It is early in the morning, but it is already light when I wake up. The sunlight filtered through the curtains quickly dissipates the last images of my dream. Only vague shadows and colors…
It is early in the morning, but it is already light when I wake up. The sunlight filtered through the curtains quickly dissipates the last images of my dream. Only vague shadows and colors…
The fields are covered with a thin layer of snow. The world waits in stillness for the night to come.
It was so quiet that afternoon, just before sunset... No wind, no birds, no cars... Nothing.
As if the world had been completely abandoned.
Even in the darkest forest, the light will find its way to the ground....
A winter day awakens, the colors growing brighter, more intense, as I slip out of a dream...
It is a beautiful, sunny and windy winter day when we climb the high dunes on the coast of the North Sea. Reaching the top of a dune, we sit down, in the sun and a bit sheltered from the wind. The horizon is barely visible because of a haze of fine drops of seawater. Even the wind tastes salty...
The part of Denmark where we live is known for the beautiful Nordic light. The sunsets over the North Sea and the fjords and lakes in autumn and winter are magical, at least: if there is not too much cloud cover. When I made the photo for this artwork, the conditions were perfect: a humid atmosphere and veil clouds.
A cold and stormy winter morning on the beach of the North Sea near Agger, North West Denmark. Seagulls hover on the wind, waiting for the sea to bring them something to eat. Diving down, sometimes landing on the water, and not always successful in catching something edible...
Winter morning, the smell of a new day. I stroll along the path between sleeping and waking, I don't want to let go of my dream yet. A cold breeze through my hair, the sunlight touches my face...
Sometimes I want to scratch and bite people (figuratively speaking, of course ;), to wake them up a bit about the predicament in which the earth and nature find themselves. And thus a predicament in which many millions of people already find themselves today. Drought, hunger, lack of drinking water, almost unbearable heat, huge amounts of rain, rising sea level, and so on and so on...
At the end of a beautiful sunny day, there are often some clouds over the sea. Does that make the sunset less beautiful? Often it doesn't, or it even makes it more beautiful. The clouds make the colors even more intense.
Early in the morning, the first light of the rising sun lovingly embraces nature's awakening...
It is very cold, the sky is clear and the meadows are frozen. The ideal conditions under which a Nordic sunset shows itself in all its splendor.
The light along the long coastlines of Nordic countries is special: clean air, bright sunshine interspersed with wind-driven clouds and rugged coastline. This light has inspired many artists, especially impressionists from more southern European countries loved to come to the Danish and Norwegian coasts.
On the same night as the artwork I posted yesterday... A quiet winter evening in a swampy area. We made a long walk through this beautiful area, and now that we are on our way back to the parking lot, it is almost dark...
The dying sun
colors the sky with a poem
to welcome this night
A quiet winter evening in a swampy area. The sun sets behind the trees and colors the sky as if it was on fire. A poem to welcome this beautiful night.
A bright white light? Eternal darkness?
It is my conviction that after our death our spirit, our soul, travels to its origin somewhere in the universe. Once arrived, our energy is reunited with the energy from which everything around us once originated.
The sun sets under a heavily clouded sky, and for a brief moment shines over a slightly frozen Limfjord near the village of Amtoft, North Jutland, Denmark.
...
All I want is to see how
the setting sun colors the garden
in the ripples
of a winter breeze.
Light. Hidden
behind a veil of silence
of the fading darkness
Celebrate this new day
Every day
The past year for us has been about tearing down, and rebuilding. Demolishing what was rotten or no longer served us, and considering what we wanted to keep and perhaps reuse.
Musing trees in morning mist,
the new day hesitates and knows
they lose themselves in memories
It's still early in the quiet foggy forest. The new day seems to hesitate to start, so as not to disturb the trees at their musing.
It is still dark, very cold and quiet, this early morning in the lightly snow-covered forest. But then the sun rises, the light plays with the frozen branches of the fir trees...
It's early on a cold, dark winter morning. At dusk, everything seems to be the colour blue. Then the sun rises, coloring the world in an amazing palette.
Just before the sun sets, the clouds open up allowing the light for a brief but intense moment to say hello to the night...
Early in the morning in a forest near the city of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. It is cold, but the autumn sun warms everything it touches.
I love Fado music and, more in general, Portuguese folk music.
