Page 128 - The 70s - ABC of the material

I have an outlook on life that is expressed in all I was put before a fait accompli how to shape
these activities and I do not want to participate
in the need of everyone to apply a hierarchy in
these activities or whatever.
Thinking in superlatives is absolutely strange to
me
I needed a lot of time to balance these activities
with each other and with myself.
You can say, I live and that is a result of it and
belongs to it .
I do have preferences and I choose all the time
because I am aware of cause and effect, but at
the same time new situations arise of which I do
not have experience and therefore have to be
careful with my reactions.
Maria van Elk, December 13th, 1979
page 84-86
Letter to Coosje
Dear Coosje,
Here is an overview of the group of drawings I
made.
It is divided in 11 subjects of which per group
minimally we could develop a correspondence of
11 letters from you ±11 letters in reply from me.
I base the structure of the book on 22 letters
from you and me and 29 reproductions plus an
art historical framework and phenomenology
from you.
The 8 drawings from 1973 have been my first
step, these drawings arose entirely intuitively –
spontaneously but put to me a number of
questions on which later on I started working out
more consciously.
In this period I was on or was terminating the
gymnasium evening school (1972 – 1973).
1973 was the year of my divorce. Then I did a
number of things simultaneously.
I stopped going to the gymnasium evening
school because overnight I had become the
provider.
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my life.
I had to orientate anew on art of which I had kept
aloof for quite some time.
Since everything is shapeless you fall back in
panic fear on old certainties.
From September 1973 until the beginning of
1974 I have worked alternately in a dialogue with
myself.
On the one hand I was able to free myself
completely and follow new insights.
Hence the simultaneous formation of
embroidered lines and free drawings.
This period lasted only a few months.
Soon I found out where my irritations which I
had had in slumber for years stuck on and I drew
my conclusions from that for determining a very
large number of starting points in my work and
in society as concerning the follow up to the
outside of my work.
The choice that you do not question your artistry
or whatever you may call it that this is something
that is of vital importance for yourself and that
you yourself have to accept for 100%.
It was anyway something of which I noticed that
I could not get out of.
In the past I did my best to get out of artistic
choice.
At a certain moment you realise that you can not
get out of it and then the best is to stand behind
it for 100% too.
That acceptance process of myself is
comparable with for instance being born with
two legs and becoming aware that you did not
make that choice yourself and that you out of
opposition to having to walk on these two legs
you sit on them until you feel the moment has
come on which you yourself decide and imagine
that you can walk with these two legs.
The same thing happened to me in art , it was
all too self – evident and too much the only way
on which I necessarily remained in a mental
balance.
How do I have to explain this art for me was
no escape from myself, but just a continuous
confrontation with myself and I was away from it
by not making art.