Brief aan Mien Cambier van Nooten Possibly 1938

Dick Ket wrote this letter to Mien Cambier van Nooten in November 1938, in ink on paper. Look at these lines of script, how the ink bleeds a little into the page, and the handwriting slants across the surface. I imagine Ket hunched over this letter, perhaps at a desk piled high with other papers and art supplies. You know, sometimes writing a letter feels a bit like drawing. You’re trying to capture a fleeting thought or feeling, and the words stumble out, one after another, in a kind of dance. The thing about painting or any art form is that it’s always in conversation. Artists respond to what came before, push against it, and add their own voices to the mix. Each mark, each stroke, each word is part of this ongoing dialogue, echoing and transforming the ideas of those who came before. It’s like a big, messy, beautiful conversation that spans across time and space.