With a glass of tea, Fiona sat on the rocking bench in her garden, the best place to unwind and reflect. It was here, at this address, that she and Daniel had started, almost eleven years ago. Daniel had taken the decision to buy this house when he noticed that Fiona really felt at home here. She had always been grateful to him for that!

They had had a good time together, but after ten years of marriage, they had vaguely sensed that they were missing something. They had decided to go away for a while, to focus only on their relationship. They had spent a week at Pension Bloemenhof, and there very simply, just by looking at the other couples there, and by a few comments from some of them, discovered that they felt the deepest thing needed between two people was soul connection.

And they just didn't have that very thing. What could you do about that? Nothing! You couldn't change anything about it. And so they had decided to break up. And because Daniel knew, that Fiona really felt at home in this house, he had decided to look for another house himself. He had found a house and left. And their divorce had been consensual. He wished her a good life, she wished him the same, and in consultation they had been just fine.

Fiona thought back to their contacts over the past year. Still their conversations were, almost always by phone, without a bad word, but the real contact was not there. Especially now that Fiona had been going through what they called a process of inner healing at Bloemenhof for months, she was increasingly aware of why they had chosen each other. She therefore felt no inclination to blame him for anything. They had chosen each other because inner wounding had drawn them together. Especially now that she was going through that process of healing herself, she recognised things in herself that she had also experienced in Daniel. And so she began to understand better and better how their relationship had originated, but was not, at heart, a relationship.

"Pfff, complicated, a relationship that wasn't a relationship, and still isn't," she muttered to herself. "How many marriages and 'relationships' don't hobble along in the same way?"

Somehow she longed for a real relationship, but on the other hand, she was very sure inside, that she wanted to discover who she herself was first. Maybe she would come across her soulmate over time, then she would see how she would react to it, but she certainly would not go looking for it. For now, she would take it easy, living day by day, doing her work in the bookshop and doing some reading and messing around here at home, and enjoying the garden.

That work in the bookshop... she didn't hate it, but she did catch herself more and more often, during the afternoon, starting to look at the clock to see if it wasn't time to close yet. She realised that was not a good sign.

A deep thought wrinkle appeared in her forehead. Suppose she were to quit that job, not logical of course, as she would no longer have an income, but... what then? What would she want to do all day then?

Yesterday she had been surfing the internet. Through Margreet's Facebook posts, she had ended up at their gallery site. She had looked there before, but now that Margreet reported that new artists had joined, she had been curious about their work. Katja Ros's work in particular had fascinated her: figurines, beautiful figurines, constructed from pieces of glass. And she had made a firm decision, had sent a message via the contact page saying that she very much wanted to buy Katja's work 'Glass grows'. She had been sent an invoice via email, with the promise in it that she would get Katja's email address and home address as soon as she had paid. She had done the latter immediately, and that same evening she indeed received Katja's details, so she could arrange with Katja when she would come and pick up the artwork.

.

Fiona looked at her watch, another half an hour to muse, then she would get in the car and go to Katja. She had already put a box in the hallway in which she could transport the piece of art. Maybe Katja had already packed it properly herself, well, she would see!

She grabbed her mobile phone and went back to the gallery's website. She admired Katja's glass work again. And suddenly a memory surfaced, she saw herself playing with clay as a very young child. She was actually doing the same thing then as what Katja did with pieces of glass. As a child, she made little balls of clay and stuck them together. She laughed at the memory of those first times, the frustration over the little balls that wouldn't stick together. At one point she had started forcing them together with thumb and forefinger, but she hadn't liked that. In the end, she had left the clay for what it was.

Fiona stared ahead. The precision she had had as a child, the urge to get those little balls stuck together without making a dent. She wondered if it would be possible to make a structure, a work of art if you wanted to call it that, out of perfectly rolled balls. If so, you had to be very handy at it!

Feeling like trying it out, she decided to leave a little earlier and buy a pack of clay on the way, just to try it out. In the shop she found different types of clay that did not need to be baked, but would dry in the air. She took two kinds with her, to try out if it made much difference. She looked further down the shelf to see what kind of materials were used with it. Beautiful tools, but she didn't want anything with them yet. She had enough kitchen knives and other things, she would fiddle with those first. She paid and went back to her car.

