While Sjaak texted Koos to tell him that there were already three clips on YouTube with almost only pictures of him and Olivia, Lisa was busy sharing their clips on Facebook and Twitter. As a name, she simply wrote the name they had also put with their clips in Explorer. They had done the same with YouTube, and she thought it would be handy to just keep it that way. Under each clip name, she placed the You Tube link.

"So," she muttered, "if they don't know how to find us by now..."

Lisa walked to the kitchen, where Sjaak was working on a surprise. He was whisking dough for pancakes and looked at his sweetheart radiantly. "Time for a party, don't you think?"

Lisa chuckled: "Seems like it, yes!"

She took out some plates from the cupboard, put one on the counter for the pancakes and took the other two with cutlery to the dining table. Then she put a sugar bowl, a syrup pot and a block of cheese with a cheese slicer next to it.

"What would you like to drink with it?"

Sjaak looked up: "Water, just cold water."

"Good idea, actually I always take tea with pancakes, but water seems delicious with it too." And so she filled two glasses with water and brought them to the room.

She plopped down on her chair, and went to see if there was any action on their social media yet. To her surprise, all the clips already had a few emoticons: thumbs up, hearts, and even crying... Huib had written at one of the clips, that tears were streaming down his face. He called it particularly powerful and beautiful!

Lisa wanted to go to the kitchen to show it to Sjaak, but he was already arriving with the pancakes. She shoved her mobile under his nose. "Look at that, just on Facebook alone. I haven't even looked on Twitter yet, or on YouTube. On our channel there, people can leave comments too, right?"

Sjaak nodded: "Yes, they can, I think we have that option open too." He handed her back her mobile. "I'm really hungry, so I'm going to prepare a pancake to eat first, and then I'll take a look."

Lisa followed his lead, then went to their Twitter account. Beautiful comments had been made there too, clips had been shared.

There was nothing written on YouTube yet, not at a single clip. Maybe later, Lisa didn't care, she was already happy that their music, their clips had touched people.

"Hey, I got a message from Koos and Olivia," came Sjaak suddenly. "Wow, he writes: 'It took a while, we were so emotional about it, your clips are incredibly powerful! More!!!' "

.

Huib was also really touched by the clips. As he took time to unwind again, he got an idea. He got up, signalled to Margreet that he had to leave for a moment to discuss an idea with Ilse and that he would return in a moment, and walked outside, to The Shelter. He saw through the window that Ilse was sitting at the dining table with her housemates. They greeted him waving happily, while Katja stood up to let him in.

"Always nice when one of you drops by, come in!" she greeted him.

"That's completely mutual, you together are a particularly nice company," Huib replied smiling. "Bon appetit ladies! Have you seen Sjaak and Lisa's clips yet?"

"Yeah yeah, I saw those a long time ago, when I made them with them," Ilse grinned.

"Oh yes, that's what you said you were going to do. They turned out fantastic, I've been crying... girls, what a release that makes!"

The women also told what it had done to them.

"It was a complete vale of tears here," Maureen confided, "but none of us found it unpleasant, it was like being washed clean inside, at least that's how it felt for myself!"

"Yes, it was!" responded Ineke, "shall I write it there, I think that would be nice for them to know too."

"Go ahead, that's a nice encouragement for them!" said Katja.

As Ineke typed in the response, Huib turned to Ilse.

"Art is the expression of our souls hey... what do you think, can we make a page on the gallery's website for Sjaak and Lisa's clips as well?"

Ilse shot up: "What a good idea! That I didn't think of that myself!"

She wanted to get up already to go to her house and arrange it on the site, but Huib stopped her. "I think you should send an e-mail to the others first, not a group e-mail, but for everyone individually, to ask if they agree. And then we will also have to ask how we will solve this financially, because Sjaak and Lisa don't sell music, at least not at the moment, so that means you will have work from it, but not a salary from it. I would love it if you just ask yourself very carefully how you feel about that and if you work that into the email, ask them how they feel about that."

Ilse nodded, pretty much with her whole body. "I see your point, about those finances. What I think of it myself? I think a page for this duo is a huge enrichment of the site, and that's reward enough for me."

"I like that, Ilse, really nice! But don't put your own opinion in the mail yet, that would influence the others to get their own impression. Once everyone has replied, we'll see what's next."

"Fine, then after that I'll summarise their answers in a group email. I'd be surprised if they don't want them included. Will be fine, I've finished eating, I'll go make that email right away."

She stood up, took her plate and cutlery to take them to her house, as they were used to, and with the approval of her housemates, left the further clearing of the table to them.

"You go girl!" Katja called after her.

"I'm going home again, I'll hear from you!" said Huib, waving goodbye.

A few minutes later, he received the email in question from Ilse. With him, she had put a PS under it: 'you don't have to respond Huib, I know what you think'.

He sufficed by sending back a thumbs up, so she knew he had read it.

He had since told Margreet of the plan. She had been enthusiastic too, had emailed back to Ilse that if Ilse didn't mind the financial point, it was fine for her too.

Less than half an hour later, they received a group email. In it Ilse summarised, that the responses had shown that everyone was happy for the music clips to be added. There had been responses like Ilse's, and comments like "they totally belong" and "this falls under the name of our gallery!" and about the 10% that Ilse would not get from them... they had left that to her. If she was fine with it, it was fine! So it was decided, that if Sjaak and Lisa agreed, they would be added to the website.

So Ilse now walked to their house, told them what had been decided and asked their permission. Sjaak and Lisa felt quite overwhelmed and, for a while, burdened that Ilse would not earn anything from her work on their behalf, but her joy at what she called the enrichment of the website made them happy too. They agreed, that they would email each new clip to her so that she could post them on the site.

Ilse went back home, made a new page and put the first three clips on it. She added that the photos were taken by Sjaak, and by Koos and Olivia Bakker. She posted the clips on the gallery's social media, happily mentioning that an artist duo had been added to their gallery. 

Ilse had Sjaak and Lisa's personal details and added them to her files. It felt good, she had made a solid foundation for this work, and it was going easily for her so far. She was curious to see how it would go when they also started selling artworks...

To chapter 40. William

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