Series of Stins for De Veldkeuken

In the run-up to the 25th anniversary of De Veldkeuken, Claudy Jongstra has created three wool felted artworks entitled 'Series of stins', commissioned by Juliette Borggreve and René van der Veer. The triptych, which will be unveiled on Saturday 10 June, is inspired by the Amelisweerd and Rhijnauwen estate's surroundings with its unique riverine forest, meandering water and unusual stint plants. Those who will soon be having lunch, dinner or coffee at the restaurant will be surrounded by Claudy Jongstra's natural landscapes. Harvest 1 is the title of the monumental, wool-felted artwork (4.50 by 2.50 m) that enriches an entire wall and is about the autumn harvest and the warm glow of the autumn sun. The wool is dyed with biodynamic woad, weld and madder, dye plants that come partly from her own botanical garden in Friesland and partly from the estate's garden. On the opposite wall hangs Livelyness of Water (2.30 x 2 m) inspired by the water of the meandering Kromme Rijn river and coloured with woad, walnut and special Burgundian Black. The third work Sacred Soil (2.30 X 2 m), will be installed during the anniversary in 2024.

With Series of Stins, Claudy Jongstra is back where she started after 30 years of being an artist. In 1995, after studying Fashion at the Hogeschool voor de Kunst in Utrecht (HKU), she worked as a volunteer in the garden of Amelis'Hof on the Oud Amelisweerd estate and had her first flock of seven Drenthe Heath Sheep grazing here. Using the wool from these sheep at the time, Jongstra made her first works of art, which soon found their way into international museum, corporate and private collections. From Friesland, she still makes her monumental artworks from this special wool and also her mission remains unchanged: to put the qualitative material wool - still considered waste - back on the map.

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De Veldkeuken, Landgoed Amelisweerd, Koningslaan 11, Bunnik. www.veldkeuken.nl
Photos Wim Zagt and SCJ
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Mending the Future for private client

Studio Claudy Jongstra installed the 3.65 X 2.40-metre artwork entiteled: Mending the Future. The harmonious, earthy colours of the natural landscape fit seamlessly with the interior. "It was as if the empty white wall had been waiting for this work," says the private client with satisfaction. Claudy Jongstra embroidered subtle stitches on the wool felted art work that is coloured with natural dye plants. The artisanal hand stitch used to repair clothes gives the relief landscape aesthetic layering and movement. At the same time, it refers to the habit of throwing away clothes when they have a hole or tear instead of 'patching' them up with a few stitches, giving the garment a valuable new life.

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Studio Claudy Jongstra
Mending the Future, 2023
3.65 X 2.40 m
Felted wool from Drenthe Heath Sheep, embroidery, natural plant pigments
Galerie Fontana
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De kracht van wol

Urtica de Vijfsprong is a biodynamic farm and an anthroposophic living and housing community on a visit at Studio Claudy Jongstra where working with wool is soothing and healing. From washing and processing the wool to harvesting the dye plants and colouring the wool, the outcome is always surprising and magical. Marit Geluk made the short film 'De kracht van wol'.

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Film by Marit Geluk
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Guernica de la Ecología & Mediterranean Wind in Museum Kranenburgh

On Earth Day, during the preview of three exhibitions at Museum Kranenburgh, the museum turned its attention to the relationship between man and nature and also calls for action. One of the exhibiting artists Claudy Jongstra has been doing that for years. She pleas for more biodiversity and color in nature, sustainable art, dignified craftsmanship and healthy agriculture in an inclusive working environment through her impressive work Guernica de la Ecología.
Next to this monumental piece that fits in seamlessly with the museum and its surroundings, de ‘Sichting Vrienden Kranenburgh’ made it possible to purchase Jongstra’s work: Mediterranean Wind for their permanent collection, exhibited as an eye catcher in the foyer. Jongstra’s work relates to the art of another exhibiting artist: Cristina Lucas. With ‘Environment is Us’ she refers to the question of how to relate to nature in times of ecological crisis. We are intertwined; the chemical elements of nature are also in our bodies - and in her works of art. Finally the exhibition A touch of Light offers light, reflection and colour in these dark times with works by Esther Tielemans, Vivianne Sassen, Caja Boogers, etc. 

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Guernica de la Ecología
Museum Kranenburgh, Hoflaan 26, Bergen
23 April- 17 September, 2023.
Photo's: Aad Hoogendoorn, Michel Claus
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Art piece Aardewarmte

Like looking out on a heavenly earth from above that is full of movement: of the swaying trees, lush plants, colorful blooming flowers, and meandering rivers. A natural landscape above which shreds of clouds float, shaded by a warm evening sun. Commissioned by good friend Bert van Ruitenbeek, director of Stichting Demeter (which provides the quality mark for biodynamic agriculture and food), Claudy Jongstra created the wool felted artpiece called 'Aardewarmte' that now adorns a wall of his house. One of the colors used by Studio Claudy Jongstra to dye the wool is appropriately sourced from the Demeter-certified dye plant woad, which the biodynamic farmers at Odin farm de Beersche Hoeve in Brabant have started to cultivate again after a hundred years of absence in the Dutch landscape. 

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Studio Claudy Jongstra
Aardewarmte, 2023
1.20 X 2.05 m
Wool from Drenthe Heath Sheep, natural plant pigments
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Guernica de la Ecología

Guernica de la Ecología (2021) - a traveling manifesto

Desolate, gloomy and threatening. This is how the landscape, a swirling field of flowers, looks in the monumental work Guernica de la Ecología by artist and eco-activist Claudy Jongstra. With the artwork, she makes a fist against a careless world that treats the earth with no love. It is a warning against impending climate change and a plea for more color in the landscape, for biodiversity, sustainable art, dignified craftsmanship and restoration of healthy agriculture in an inclusive working environment. The title of her work refers to the iconic Guernica painted by Pablo Picasso in 1937 as an accusation against the violence during the Spanish civil war. The works share the same dimensions: (360X 790 cm) and both lack any color; the artists translated their indictment into menacing, angry-colored shades of black, white and sepia-grey.

