A short and very moralizing story about how it started, and the many opportunities we all are given.
It was in the summer of ´85, when some friends made up their minds to travel light through Europe. Light and in a new way. So they decided to throw away their daily and very bourgeois way of life and their income, and live on what they could earn on art in the various europaen cities. Two of us were going to play the accordeon and the fiddle, the third would sell her craftsmanship, and I – I had to find something to do as well.
In those days I had already made some modest experiments into painting and non-naturalistic drawing, but I couldn´t stand drawing after nature. It was so boring, difficult and the results not very rewarding. And I didn´t want to become a painter, actually I did everything to avoid it. When somebody saw my works and talked about exhibitions and how good my things were, I just said they were made by my cousin. I knew too many painters in Odsherred, and felt very timid about my experiments. To be a painter was not something I wanted. Just the opposite, I had my work and my family, and that was it.
But in the summer of 85. I had to try something and by chance got a piece of chalk in my hand. And suddenly I experienced the same very strange feeling which must be the same as that of someone trying to cut a silhouette and finding out that it is done so easily . My first drawing in chalk made itself. And so did all the next. So I made my collection and started selling on the streets. Using a black piece of cloth, a sign saying: For sale / A vendre, and the drawings of animals and flowers.
That is a very long and quite another story. I loved the Japanese ladies who bought my first flowers on paper in Heidelberg – and the german lady who praised the city of Cologne for letting me work in the Zoo of the town ( I had of course no permission! ) But the very best day reached me in a french town, where I had put up my little store not noticing, that I had invaded the territority of some very big black people, who were traiding masks and leather belts. The broadest and biggest fellow approached me menacingly in silence, looked over my works and instead of starting the War of the Roses, which I feared, smiled friendly to me and said: Just stay here, you are a real artist, man.
I still thank that anonymious friend for his words, and we four followed our plan that summer and lived of art. I still have a few of the drawings, the cloth and the sign. You can see them at the bottom of this page. That summer taught me you have to grasp the opportunity and that our abilities are much greater than our knowledge.
Now 37 years later after all the exhibions, awards and experiences of closeness and new land conquered, I feel a very big gratitutede to all the people, who helped me. My wife and family who always believed in me and supported me. All the good people I met home and abroad. It was like the phrase from Procul Harum, A Whiter shade of Pale: We called out for a drink, and the waiter brought a tray.
I know I had the special opportunity to have two lives. One as a teacher and one as an artist. Thank you all.
