Growing up in a small village, hidden up in the cold North of the Netherlands, living among apple blossoms, wooded banks with blackberry bushes and meadows surrounded by ditches teeming with vegetation and insects, I started to translate the impressions to colours on paper. After a while, this was extended to creating mixed textile productions in a bit of embroidery, use of different fabrics, knitting, crochet. Travelling extensively abroad to different corners of the world, living in Portugal, France, India, Hungary for certain moments in time proved a fertile ground for new artistic insights. Meeting passionate Venetian entrepreneurs, with a focus on keeping traditional Venetian lace making alive and thriving, but also running a commercial enterprise in the heart of Venice. The courageous women of La Palma keeping alive their cherished embroidery and silk production traditions of centuries passed, the Hungarian embroidery and porcelain painting by hand at Herend, the sits fabric by hand production in India and their silk embroidery from Mughal times, Aubusson items, Flemish tapestries and the Gobelin productions in Paris. It all provided a smooth transition to embroidered weaving, with the additional benefit of suitable mediation during that creative process.

Looking into history to try and understand a bit of present and past through the ages, studying artists of meticulous precision in drawing, painting, weaving and embroidering, enlightening illuminations of rare old books, reading about their sometimes dangerous journeys. Survival done in diverse challenging environments, using materials from all over the world. Learning to experiment with elated wonder. And to transform all that in an individual expression, which grew in format as life changes happened. Life challenges needed to be conquered, in order to sail in artistic spirits continually beyond a golden horizon in the night.