Amsterdam Reading

A great reading with a wonderful audience on Tuesday evening. It went on until 10 pm, and then Marilyn and I went back to our hotel, had a bite and headed off to our rooms on the 12th floor of The Student Hotel, two metro stops from downtown. The next morning we went to the Rembrandt Haus museum and lucked into a talk about engravings in Rembrandt’s studio. The curator was fascinating and explained very clearly the whole process (etching, dry point…) including how Rembrandt, unlike most of his more academic predecessors, mixed his methods and was able to print far more subtley in terms of clarity of line or deliberate blurriness, darker or lighter; and how different supports (rag paper, velum, various Japanese papers) affected the result. Everything was demonstrated on Rembrandt’s bench, then printed on a press that was not original but just like the original. We visited the rest of the house, then went across the street for lunch at the Dance School, visited the Beguinage, before I headed to the station to get my train back to Paris and Marilyn returned to the hotel for another night.

Here is a link to some photos from Tuesday’s reading.

Today is another beautiful October day and I have worked, grocery shopped, taking pleasure in small stores—the Tunisian fruit and vegetable specialist, the Asian counter in the Marché St Germain for pot stickers, because the nearest supermarket is shutting down for remodeling. And so to bed, soon.