Dear ,

I’m writing this in a room adjacent to Auriea’s study where the blinds are closed and the doors are shut, preserving the smell of her vast collection of art supplies. No, she’s not dead. Just away, far away, in some idyllic place near an enchanting lake creating beautiful sculpture.

Bazel at Basel

In my mother tongue Flemish, the verb bazelen means to talk nonsense. Other wonderfully synonyms are leuteren, raaskallen, meieren, zwammen, beuzelen, wauwelen, and so on. Just like the Eskimos are reputed to have eleven words for snow, the Flemish have eleven for talking rubbish. There’s subtle distinctions between all of them!

So my wife interrupted her Michelangelo impersonation at the Digital Stone Project — more about that below (yes, that’s an m-dash!) — to go and talk at Art Basel Basel about a subject she knows even less about than most of the subjects for panels she gets invited for: money! Then again, perhaps having lots of money doesn’t immediately give one a lot of inspiration to talk about it. Being poor is probably more fruitful.

Anyway, she got invited by the Zero10 program coordinators, Trevor Paglen and Eli Scheinman, to a panel with Rafael Lozalo Hemmer and Tyler de Will (0xDEAFBEEF) with the title How are you supposed to pay the rent these days? All kidding aside, this is a very relevant question. It seems that everything is getting more expensive but wages are not going up. And now we have to compete with AI for jobs that we didn’t even want in the first place. Luckily there is a light that shines in the darkness.

Digital Stones on display

I’ve been a lonely husband for a month as my wife was staying in a tiny little village surrounded by mountains and forest up north in Lucca. She was working on a marble version of mother/child, actually learning how to carve in marble and enjoying it so much that she wants to drag a suitcase filled with rocks back to her lair.

If you’re up for an adventure off the Frecciarossa beaten track, you can go and see her work, and that of fellow digital sculptors, at Mount Alfonso Fortress at 6pm on June 26. Many of the works will remain on display for a month. But Auriea’s sculpture is being shipped to New York City for the solo exhibition at Heft Gallery in September. So you can see it there in a safe environment.

Meanwhile in the Low Countries

On the day before my 58th birthday, an exhibition opens in Brussels, at Wouters gallery, entitled Old Master, curated by Rectangle, and with works by Alexandra Crouwers, Joan Heemskerk, Jan Robert Leegte, Lorna Mills, Clement Valla and my dearly beloved other half. The reference in the title to the beautiful art that Flanders was once capable of is probably ironic. So don’t worry. Or worry a lot!

The largest ever sculpture

Chisel & Razor is a two-part exhibition about the artistic legacies of Edmonia and Samuel Lewis. Of whom, you ask. At least that’s what I did. But Edmonia was a neo-classical sculptress who worked in Rome during the fin-de-siècle. And she happens to be a black American, and catholic. Samuel was her brother. He supported his sister and basically built the town of Bozeman, Montana where Tinworks is located.

Act 1 of the exhibition opens right now. Auriea’s magnificent triumphal fountain and ditto arch will be the central feature of Act 2 which opens in October.

This spectacular and literally largest sculpture — in her career — is being fabricated as we speak by many different very experienced hands over in Montana. Auriea is very nervous about that. She’s not used to being the diva who tells other people what to do.

Fellowship of the ONX

Auriea says she has been made an ONX Fellow. I don’t know exactly what that means. In my limited understanding of the language fellow is a word reserved for men. But these days, I guess we can’t be too picky about our gender. I do know that this means she will be spending a lot of time in New York City. So my lonely-husband days are not over yet.

Our twelve year old Blue Russian cat Ling has cancer. I’m taking her to the vet every Thursday for chemotherapy. Who knew that existed for cats? So I’m not exactly alone. Overall she’s taking to the treatment well. But that doesn’t stop me from spoiling her. There’s so much cancer in the world. My dad, my sister-in-law, my cousin. Everybody’s getting it at some point. It does make one think about the essentials. We shouldn’t forget to live. Even if this world is stupid. We can do a lot for each other. Love is a thing.

I hope Summer will treat you gently.

her unfathomably flawed safe haven, Michael.