Boerderij Beek en Berg in Bloemendaal 1943

Jacob Pieter van den Bosch made this woodcut, “Boerderij Beek en Berg in Bloemendaal,” sometime in the early 1940s. You can just feel the artist carving away at the wood block. It's interesting how the black ink almost swallows up everything, like a shadowy secret. There's this tension between the light and the dark, where the forms come in and out of focus. I'm imagining Van den Bosch working away at the block, trying to capture the light and the shadows of the landscape. The dark areas have so much weight and depth. You can feel the pressure of the artist's hand, carefully carving away at the wood. I feel a kinship with him, since his work, like mine, embraces the beauty of the imperfect and the unfinished. I like to think we’re all in conversation, these artists across time, sharing a vision for artmaking.