The Woman Who Made Vincent van Gogh Famous

Her name is Jo van Gogh-Bonger. She was the wife of Theo van Gogh and sister-in-law to his brother, Vincent van Gogh--the artist.

I saw a book about Jo while recently visiting the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). It is nearly 2" thick, quite heavy and contains 535 pages of which 171 are a combination of notes/footnotes, abbreviations, bibliography and an index. The book itself is written in six sections. The first section is about Jo's life to the point when she marries Theo. That is as far as I've gotten.

What I'm looking forward to reading in the remaining sections is how she grew into the ambitious, determined and undeterred advocate of Vincent's art after his and Theo's deaths, especially since she was left to raise a son on her own.

Below is the book's cover with Jo's photograph. As part of reading it, I've started a zine to act like SparksNotes to keep track of the key points to me about her journey. Below the book cover is the front and back of the zine -- the back being my impression of Vincent's 'Sunflowers' painting. I'm happy with this particularly in having mimicked the artist's color palette pretty well. The real Van Gogh 'Sunflowers' painting can be seen in the screenshot at the bottom of this post.

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Visiting The Hague and Amsterdam (Netherlands), and Paris!

Since late March, I've been planning an international solo trip that included meeting up with friends. The planning is what makes a trip an adventure, and it was definitely fabulous -- now that it is in the rearview mirror -- so to speak. During my two weeks abroad, the sights visited included the: Mauritshuis, a lovely art museum (The Hague, Netherlands) Binnenhof (The Hague, Netherlands) Delft (Netherlands) Kasteel de Haar, a castle (Haarzuilens, Netherlands) Museum Speelklok (Utrecht, Netherlands) Walking Tour of Amsterdam (Netherlands) Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Dutch Resistance Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands) De Oude and Nieuwe Kerks aka old and new churches (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Anne Frank House (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Sainte Chapelle/Conciergerie (Paris, France) Giverny - Monet's residence at one time (outside Paris) Versailles (outside Paris) Musee d'Orsay/VR Event titled 1874 Impressionists First Exhibition...

New Project in Progress

I'm working on a new project with multiple layers and shapes of different colored organzas. It is an interpretation of lighting on an ice rink...from a show I recently saw. There is a lot more stitching to do, but I like how its coming along. I'm learning organzas are not easy to work with especially when you layer them and have overlaid edges. The fabric also tends to ravel easily. This post also linked to http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com .

Fabric Basket - Pretty Easy

This basket was made in Jane Hall's half-day course at IQF 2014. The greatest amount of time involved in making it--was cutting and sewing the strips together. Otherwise, it went together easily and quickly (3 hours). These baskets are a great holiday gifting idea that you can match to family and friends' home decoration color schemes. They're fun and useful besides.

Cay Denise

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