One of the most beautiful Portuguese songs for me is Meu Alentejo sung by Dulce Pontes.
But even without knowing a translation of the lyrics (and I don't speak a word of Portuguese), this song really touched me the first time I heard it. And it still does...
" What if we stopped waiting for disaster to strike, creating a global safety net to protect those hit hardest?
During COP29, we asked our community: What if everyone gave just 1% of their income to accelerate climate action? An incredible 88% said they would. "
Yeah, sure...
Early morning light
Patches of an unfinished dream
floats towards eternity
It is quiet in the forest, this morning. The sun is just rising above the horizon, its fragile rays gently touching the trunks of the trees still damp from the cold night.
A dark evening in a city where it is raining briskly. The street is almost deserted, shopkeepers have just turned out the lights and closed their stores. Two people are walking down the street talking and laughing under a yellow umbrella. I feel a strange desire to know what the two are laughing about....
When Laura Ann Reed, a friend and poet from the US, sent me a new poem she had written, her words spoke to me so strongly that I immediately had a vision that for me matched her words. Moreover, I also immediately knew which two 10-year-old photos I had to put together to make the image I had in mind.
Fresh snow, as far as the eye can see. The forest looks spacious, light, and larger than usual. It is quiet, and the world feels deserted. Only the muffled crunch of our footsteps in the fresh snow.
Have you ever tried to follow the pieces of an unfinished dream as it drifts away when you wake up ?
Soft waving reeds in a chilly breeze. The ripples on the icy water make it hard to see anything below the surface. An ideal hiding place for dreams…
The sun has set, the water of the fjord rapidly takes on the cold color of the night. Thin cloud veils seem to swallow up the colors of the sunset, until it's dark.
During a long walk in a dark and grey forest, the sun briefly but brightly breaks through the cloud cover just before sunset and illuminates the forest in fairy-tale autumn colors, as only the setting autumn sun can do.
An unexpected snowstorm blinds us
Even as we squint into the sunlight
Blinded, shivering, caught in the brightness
Turning away from its fierce glare
The burning, live-giving light
The soft, chilling snow
Flirting, sparkling, fluttering
...
After many days of rain, the late afternoon sun shines almost horizontally through the damp forest. It is quiet, except for a soft rustling, a song of the last leaves of the trees…
A cold evening at the end of a heavily cloudy, gray day. Just before the sun sets, the clouds open up allowing the light for a brief but intense moment to say hello to the night.
On a beautiful morning I wandered through the fields along the bay Krik Vig, part of the Limfjord. Except for the rustling of the wind and a single bird, it's quiet…
A more impressionistic transformation of the artwork Autumn Leaves, and that one is based on a photo that I made of the forest floor in the windy northwest corner of our garden, with a great variety in trees with leaves in all kind of shapes and colors.
While I was trying to photograph a bright sunset before the sun was completely below the horizon, I realized that the beauty of light is often determined by how it is filtered, veiled or scattered.
"The ability to imagine how a country, society, industry, etc. could develop in the future..."
Here on earth the light is always filtered by something. The atmosphere, clouds, a canopy, mist…
In fact, all these ‘filters’ make the sunlight much more visible, almost touchable…
The morning light and the silence in the deserted forest, create a special atmosphere. It gives space to let your thoughts run free.
On a walk on the shore along the fjord where we used to live, the sun emerges from behind the clouds just before it sets. An enchanting display of winter colors, slowly drowning in the calm waters of the fjord.
An artwork that I made on the occasion of the exhibition 'El Duende' in 2017. I made two series of photos in the mountains near Bellano, Italy. When making those series, the theme of the exhibition inspired me. I went looking for the spirit of mountains and valleys.
'Sad Songs' is a new artwork in my collection 'Secret Places'. It is inspired by the recent fruitless attempts by world leaders to arrive at decisive measures, humane financial compensation and quick actions to combat the earth crisis.
It's early in the morning. The first sunlight touches the moss between the trees. And as if the forest had been waiting for it, immediately the most wonderful scents rise up and mingle with the nightly smell of thawing leaves and wood.
Spring. A gentle breeze takes the petals of fading cherry blossoms into the light. Although still far away, or perhaps just because, a new version of this artwork.
Yesterday the first version of this artwork, it went wrong again with the ability to comment, so grab your chance at this new, digitally transformed version 😉
"You white men are lost. You don't understand the land. Too many silly questions.