She noticed she was humming along the way. Apparently, she felt comfortable with the idea of trying something with clay again. Would this be her thing, would this suit her? It could be quite a fun hobby....

She approached the indicated address, just a few minutes before the appointed time.

"What beautiful surroundings, slightly hilly, really Limburg here! Ooohh what a house! Would Katja have a big family?"

She got out, walked to the front door and rang the bell. Katja had already seen her coming and let her in. In the living room, 'Glass grows' was displayed in the middle of the dining table.

"That's the one!" said Katja.

Fiona stared at it, as her mouth slowly dropped open and her face began to glow more and more. "How beautiful this is! How glad I am that I came across this! Do you know what happened this morning, when I went to take another look at your website?" she asked, turning to Katja. "I suddenly remembered, that as a child I used to love working with pieces of clay, piling up balls and trying to make a figurine out of them. Quite frustrating, it didn't work, they rolled off each other and when I tried to press them together with my thumb and forefinger, they turned ugly. And now seeing this, I think it's nice that you made something from pieces, but of course that doesn't mean I should try something similar. I've just bought clay, I'm going to try it out tonight, how it feels, not just with my fingers, but inside, whether it feels like something I really click with, whether I want to spend hours on a daily basis with that. I still have a job now, in a bookshop, so financially I get by with that, but I find that too often I want the clock to go a bit faster, you know? Apparently it's not really what suits me, but what then? Working with clay? We'll see!"

Katja smiled, and told how she herself had come to her method of working. It had suddenly been clear. "So it looks like things are going to be slightly different for you, you are going to try it out. If this, working with clay, is what suits you, I hope you will feel it because you enjoy it, that you are totally involved and feel free in it."

"Yes that! Feeling free in it! I long for that so much, Katja. I feel freer anyway because I've gone through all kinds of pain points. I feel like I'm tentatively coming out of my narrow-minded circle, no, actually not just yet. It is more that I have felt the narrow circle, discovered it, but I am still in it. The circle is getting thinner, sure, but I'd like to hit it with a hammer!"

"If working with clay is your core, then you will probably do that with that, smashing that circle, shooting through it. You are not going to make existing things, not fixed portraits, more abstract with some natural jokes through it. I see a face in front of me, which in itself is not abstract, but what I see is that the nose is in the place of one eye, an eye in the place of an ear, another eye in the place of the mouth, an ear here where that nose should have been. Something like that that doesn't make sense, yes, it's more like that, not only abstract but also existing things, but in such a way that you make fun of it, that you make the existing things into something that doesn't make sense. Yes, making fun of it, as a kind of parody of reality. Does that make sense to you? Honestly, I'm surprised by it myself, but I just see it in front of me. At first I thought I was just seeing a free movement, resulting in something abstract, and then suddenly that crazy face. It feels like it could be both, or a mix." Katja looked at Fiona questioningly.

"You remind me of a woman I met a long way down the road," Fiona told. "She lives in the grounds of a guesthouse where I was staying at the time. She suddenly started asking things that were so mighty touching!"

"A guesthouse? Bloemenhof?"

"Yes there, do you know that guesthouse? Do you know those people?"

"Yes I do," Katja said, "my homemate Maureen and I lived in that area, in The Shelter. Sjaak and Lisa had that built for women who needed a safe place after escaping forced sexual abuse."

Fiona nodded thoughtfully: "Lisa... It was Lisa, thanks to her questions, Daniel and I, married for ten years then, were able to handle making the choice to release each other. We didn't have what Lisa and Margreet had with their partners, no soul connection. We had a good time together, but always on some level. We weren't able to really reach each other's hearts. So after that holiday week, we decided to part ways, and we are both grateful for that. There in that guesthouse, all sorts of things started rumbling inside, and after our holiday week, and especially after our divorce, all sorts of things went through me. I never knew that I was so stuck in beliefs, in people's opinions, opinions I used to have to go along with, because otherwise... but yes, that's nothing compared to what you went through, forced sexual abuse, how horrible that must have been!"

Katja nodded. "No doubt, but that doesn't make your woundedness any less important, no less serious. It has trapped you and you still haven't come to what you exist for. But you are very close."

