Come gather around

I made five wooden works. One theme. Stories.

I bring them to markets. I stand among the people and speak. Sometimes I feel a bit like a troubadour, moving from place to place. I don't sing, I talk. What I tell depends on who is standing in front of me. Someone asks what something means, and I give them the story of how it was made or why.

The shaman is the oldest way of telling a story. He carries knowledge and passes it on to his tribe. Generation after generation. No book, no screen. Just a voice and people who listen.

The monster of Frankenstein comes from the summer of 1816. A group of friends was stuck indoors because of the weather, near Lake Geneva. Lord Byron suggested that everyone write a ghost story. Mary Shelley was 18 and had nothing for days. Then the image came. Byron wrote a fragment. Polidori later wrote a vampire story. Her story became a book, and that book has lived for two centuries. Everyone knows the monster. Few people think of Victor. He is the real monster. The story warns about what science and technology can do to a person. Today, with AI, that warning feels close again.

The luchador tells with his body and his mask. Drama, intrigue, heroes and villains. You never see the man underneath. Only when he stops does the mask come off. Sometimes it passes to a son, and later to a grandson. That way a figure outlives the man who wore it. It seems like he never ages. There are even films where such heroes fight vampires and werewolves.

The monster with the eyes is my image of how stories reach us today. You can recognize a bit of Monsters, Inc. in it. Soft, friendly, and easy to digest. The tales of the Brothers Grimm were dark, and they warned. Almost all of them have been softened into animation for the masses, with a clear moral. Black or white. No grey. No wider thinking. I am glad I discovered anime at a very young age, as this widened my view immensely.

The fifth is my own version of Mr. Owl from De Fabeltjeskrant. He took me on an adventure every day when I was a child. This piece is a cross between him and the mask of Crash Bandicoot. In games, too, we get new ways of telling stories. And television and gaming were a huge influence on me. I like to take things from my life, childhood memories, and bend them into a universe of my own. Recognizable. But not the same.

At the market I notice it is never only about the pieces. People stop, ask something, and a conversation begins. That is where the story happens.

Because in the end, everyone is a story. We are held together by stories. How was your day? How are you? What do you feel? These aren't ordinary questions. They are open doors. An invitation to share your story.

Maybe that is the moral. Listen to each other's stories. And tell yours.