Consul General Speeches

Remarks at Art Gallery Gooilust, August 26, 2007

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and on behalf Donald and Beatrice McSorley, I would like to welcome you to Art Gallery Gooilust and the opening of the Rhythms exhibit.  I would like to extend special thanks to Donald and Beatrice for inviting me to be with you today.  And I would also like to welcome the accomplished artists that you will have the pleasure of meeting this afternoon:  Sherard van Dyke, Sam Middleton, and Willem van Oijen.  Finally, I am pleased to welcome Drs. Erica Kubic, who will speak to you in a few moments about the artworks on exhibit.

As a U.S. diplomat, I’ve had tremendous opportunities not only to travel to, but to live in a number of countries that are vastly different from each other.  I suppose when you get right down to it, all countries are vastly different from each other.  I’ve been fortunate at each stop along the way to bring art into my life in some way.  During my first tour, in Paramaribo, Suriname, I met talented and committed young artists who were finding innovative ways to express themselves, even in the face of dire funding shortages, lack of traditional supplies, and opportunities for instruction.  In Russia, I had the great opportunity to study with a master icon painter who himself had spent years in Greece dedicated to learning how to create orthodox icons in the traditional way, using only natural materials.

Wherever I have lived, I have always been interested in the sources of inspiration.  What inspires someone to choose a career?  Or to abandon the familiar to live in another city, another country?  To focus on a particular artistic medium?  And how does inspiration shape the course of one’s life and ones work?

The artists celebrated here today have all walked their own paths, two of them choosing to live in The Netherlands and one of them originating here.  T.E. Lawrence, a rather famous traveler himself, wrote about inspiration in his book, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, He said,

“All men dream:  but not equally.  Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity:  but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, and make it possible.”

Through painting, collage, sculpture the artists exhibiting their works here have dreamed their dreams in the broad light of day.  And whether they took their inspiration from jazz music and musicians, or from landscapes, or from indigenous Inuit and Celtic images, it is we who are grateful to have this chance to see their inspiration realized.