Fiona smiled, "Yes, very close, I feel more and more clearly, that it has to do with clay and that I am going to give a kick to existing things, especially in the sense of those beliefs, those fixed opinions. It has to be this way and not that way! Well, fuck you, from now on things will be different, totally different, everything upside down!" Fiona laughed: "I can really see it before me, I don't know if I will succeed, because I have hardly any experience with clay, but I can already see the first sculpture I want to make. And I feel it doesn't have to be smooth, not perfect, not so slick. If I manage to make what I see before me, can I send you pictures of it?"

"Oh yes, please, I'm very curious!" Katja replied enthusiastically. "How incredibly nice, that this is not just the sale of my first work, but that it goes so much deeper!"

"Yes lovely," responded Fiona, "lovely, not so superficial, like 'money has been paid', which by the way I have already done, 'and now just pick it up, bye'. And what did you say, is this your first work?"

"Yes, I saw it in front of me, and started, and I spent hours on it. They were the best hours so far in my life, I assure you!"

"Extraordinary..." sighed Fiona, "it's so beautiful, then it must indeed be your core thing, that which suits you!"

"Definitely, it is. I haven't made a whole lot yet, we just moved here recently, with all the hustle and bustle that came with it. Would you like to see my workroom for a while?"

Fiona nodded eagerly and walked behind Katja. "What extraordinary furniture, nice style, with all those frills attached. Is that Rococo style or does it just look like it?"

"To be honest, I don't know! I do think it looks like it, but when I look up pictures of Rococo, it's not that again. Anyway, I knew I wanted black furniture, thin black material. And I got the idea just this morning, to use red fabric, velvet or something similar, to cover the shelves on which I want to put my work. Bright red in that black pattern of the cabinet. And then my glassware in it..."

"That will contrast nicely! But why only red? Is it an idea to use several colours?"

"Wouldn't it get too garish then?" considered Katja.

"Maybe, but maybe it would be just right, a few bright colours, that blue of cornflowers, and bright green, bit of dark green. Joh, it's just an idea, otherwise try it out with coloured paper, then you won't have to buy all these pieces of fabric right away."

"I can see it before me, the way you said it. And actually I only feel for red and corn blue. I don't know why, but that's what I see before me. Nice, your idea started some shifting in me. I'm going to look for that fabric, red and blue, preferably velvet, bit fancy."

"Those bright colours will make your works stand out even better!" Fiona assured her. "But gosh, I'm going home, I'm really looking forward to getting started with that clay. I am so curious to see how I will experience it... Anyway, I am happy for you that you found your work and this wonderful place! I hope to meet you again!"

"I'd love that too! You had already brought something for transportation yourself, right? So that's something... I will have to think about what material I will use to transport my work more easily in."

"I don't know about it, but I'm sure you'll find that! Thanks a lot for your glassware and the conversation, it was nice, encouraging!"

Fiona carefully placed the glassware in the box she had brought with her and put a cloth on both sides so it couldn't fall over.

"There we go!"

.

Back home, she pulled open a tin of soup, heated it up and ate it as fast as she could. That clay, it couldn't wait a minute longer than was strictly necessary! It felt like her life depended on it.

She put a glass cutting board on her dining table, a plant spray nearby and the packs of clay next to it. She opened one pack and cut a large corner off it with a sharp knife.

What she had initially had had in mind were little people standing in crazy poses, poses not possible for most people. However, now that she saw the clay in front of her, she didn't want that at all. In fact, she felt empty, blank, had no idea what she wanted to make.

She began, feeling aimless, kneading, shaping, making bulges and pushing them back again. Those bulges suddenly gave her an idea, and she started all over again. She called what she now had in mind "Centipede?", especially with a question mark, as if to ask herself and others:

'Do you want to be a centipede?'

'Should you be a centipede?'

'How long will you remain a centipede?'

She made new bulges from the hunk of clay, like arms and legs without hands and feet. The hunk was given no head, but at the top a hook in the shape of a question mark. The bulges were of different lengths and thicknesses. Some were straight, others crooked. If you imagined that the hunk in the centre was a human being, you could see, that person was trying to twist itself into a lot of curves.

