Briefkaart aan Philip Zilcken before 1913

This postcard was created by Alice Holbach, and sent to Philip Zilcken. Look at the way the postal stamps sit above the handwritten script, marking a journey from Brussels to The Hague. I imagine Holbach sitting at a table, pen in hand, carefully inscribing her message. Her looping cursive dances across the card, the words flowing like a stream of consciousness. You can almost feel the nib scratching against the paper, each stroke deliberate yet fluid. And what about those stamps? They are almost like miniature abstract paintings, each with their own unique texture and color. I wonder about the conversations that Holbach was having with her contemporaries, both in painting and in life. It makes me think about the postcards I’ve sent and received, and the little pieces of myself that I’ve shared with others through these humble, intimate gestures. Artists, we’re always building on what came before, riffing on each other's ideas, sending messages across time and space. Painting is like that too – it's an embodied conversation, an exchange of ideas, a way of making sense of the world, together.