Women at Work

Früchte - Fruit 18,5 x 24,5 cm Oilsticks

After having read Maryann Didriksen's blog post on oil sticks I thought it might be something for me to try out. After some searching around I was able to find them here in Berlin. It was an exhiting experience to paint with them and to my absolute delight I was even able to work in oil pastels and soft pastels.  It is a great way to get away from painting too tightly.

Nachdem ich Maryann Didriksen's blog post über Ölsticks gelesen habe wollte ich diese auch ausprobieren. Nach einigem Suchen hab ich sie tatsächlich hier in Berlin gefunden. Es war wirklich eine aufregende Erfahrug mit ihnen zu Malen und zu meinem Entzücken konnte ich sogar mit meinen Ölpastell und den Pastellkreiden in die Ölfarbe malen.

THE SOUND OF PEACE

The women won’t walk through

the olive trees alone. There are

soldiers down there with nothing to do.

It’s the same in every war. The women’s

noses twitching at the stink of strange men,

at the very thought of that stink. They harvest 

what they can from orchards and from gardens 

in forest clearings, picking clean the larders

of busted up farm houses. Sometimes one or

two of them hoards a piece of meat for a

child’s baptism, pagan festival, some prophet’s

birthday. The truly starving will eat anything,

doesn’t matter what, even each other. The Irish have

known hunger, the Russians at Leningrad, Ukraine, 

millions under Mao. Where do you stop? The village baker

is either dead or off killing someone, and so the  

women bake their own bread. You can smell it  

some mornings in the narrow lanes of the old town.

At the bottom of the olives is a small beach.

The children play down there when the soldiers are gone.

You can hear their voices blending with the wind. The sound of peace. 

Robert Schumann 3rd Symphony "Die Rheinische" 4th Movement

Conducted by Zoe Zeniodi  - Frost Symphony Orchestra