My brain has been a blizzard for a year. The debris is only now just settling down. I need to sleep a lot these days — I suppose to compensate for all the sleeping I didn’t do this summer. I digest my memories. The dream came to its natural end, but I was and still am awake. Vincent lingers like a scent.

It’s been a month since the only Van Gogh painting on public display in all of the continent of Africa (something that has been quite clear to me ever since making my map of the locations of Vincent’s paintings) was stolen.

It was cut out of its frame and I imagine tucked under someone’s coat  - maybe one half of the “italian couple” from whom they claimed to have recovered the painting at the Cario International Airport, and then said they were mistaken - or perhaps it was Carmen Sandiego in her red coat (oh, I always wanted to grow up to be exactly like her)!

Thanks to artobserved.com

Amazingly, this is the second time this very painting was stolen from this museum, which brought to light how lax the Cairo security has been in its museums for some time. The people in charge in Cairo said they would amend such problems as only 7 of 43 security cameras actually functioned.

I smiled when reading all this, and decided to wait a month before I moved the sticker or wrote anything. I smiled because this is so Van Gogh. Needless to say, the 296 colored spot that marks this painting will have to be moved from Cairo and placed under “Whereabouts Unknown”.  The last time the painting was stolen, it took ten years to recover. Any bets for this time? Ah, we’ll see. At least it’s one of his lesser paintings.

Would you steal a Van Gogh painting?

As long as I knew I wouldn’t be caught, I totally would! I wouldn’t keep it forever, but… even just one year with one of Vincent’s paintings in my home would be an experience I would never, ever forget. And I think the world could wait a year.

In the meantime, I wanted to bring your attention to some of the more innovative Van Gogh developments I’ve encountered.

I’ve had at least three different people forward me this link to tilt-perspective interpretations of Vincent’s paintings. Here’s an example:

Thanks to artcyclopedia.com

So immersive! Click on the link above to see more, they are pretty awesome.

And also, look at this incredibly creative and thoughtful animated video showing time passing in Vincent’s Bedroom — using bits and pieces from his other paintings (Starry Night in the window, a self-portrait in the mirror).

Lastly, the Vincent necklace I’ve been wearing for nearly two years has broken three times in one month. I have to get a new chain now. At first, all this made me feel a bit uneasy. Am I holding onto something that needs to be let go? Am I forcing something? Does Vincent want to get away?

The reality is that this is at least partly due to my wearing one necklace non-stop for over a year, but (and I only figured this out just now) also because it’s time for renewal. We are moving now from play to book. Time to get a new chain.

Oh, and did I mention the painting clips inside got water damaged mysteriously during the run of the show?

I don’t know when it happened. But it makes them look old. I like that.

As an artist, you have no boss. You get very few pats on the back, regardless of how hard you may toil. There is no promotion to look forward to (neither in position, nor, for the most part, in salary), but simply a dream of a future of enough appreciation so that you may work away many hours of your life at what you do best, what you felt you were put here to do. That is the highest dream of the artist. At least, the good artists. I rarely think the good artists are power or money hungry. (There, I said it.)

And this week has been all about business business business. And in some ways, that’s more relaxing. Certainly gives me a nice break from editing text (which you can only do successfully for certain periods of time, then you just have to walk away), though I did spend many hours editing images last night. And so… voila! My business card. FINALLY.

photography and design by Teresa Veramendi

design by Teresa Veramendi

That would be the sun through the fields where it is thought Vincent shot himself (and I’m inclined, after the strange way I ended up in that spot, to believe it is true), and a little piece of wheat from that field, that I took home with me from Auvers-sur-Oise. I wanted the card to be personal despite how mass-produced a business card is, so there you go: my handwriting, your field, Vincent. The only way to get my handwriting in yellow on a photograph was to make a print and use a paint pen, for the curious… it demanded several layers. So. A[n] [auto]biography and a love story. That’s all I really have to say.

HA – if that were true, I wouldn’t be writing a play and a book, would I? Yes, I giggle at such silly things…

I am also officially posting calls for auditions and interviews with possible collaborators. If you are in Chicago and want to get in on the conversation or if you know someone in Chicago who might want to get in on the conversation, just look at this, forward it along:

Looking for 3W, 2M: collaborators, performers, dancers, and music-makers, particularly people who can do more than one, for an original work about Vincent van Gogh, love across time and space, and why we all make art in the first place.

Directed, produced and written by produced playwright and Off Broadway performer Teresa Veramendi (NYU Drama graduate with a masters in Performance Studies).

It’s been three years in the making, come jump in the deep end. Rehearsals begin May 21st, performances July 29th through August. Email me at TVeramendi@gmail.com to schedule an interview.

Seriously. Let’s not be shy about this. :)

Next up, I’m opening a business checking account, getting Paypal hooked up, and then if you lovely people feel inclined to donate to my art-machine-heart-fire, I’ll make it easy as pie for you (can a silly metaphor cancel out a poetic one? I hope not!) I’m going to try to figure out a way so that for any donation of $20 or more, I’ll send you a Van Gogh postcard with some of my related poetry written on it. I just have to figure out how to keep track of who’s who… I’ll be updating later this week on that, keep an eye out.

Last but not least, I stumbled upon a series of Vincent’s drawings the other day that took my breath away, so enjoy, my friends. From March 1884. Winter scenes in Nuenen. Pretend you’re drinking tea if you’re not.

Thanks to vangoghletters.org

Thanks to vangoghletters.org

Thanks to vangoghletters.org

I always find it wonderfully cosy to sit by a fire in the dusk and to look through the window at a snow-covered landscape.

Vincent, between 15 and 16 of March 1883 to artist Anthon van Rappard

(I couldn’t really go the whole post without sharing a little Vincent, could I?)

Onwards!