Your presence on this earth will come to an end.
amid wild cherry blossoms overcome by fragrance
my fury
sank to its knees
...
It's low tide, the bottom of the fjord becomes visible. The waves have left their marks, like every intense event in life...
A special calm comes over the evening when the sun begins to disappear behind the horizon and the light of the day fades away. Nature awaits the night.
I love that quiet moment of the day and the scents that announces the coming of night.
Early in the morning, it's quiet after a night full of mysterious sounds. Suddenly the first sunlight hits the tops of the pine trees, the forest awakes.
A walk in the forest early on an autumn morning. Do you know that wonderful scent of moist autumn leaves that are heated by a shower of sunlight?
It is cold in the darkening forest, the late afternoon sun yet makes an attempt to warm the trunks of the trees...
A warm day early in the summer, it is windless. The dense foliage filters the sunlight. Birds sing, but are invisible in the golden-green light.
Some people dream in color, other's in black and white. Many people are not sure, or hardly remember their dreams. I am quite sure I sometimes dream in surrealistic color palettes and atmospheres. But as far as I remember, my dreams are always multicolored...
Life is precious; we only have one. But what if you had as many lives as the balloon salesman has balloons in his hand?
We are witnessing the beginning of a pitch-black period.
For all those who care about nature, about the oppressed, about justice and democracy.
And for those who care about the rights of women, of those with a different opinion, sexual orientation, of those with a colored skin...
It is the first week of November, more than 3 weeks before that terrible day. And the first advertisements are already appearing.
So it is high time that I post again the works from the series Colorful Days....
If, with this mini series, I manage to persuade just 1 person to buy less this year, or maybe even not to participate in the madness called Black Friday, the earth will have made a small victory....
A tender kiss
our dreams
entwined
In all the turmoil of the world, there are trees that remain standing perfectly straight. Offering protection and holding on no matter how severe the storm rages around them. Deeply rooted, connected to the earth and to the trees around them.
It is a stormy autumn day when, during a short vacation on Schiermonnikoog, we decide to make a beach walk. Schiermonnikoog is one of the Wadden Islands on the north coast of the Netherlands.
We need a lot of money to fight the crises the earth is in. So why is so little happening to combat all these crises ? Are we short of money, then ? Well no, not really. But the rich countries prefer to spend it on unhealthy food, luxury goods, weapons, even bigger houses, subsidies for disastrous crises increasing activities.
A weekend read...
Yesterday I climbed up the hill
But halfway there, the wind and fog made climbing hard
The grass slippery with moisture,
and smelling of wet leaves and autumn
I heard a song, it helped me to continue on my way
Once at the top I used the moss as a pillow
while the voices of the wind in the trees soothed me to sleep.
About two years ago were intensely enjoying our introduction to Vietnamese coffee. We only drink 1 cup of coffee a day, so when you taste a beautiful coffee for the first time and it is your only cup that day, you enjoy it with very small sips.
When my cup was empty, I looked, as always, at the "markings" the coffee grounds had left on the bottom.
I grind and brew my coffee by hand, pouring it through a metal mesh filter, so there is always some sediment in there. Mmmmmm.... 🙂
The 'drawing' I saw fascinated me, and inspired me to create this artwork.
It is a great pleasure to mention here the 3 inspiring women who, without knowing it, participated in this creation.
Niloofar Mahafel, a wonderful painter from Iran, now living in Moskow, who trusts me to be her representative AND sent me many photos of the wonderful Iranian landscape. They are a huge inspiration ! No doubt she will recognize the picture of one of her beautiful landscapes in this artwork.
Daphne Nguyen, she introduced me to the coffee coming from her company's coffee farms in Vietnam. We love this coffee, the passion she and her colleagues have for coffee and the enormous commitment to the coffee farmers. I'm sure she never expected that her coffee would become the basis for an artwork...
Karina Mosser (find her website here), a wonderful painter and a great person to work with. Some time ago she made a series of abstracts for me to use as background for my digital creations. Through a green abstract painting of hers, I managed to create a work that brings together Iran and Vietnam as a landscape for my "coffee tree".
