Going through pictures on my computer I found one that brought me back to the 15th september 2019, my mothers birthday. that year 81.
It was the one before my last actions for the botanical garden in the Afrikaanderwijk, Rotterdam. The garden was there for about 30 years, but since 2012 I was related to the garden, asked for a subsidy for creating a whole new project at the garden and the the subsidy was given.The years after the first were a struggle to get new funds and there was always a shortage. I have been creating for the whole project a lot of different things, but thats another story.
The last action was an excursion with the volunteers of the garden and we went to the Openlucht (open air) museum in Arnhem, which also has a botanical garden.
But on the 15th there was a big Art project going on in my neighbourhoud with all different forms of streetarts and the organisation gave the botanical garden two very interesting artists.
Slikachu, comes from the UK and makes very small sceneries in public space and the other artist ,
Spencer Little came from Hawai and he makes art by bending any material.
The most special one he made of one of our volunteers, Arie. Also the volunteer who has dedicated the last 37 years working in the garden, so for him it was a huge acknowledgement and it was so perfectly made.
The other art he made on a fence in the garden , was a sentence, by Oscar Wilde and it was so hard to photograph and I have one that is reasonable.
The quote : ‘I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated His ability’. Oscar Wilde
2 of my oldest friends came to help me/us that day with other volunteers to take care of coffee, tea, lemonade and cake. Some of them I made myself.
There was also a special cream for sale I made. One of my friends sold lots of her homemade jams.
We had about 200 people visiting that day. My mother came with two of her friends and it was a splendid day.
These two days were the last of a whole lot of activities around and on the botanical garden. Shortly after these two days I decided to say goodbye to the whole project, a project with the people involved I loved and had spend the last 7/8 years with lots of love and effort. I learned a lot and have beautiful memories about the whole adventure.