The process of making each large-scale work of art at Studio Claudy Jongstra begins in the fields of the rural northern province of Friesland, The Netherlands. Wool from indigenous Drenthe Heath sheep, whose grazing balances the biotopes in their native heathland habitat, is Jongstra’s primary material. Colors are distilled from natural dye plants grown on Jongstra’s biodynamic farm, which contributes biodiversity to the region. These regenerative processes minimize waste and facilitate collaboration with multiple communities, landscapes, species, and forms of knowledge. Jongstra’s international team includes artists in residence and is in constant dialogue with the local community, regional farmers, scientific, educational, and cultural institutions, students, young people and social initiatives. 

With Guernica de la Ecología Jongstra also wants to call for self-reflection, dialogue, and action. That’s why, among other things, the nomadic work travels the world as a visual manifesto:

In the Netherlands, the artwork travelled in an Arriva bus running on vegetable fuel to the Grote Kerk in Breda in May 2022. Then to The Nicolaaskerk in Oost-Vlieland in September 2022, during Into The Great Wide Open. From September to November, 2022, the work was on display in the Dorpskerk Baaium together with a Chancel Talk with Claudy Jongstra on 22 October on The Future of Agriculture. 

On December 2, 2022 Claudy Jongstra gave a talk during the international Impact Conference EVPA in Maison de la Poste in Brussels. Her manifest traveling artwork The Guernica de la Ecología in the background, served as a mission statement and conversation piece, like the Guernica was for Picasso. It depicts her denunciation of climate change, intensive agriculture that is detrimental to local biodiversity and causes the extinction of many species of insects and small animals. 

On December 7, 2022, delegations from 195 countries met in Montreal, Canada, to stop the global deterioration of nature. For nature is worse off than ever. The hope is for a kind of 'Paris Agreement for Nature'. The nature summit with representatives of the member states of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), must here conclude a new UN biodiversity agreement to tackle the rapid decline of plants, animals and ecosystems. 

From 22 April to 17 September 2023, Guernica de la Ecología is part of the exhibition focusing on the relationship between humans and nature at Museum Kranenburgh in Bergen. 

Guernica de la Ecología can be seen in The Hague from 1 July 2023 when Spain takes office as EU president. And on 9 December 2023 on International Genocide Prevention Day at Eurojust (European Building for Judical Cooperation in Criminal Matters in The Hague. 

 Between 2021-2023, Guernica de la Ecología will also travel to Menorca, Balearic Islands, Spain. The artwork is accompanied by a series of programmes and workshops (Conexión), in which Jongstra approaches local crafts that are on the verge of disappearing from a contemporary point of view. They are key components in shaping a more ecologically just future.

 

 

 

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Tekstveld 2: 

Photos: Jeroen Musch

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Guernica de la Ecología, 2022
3.60 X 7.90 m
Drenthe heath sheep wool, merino, silk
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Ident VRPO: wool

Studio Claudy Jongstra created two idents on request of the VPRO. This ident of five seconds is about the preservation of cultural heritage, the careful handling of the richness of nature and the beauty and value of natural materials such as wool. Claudy Jongstra offers this raw material, which is seen as a waste product in many countries, a stage it deserves. 

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Ident for the VPRO: woad

In one ident Studio Claudy Jongstra made for the VPRO, the studio puts the spotlight on woad. The pigment plant that Jongstra, together with biodynamic farmers from the Beersche Hoeve in Brabant, has started growing again after a hundred years of absence. Woad produces an intensely beautiful and layered blue dye in a dye bath that flows and colors as freely as before.

 

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The making of the VPRO idents

Claudy Jongstra created two idents at the request of the VPRO. These short animations at the beginning and end of a TV program ensure recognizability of the sender and were made by Dutch artists from different disciplines. Studio Claudy Jongstra has made two beautiful autonomous works of art of three and five seconds in which she has depicted her vision of the VPRO in her own way. An ident is about, among other things, the preservation of cultural heritage, the careful handling of the richness of nature and the beauty and value of natural materials such as wool. Jongstra offers this raw material, which is seen as a waste product in many countries, a stage it deserves.The other ident puts the spotlight on woad, the pigment plant that Jongstra, together with biodynamic farmers, has started growing again after a hundred years of absence. It produces an intensely beautiful blue dye in a dye bath that flows and colors as freely as before.

The VPRO created the short movie: The making of…the idents by Claudy Jongstra, filmed in LOADS, the studio’s new extension in Friesland. 

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Claudy Jongstra's first solo exhibition at Galería Aina Noiwack in Madrid

In an atmospheric domestic setting, Claudy Jongstra's first solo exhibition 'Currents' in Spain opened in the presence of the many staff members of the Dutch Embassy in Spain. In the home annex gallery Galeria Aina Nowack in Madrid, Studio Claudy Jongstra shows some 20 existing and a number of specially created new wool-felted artworks . With this, 'Currents' has become a mini-oeuvre exhibition. In the film the artist and activist talks amongst other things about her initiative to revitalize the rural areas of Spain, one of the main wool country's in Europe. Currents by Studio Claudy Jongstra at Galeria Aina Nowack, C. del Darro, 16, Madrid, 24 February - 17 May 2023. galeriaainanowack.com

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Film: Courtesy of the Dutch Embassy in Spain
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