She made sure that the hunk, which was getting smaller and smaller as she used more and more of it to pull out handless arms and footless legs, could rest on the cutting board. So the so-called arms and legs went in all directions except down. The hunk, the little person, sat on the cutting board and became one and only arm and leg... The little person itself?.... Disappeared!

The poor "Centipede?" was finished, consisting only of arms and legs. Bewildered, Fiona stared at it. Bewildered, because it had come into being just like that. At first she had just been kneading, then the idea came, and now, a short time later, "Centipede?" was ready. And what she felt was like something had crawled out of her, and that it had happened with passion.

.

She grabbed her mobile, took pictures from all sides and sent them in an email to Katja. As the subject she typed 'My first clay work'. She wrote with it:

.

'Centipede?'

'Centipede?" consists only of arms and legs, of running and flying

The persona that was once there has totally disappeared…

.

Fiona added how it came about, and how she had experienced it, what she had felt while working on it.

.

Katja read the e-mail, looked at the pictures, and was at least as stunned as Fiona herself. This was exactly what she had intended, the combination of reality and fantasy, and the world upside down. She had indicated something very important in this seemingly silly little work, exhibited a point in which so many people were stuck.

She showed it to Maureen, who was busy in the kitchen.

"Fantastic! Is that from that woman who bought your 'Glass Grows'? She belongs there too yo, at the gallery!"

"I was going to ask Huib that too, I'll just email the message to him."

It only took a few minutes for her to reply: 'Genius! Who is this Fiona? Can we include her in our digital gallery? That woman has a message with soul power!'

Katja emailed back: 'Fiona bought my first glass work, 'Glass grows'. She was here this afternoon, has stayed at Bloemenhof last year with her then husband Daniel. Shall I ask her if she wants to join us, or shall we give her the peace of mind to make more first? To be honest, I thought 'wait' at first, but now think 'why'? More is going to come from her, much more! I sense in her mail the passion with which she has been working. That lady is unstoppable!'

Huib replied: ‘Ask her for the gallery, please! And if she agrees, signal Ilse that she can create a new page! And if she asks about prices, you can probably help her on her way. If that doesn’t work, give her my email, then I’ll help her!’

.

It took a while, but then Fiona got excited. She decided to join the digital gallery. She grabbed a note to list hourly wages and material costs. She realised that she would have to start buying not only clay, but also other tools, resources, tools, and that she could work them into the material costs little by little. She sent her first photo and a note about "Centipede?" and how she had come up with the price, to Ilse.

She needed a permanent workspace. Room enough in the house, there was one room left downstairs. She went in search of an old table, bought some tools that could help her refine her work a little. She put a large work plate on her worktable and set to work. She soon found out, she hardly used the tools. She enjoyed claying with her hands, feeling the fresh clay, deforming it under her skin.

At first, she made a whole collection of "Centipede?" figures, sent photos with numbers attached to them to Ilse, and suggested putting them on the site with those numbers attached, so people could choose which "Centipede?" they wanted.

Ilse responded that it was a good plan. Actually, she did not like 'duplicates' in art, but in this case it seemed great to her, because although the figures had the same name and look, they were very different.

Fiona emailed back, saying she would not make these figurines endlessly, but that she had no other subject, no other impression, at the moment. 'Apparently, there are many centipede-like people and therefore many 'Centipede?' figures needed...'

Ilse mailed back a thumbs-up, signalling her agreement.

.

Like the other artists, Fiona also created an account at Facebook and Twitter, and started sharing her photos with captions and references to the digital gallery's website. It took her a while before she got some responses, because she still had so few friends and followers, but they finally poured in through the accounts of the digital gallery and the other artists. Not long after, people started buying...

.

Fiona decided to buy larger supplies of the smooth clay, and slightly smaller supplies of the clay in which some grains could be felt. She bought a couple of second-hand open cabinets, stored her things in the closed sections, and used the open compartments to display her creations. Just as Katja planned to use velvet fabric, Fiona decided to put coloured paper on the shelves of her cabinets. And half under each figurine, by now not just 'Centipede?' figurines, she put a card with the name and number of the figurine. Every time a customer came to collect something, she could give them the right figurine with the corresponding card.

To chapter 57. 'Embrace' and 'Volcano'

Or to the Table of contents