The artwork 'Voices In The Mist' is a new work in my collection 'Secret Places'. It is a digital transformation of 3 photographs, and will be printed with high-quality ink on museum-quality, acid-free cotton/rag paper (Hahnemühle Photo Rag® 308gsm). The work comes in a limited edition of 10, signed and with a certificate of authenticity. But of course, it is also available as Open Edition print, without signature and not numbered. Available in any size you desire !
Maximum size is 250Wx125H cm / 100wx50H inches. The work can be printed in any size up to that maximum, so please let me know the size you would prefer.
I start with one or more photographs made by myself to create these artworks. Then I use digital painting, color adjusting and adding and transforming multiple artistic effects, until a surrealistic atmosphere is created that touches me and tells the story I want to tell.
Prints of 'Voices In The Mist' are available, ask for a quote or contact me through a message. Prints are also available in my Saatchi Art portfolio at the artwork page and here (smaller limited edition).
And available in my Fine Art America portfolio.
Through my artworks I ask you to reflect for a moment on the nature around you, on the beautiful feeling that nature can evoke. Thus to think about your actions to support the wellbeing of the earth and everything that lives on it. And on what humanity loses when many of us continue on the destructive path of ever more greed and consuming. And please, reflect on how you can survive in this rapidly changing world…
So do you want to know your ecological footprint?
Then visit this website: https://www.footprintcalculator.org/home/en
And do you want to reduce your ecological footprint?
Then ask me, I will help you. For free. Or simply visit my website and choose in the menu for Your Footprint.
And if you appreciate my writings and art and want to support me, you can buy me a piece of fruit here: https://ko-fi.com/jacobberghoef, thank you 🍏 !
Interested in more? Then read what I wrote about System Change, Man's impact on the earth, Organic Change, Regenerative Agriculture, Regeneration
Lying on our backs in the woods, we observe nature's symphony flying above, and the gentle dance of light amid the trees—a phenomenon known as Shinrin-Yoku, or "forest bathing," celebrated in Japan. It refreshes the body and mind, enhancing health and well-being.
When Kari Trenten sent me a poem and asked me if it inspired me to make an artwork, I immediately had a vision...
This is the result...
Sickness, loss, violence, life-threatening circumstances, dying.... There are many moments in a person's life when she/he is held captive in icy darkness.
But whatever you believe in, ultimately there is the embrace and oneness with the light of your origin.
I feel it is my mission to make people aware of the beauty and at the same time fragility of nature. At the same time, this sometimes feels like hypocrisy because I am part of the society that causes the destruction of the earth's habitability. Even though I do my best to live simply and keep my ecological footprint considerably smaller than "the use" of 1 earth...
A walk on a rain-soaked path along a canal on a winter evening. It's getting dark, time to go home...
The days of cold autumn rain. Looking out over drowned fields, ten years ago in the province of Groningen, The Netherlands.
Autumn is a beautiful time, a time when nature tenderly covers the fallen seeds with brown and vibrant colored leaves. Food for the new growing season...
Last Monday, COP16 in Colombia started, the United Nations international summit on biodiversity.
An important summit?
I'll take you through a few considerations.
A weekend read...
A gray, foggy autumn day. A day like so many, where you only see vague outlines of the path you are walking. The silence and lack of sight are oppressive at first...
After a beautiful late summer week mid September, it's autumn now. The temperature has dropped considerably but it is still very pleasant to work outside. The past week even 'warm' for this time of the year.
Many trees are now mostly bare, but the maple is still holding its coloring leaves firmly. And the leaves of the hawthorn look like they could stay on the trees for many weeks to come.
Early in the morning after a rainy and windy autumn night. The first light of the rising sun lovingly embraces nature's awakening...
A beautiful autumn morning. I go outside to walk the dog. We see the horizon 'releasing' the sun, its warm light kisses the clouds above the fields.
I made the photo for this work on a beautiful autumn day on the beach of the North Sea between the coastal towns of Klitmøller and Hanstholm, Denmark.
While the ice caps are melting and the oceans and seas are warming and being robbed, polluted and poisoned, also on land the humans leave a trace of destruction. Or perhaps better to say, that's where the misery begins. Because that's where humans have settled and do most of their 'ingenuity'.
The Western world should really be called the 'world of never enough'.
A weekend read...
A morning by the sea, the water is called back by the tide, bringing the beach back to the land. Thousands of waves, as far as the eye can see, weave together like an infinite blue sheet...
