Musings

I started this Blog, egged on by my daughter, Lianne, on the 19th day of June 2008. Just about 2000 days ago.
During this time I posted 1100 entries and had, by the built in counter, exactly 27971 views. That is almost 14 views per day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.
There were, of course, stretches of time during which I posted nothing, just like now, when I note that I last posted anything on the 4th day of November. Before that there was a hiatus of 5 weeks, during which time I was in Canada.
The strange thing about this is, that, once started, such a Blog becomes almost an obligation. I feel a sense of betrayal of my faithful viewers and readers and I imagine them opening this site and finding the same pictures and the same comments. I think that it would be the very same if I were to open a book, to read from it a little every night, only to find the same page staring at me. Very soon I wouldn't bother opening this book anymore. I would just put it aside, because it no longer gives me any joy.
The disappointment about it for me also is, that none of my viewers wrote a comment on the Blog, nor wrote me an e-mail urging me to continue ... come on Lianne, Scio, Anton, don't let me hang there, thinking that you don't care, because it wasn't challenging enough. For a little while I got e-mails when I talked about my opinions concerning Religion, The Bible and Roman Catholicism... some people wrote whom I did not know.
How did they get my e-mail?? and don't they know how easy it is to put a comment directly on the Blog?
Maybe I have to start talking about the above again. It is a subject about which I could go on for quite a little while.
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A few days ago I was asked to contribute a show I had done about three years ago about Franz Brandl, a local artist painter. Franz died at the age of 84 last year. He had become a friend of ours and I felt his loss more than I cared to admit. 
One day, during my photographing him at his work and many of his completed paintings, we talked about "the Creative Process". He told me something quite interesting: 
He said:
                       "I just get the urge to paint... paint something.. then I                          sit down in front of my easel and start.When I feel                            that it's ready, I get a very unreal feeling and I                                    inevitably ask myself: 'did I really do that?'
                        If I do not get this urge, but paint something because I think I ought to, I am never very satisfied with the outcome. I have to feel "the Urge" to create something with which I am             happy."

Now Franz Brandl is dead and the local Art Gallery is putting on a "Franz Brandl Retrospective" to celebrate what would have been his 85th birthday.
The show, I was asked to contribute and which I had done about two years before his death,  is to be shown during this exhibition via a 'beamer' on a large screen. In the meantime I had photographed many more of his paintings and I enlarged and improved this show. I hope I can do justice to Franz's memory.