This is bell-ringing rehearsal night. They only have six bells (the nieboring village has eight), but they've come up with every possible pattern. I hear the bells and think of our little stone church, and imagine the ringers hauling on the red, white and blue fuzzy ropes. I feel glad I don't have to spend the night in the woods.

Nearing the back of our cottage, I notice that two apple trees along the path are full of green apples. We've been eating ourselves silly on English strawberries, which are good, plentiful and cheap. It looks as though in a couple of months we'll be tasting English apples.

The evening is winding down. It's nine fifteen, three days past the solstice, and it will be light until ten thirty. The air is soft and mellow. A couple of mourning doves are doing their usual dusky cooing, and all kinds of birds are beginning their final burst of twittering and chirruping, as the sun sets; what are they talking about?

ellie@together.net