Wandering between dreams and reality on a crisp winter morning...
Do you also sometimes dream about silent winter days?
What is an earthly mushroom on the scale of a galaxy? Less than a speck of dust on your windowsill... Not even the size of an atom in the infinite expanse of the oceans.
Yet they can be merged...
What is an earthly mushroom on the scale of a galaxy? Less than a speck of dust on your windowsill... Not even the size of an atom in the infinite expanse of the oceans.
Yet they can be merged...
The first rays of the sun reflect in the vapors rising from the valley after a heavy rain shower.
The morning breeze touches it, like the ripples of a silk scarf draped over the mountain tops…
Do you know those moments? A setting sun, just above the trees, in a completely clear sky. In the foreground a lake that reflects all the light... A lot of light...
With COP29 (the "29th UN Climate Change conference") approaching, we are being fed scientific publications that give us the latest updates. Although these are not happy reads, it is important reading for me. It inspires me to make new work. And motivate me to live the way I live. Above that, it inspires and motivates me to tell you about it.
And why this post, why am I telling you this? Why do I hope you will read the whole thing?
Because it's important that you know the condition of your home. It is your only home, our only home.
A weekend read...
After a beautiful late summer week mid September, it's autumn now. The temperature has dropped considerably, rain showers are frequent, although not very heavy.
Many leaves have been blown off the trees and bushes the past two weeks, we are collecting those fallen leaves from the paths and grass almost daily and putting them in a large mesh basket so they can compost in the coming months.
When are we most fascinated by a sunset? For many people, it is when the sky is colored in saturated, vibrant colors….
Realizing this, I set to work on another sunset photograph….
Screaming sounds of power
saws numb your thoughts
Ears bleed, hearts tear
Forests cry
The sun colors the evening in
the hues of the choking smoke
that kills tree after tree
How high may become
the price the future
will have to pay?
When are we most fascinated by a sunset? For many people, it is when the sky is colored in a beautiful palet of saturated, vibrant colors….
Autumn is generally a gray, rainy season in the northern part of Jutland. More gray than winter, at least if there is a real winter. But for that very reason, the overcast skies and brisk winds that can suddenly give the sun plenty of room, it is also the season of beautiful, intense sunsets...
Many people dream of an earth that is safe and clean, that is treated with care so that it can give enough to all that lives on it without becoming exhausted.
Only when all those dreams come to life in common sense and people take action to live modestly as a part of nature, the earth can recover through our care and compassion for all that lives, giving us what we need.
System Change, we need Systemic Change !
This is what you read and hear more and more often. In comments, articles and discussions about the state of the Earth's health, about the alarmingly rapid change in our climate.
And that alongside, of course, the call for Degrowth....
What is meant by this system change?
Insofar as you can and may explain a very complex system in a few simple phrases: ...
As Clouds Before the Wind
... When she wakes
she lifts the shade, impatient for a glimpse
of flight: a sparrow, a swallowtail—
something with wings she can memorize.
Thick clouds of black
smoke darken the sun
Eyes tear,
trees cry
The sun colors the evening
in the hues of the flames that
scorch tree after tree
How high may become
the price the future
will have to pay?
It is early in the morning, but it is already light when I wake up. The sunlight filtered through the curtains quickly dissipates the last images of my dream and emerging thoughts disrupt the story...
It's early on a beautiful autumn evening, no wind and a bright blue sky. There is silence in the forest. A palpable silence, soft and thick like a wool blanket.
Yellow leaves gently fall to the ground. The sunlight wraps them in gold...
Early on this beautiful autumn morning, a walk takes me down deserted narrow paths. I stop, look at the light spot at the end of the path and enjoy the warmth of the rising sun.
On a not too windy day, waves are very calming to me.
They play a game with the sun and the sky, reflecting and chasing each other's colors that in an endless variety continuously present a breathtaking spectacle.
When I walk through our garden, I love to touch the trees and plants I walk by. It creates a connection with the nature around you when you not only sniff scents and enjoy the colors, but when in addition you feel the softness of leaves, the hardness of bark, the fragility of flowers….
Harvest. Not by far over yet. Pears, apples, pumpkins, zucchini’s, the last few blueberries, wild strawberries...
And, of course, it is also the time to harvest seeds: Marigold, Poppy, Cornflower, Perpetual Kale, …
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