Introducing Albert Houthuesen

I am going up to Doncaster this week to give a talk about Albert Houthuesen [1903-1979].

Who, you may ask, is this?

Albert is an artist who has deeply inspired my own creative journey, but who very few people have heard of.

My father was, throughout his life, an enthusiastic advocate of his work. As such I was brought up looking at and thinking about his art.

As a young man in the late 1960s, my father visited Albert weekly in Camberwell, to interview him about his life. This two year project resulted in a book called Walk to the Moon, which transcribed and compiled these conversations into a narrative, telling Albert’s story in Albert’s own words.

These words have and continue to provide a helpful anchor to me through my own quest to navigate life and art.

I also wrote about Albert for my university dissertation, looking at how dance became a powerful influence in the development of his painting. As you can imagine, this is something that strongly resonated with me. As did his general love of beauty and sense of wonder at the world around him.

After my father passed away in 2018 my family and I picked up where he left off, working closely with the Albert Houthuesen Trust to help raise Albert’s profile.

It is therefore with great pleasure that we can announce an exciting step forward in this endeavour.

After a 4 year dialogue with the Friends of the Doncaster Museums and the Danum Gallery, Library Museum, a new exhibition has opened celebrating Albert’s life and work.

The exhibition will run until 15th April 2023. For more information please click the button below:

A New Work in Progress

This week I have been finalising my registration for the Wandsworth Arts Fringe Festival [9th-25th June 2023].

I'm very excited to be collaborating with the wonderful Stella Tooth where we will be celebrating the theme of Performers in Paint, in a joint exhibition at Putney Library! More details to come over the coming weeks!

In the meantime, here is one of the things I am working on for the show, a magical street mime I saw one Edinburgh Festival.

She is also a happy nod to another festival currently in full swing, the Venice Carnival. Something that has been on my radar forever, but that, as yet, I've never managed to get to; a trip for the future perhaps!

Who are the performers that have captured your imagination?

My First Ferment

I've been thinking about fermenting for a good few months now.

Why?

Well, first, I love the taste of fermented foods. I am also super curious about the probiotic power of them and how they can enrich the gut microbiome - a topic which I will expand on more in the future.

Finally, shop-bought ‘live’ fermented foods [i.e. the refrigerated kind] are pretty pricey!

I had a lot of reasons to give it a go, but I have also been massively procrastinating with the how to’s!

So….

I decided to set myself a deadline - my birthday!

This was last week, and I am happy to report, on the day in question, I made my first ferment - a very basic sauerkraut recipe of cabbage, carrot, ginger and pink Himalayan salt.

I did treat myself to a couple of £3 Kilner jars, but the rest was DIY'd from what I had to hand, using cabbage leaves & shot glasses as weights and experimenting with the existing Kilner jar lid & a more breathable baking paper version.

Conclusions

The taste and texture were bang on!

I think 5 days was too short a wait time and I would like to try a longer ferment [7-14 days] to see if I can culture a richer mix of microbes.

I am also curious to buy a pH meter to get better insights. A good ferment should have a PH of below 4.5 apparently.

I am in the process of monitoring the effects on my digestive system, so will keep you posted when I’ve road tested things for a few more days :)

I am very much a novice at the start of this journey, so all tips and suggestions are hugely welcome!

The method I used was from a wonderful lady on YouTube, click the button below to see the video where she breaks the process down in more detail: