When you ask for Fertility...
Notes after an overflowing harvest
Dear Reader,
First things first - Invitations!
DUO SHOW, OOSTENEDE- NOVEMBER 29 - JANUARY 4
I am so excited to announce the opening of my next show, Fran and Tulis, this Saturday November 29th from 15;00 - 18;00 at Galerie P, Oostende, Belgium.
This show will feature some of the plein air landscapes and floral paintings that Fran and I made over the summer in de Innengaard and the surrounding landscape over the summer, along with other surprises!
YULE AT ROOIGEM - DECEMBER 6+7 14:00-18:00
You are invited to join the creative community at Rooigem for two afternoons of open studios and activities.
The studios of artist Bruno Van Dycke, Kristoffel Boudens and writer Peter Verhelst will be presenting their work and open to visitors. Innengaard Brewery + Garden will be offering drinks and wreath making workshops. This event is open to the public but an RSVP is necessary to visit my studio.
When you ask for Fertility...
The seasons of seeding, planting, growing, and blooming have passed their annual cycles. The harvest arrives - all that has been growing is ready to be devoured, preserved, prepared. The trees drop their clothes and reveal their elegant bodies. Winter has returned and with it, some time to reflect on what has passed and share a long overdue note to you all!
I opened 2025 with rituals to bring in fertility. Sometimes, the form your desires arrive in is more broad and varied than the narrow initial intentions.
Fertility has many forms. Here are some of the ways she has begun to grow since I asked her into my life.
The last year has been so full of shows, new faces, and wonderful moments of brining my creative practice to the world. In October, I had a duo show with Clément Jacques-Vossen at Galerie Jos Depypere in Kurne, Flanders. The same month, I took part in my first art fair - Moderne Fair, Paris. I premiered three new paintings focused on fertility (my years theme!) A night spent sleeping in the boat with the swans inspires a full moon menstrual PMS-y figure, the sex - a bleeding sylph. A radiant floating fertility godess is clad in opalacent transparent amor, both protected and exposed. An elfin mother holds her baby, a self portrait of myself as a child. My mother once told me I was a changeling, and as she falls deep down the MAGA hole, I wish it was true - that I had been born to another. I paint my sadness at this “loss” of my respect for and relationship with my own mother, while also contending with my own wish for my own full belly: baby fever continues!
My schedule has begun to look like that of a fully booked professional artist - finishing work for a new show, install, opening, one day off, and then starting on finishing things for the next show. Moments in between I daydream about the kind of work I want to begin next. My sketchbooks are full of ideas and research and my hall is filled with massive stretcher bars awaiting new compositions.
The following year will bring my first museum show - The Lady of Shalott will be presented to the public (in her entirety of 13 monumental works!) as part of the Mudel Painting Biënnale. There will also be a number of group shows and a solo show with Galery P over the summer.
With so much focus on work, I have been extra intentional in carving out time to recharge with new hobbies. As my passion becomes more and more my profession, creating a space where play and experiment reigns and new inspiration is gleaned often means leaving the studio, and I find that setting aside my paintbrush is just as important a part of the creative process as taking it up again.
The Garden grows
This year was my first attempts at gardening - an activity that has given me a deeper sense of the meanings of many parables and words of wisdom that compare life lessons and seasons to that practice that we used to be more connected to in the distant past. The soil, the growth processes, all the seedlings that don’t make it, all the days the harvest is just a little, or far too much. I remember how Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes in her book “women who run with the wolves” about caring for the psychic garden of the inner world. I pull weeds from the garden bed, telling each one “I didn’t plant you, you have to go”. I learn about distinguishing between what is desirable and what needs to be removed. My first year is by no means a success, but it is a start, and I have enjoyed a small vegetable harvest, while also enjoying the gardening projects happening on the grounds run by de Innengaard.
Nurturance takes center stage
Maybe my greatest pleasure this year came form exploring food creations; examining my desires, seeking out the flavors I hanker for, and learning how to work with what is around me and the rewards of my cultivation. I baked three cakes a week over the summer, mostly Zucchini cakes and Stinging Nettle cakes. For collector’s evenings and the gathering of friends in the studio, I served Baked Pimento cheese lathered over toast and toped with Pico de Gallo, and Souther-Church-Lady broccoli salad topped with pickled red onions. Pickling is one of my favorite processes - tossing onions, beets, or any other veggie in red wine vinegar with a teaspoon of salt and sugar works miracles. The alchemical process of fermenting kimchi has also become a quarterly activity. I found four ways to eat the chestnuts gathered from the forest floor - chestnut chocolate balls - boiled, peeled, and dolloped with chocolate spread and a date or prune - as a soup over loaded with sage, or smashed like potatoes and mixed with peas and sausage.
Art, gardening, cooking - all these activities fill my days with new sorts of life. The weeks fly by. My executive disfunction can leave me feeling overwhelmed, with so many wonderful options for how to spend my time and energy. There are so many topics and items I wish to write up to share with you, but each time I begin, something else takes me away before I succeed at a completed newsletter, so I will wrap this up so that it reaches its destination.
Want more of my work in your life, to help support my creative practice, or for me to help support your creative practice?
I am available for one on one creative coaching to help you begin, trouble shoot, and resolve dealing your own creative dreams in any medium. Please reach out if you want more info about scheduling a (for first timers, totally free) first meeting, possible via zoom or in person at my Brugge based studio.
My work is available to purchase via my Belgium Representation at Galerie P and my US gallery Wavelength Space on Artsy.
There is also a holiday special offering of two erotic drawings with Delphian Gallery’s online show Paper III opening in December.
The best way to support my work is by the attention you give it - so thank you for reading this newsletter and please share it with anyone who you think would gain pleasure from it.
If I don’t get to writing more before the holidays, I wish you all a beautiful end of year and can’t wait for what will grow up to share in the following seasons.
Lots of love, I am always happy to hear from you and can't wait to share more of whats to come. xoxoxoxo
-Tulis