by Henk ter Heide on Friday May 1, 2009
…usually we celebrate Queensday by… I wrote yesterday afternoon. Then I realized that we always celebrate Queensday in the same manner and I remove the word “usually”. Selected a few music video and art sites to tweet later that evening. Washed a few dishes and left my house to go down town for the celebrations.
On my way out of my apartment building I ran into a neighbor who asked me whether I had seen what was happening on televion, the attack on our queen. Although he was clearly very serious I had trouble not bursting into laughter because what he was telling me couldn’t be true.
Things like that don’t happen in the Netherlands.
But the driver of the bus I took into town also told me about the attack on the queen. Apparently someone drove into the crowd, killing and wounding several people and just missing the bus with the queen by a few dozen feet.
Although he didn’t know whether it was an accident or deliberate we both agreed that it had to be an accident because things like that don’t happen in the Netherlands.
By the time I reached my favorite bar the television was telling that the police was sure that this was a deliberate attack and most of the smaller towns and villages in the Netherlands where canceling their celebrations. The larger towns didn’t but mainly to prevent getting problems with the hundred of thousands of people that flog to big cities on Queensday.
Today newspapers are wondering what kind of influence this will have on the future of the Queensday celebrations and on the future of the Netherlands as a whole.
Eight years ago when the planes flew into the Twin Towers my country men and I felt relatively save. We couldn’t imagine that something like that could ever happen in the Netherlands because we don’t matter that much in the great schemes of things. And we don’t have that kind of nutjobs in the Netherlands.
But clearly we where wrong!
The narrator is talking about the route the bus is going to take when the car hits the monument. The narrator is clearly surprised about what is happening and about the people that are laying on the ground: Oh, a cars drives into the monument… what is this…? there are people laying on the ground… the royal family is shocked…. Is this an accident or deliberate…?
The journalist says ….someone hit by…. People are yelling go away, quickly go away…. …behind the fence…
…usually we celebrate Queensday by… I wrote yesterday afternoon. Then I realized that we always celebrate Queensday in the same manner and I remove the word “usually”. Selected a few...
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday April 30, 2009
Today is Queens Day in the Netherlands. The day we celebrate the birthday of our Queen Beatrice. Actually it isn’t her birthday it’s the birthday of the last queen before Beatrice.
Beatric’s birthday is at the 31th of January which usually a very cold and wet day. Not a day you would want to go down town and have a party.
Queens day is usually celebrated by organizing an outdoor free market and games for children and a day off work and drinking a little more then you should for adults.
Which is why I’m writing this article at 1:20 PM.
I’m planning to go down town somewhere in the next hour. Look at the games children are playing and visit my favorite bar and stay there a little longer then I should.
So chances are that I won’t be making a drawing today. 
Today is Queens Day in the Netherlands. The day we celebrate the birthday of our Queen Beatrice. Actually it isn’t her birthday it’s the birthday of the last queen before...
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by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday April 28, 2009
Yesterday I got a comment from some art teacher telling me that I had done something wrong in my Up side down drawing. (I didn’t actually understand what he was going on about).
He told me that he had been an art teacher for 10 years and that if I had been one of his students he would have made me do the exercise again.
This was the second time. Last year I also had some art teacher writing pages of comment about boring exercises she thought I should do.
So to every art teacher reading this. Let me teach you a little lesson about teaching art:
You have it within your power to instill a love of art in your pupils.
If you do, the rest of your teachings really don’t matter. Your pupils will be engaged in art for the rest of their lives. If you might have forgotten something they will pick it up at some point.
On the other hand.
You also have it within your power to instill a hatred of art in your pupils.
If you do, it still doesn’t matter what you further teach them because they will try their hardest to forget it as soon as possible…
Yesterday I got a comment from some art teacher telling me that I had done something wrong in my Up side down drawing. (I didn’t actually understand what he was...
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday April 2, 2009
A tweet
After posting my last drawing, I got a tweet from @mayavbreemen (dutch) telling me she very much liked my drawing and asking me what my opinion was of my drawing.
At first glance that seemed a very strange question to ask of an artist. Of course do I like my drawing. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made it, right?
Wrong!
My goal in drawing isn’t to create beautiful pictures. My goal is to create interesting pictures.
Let me explain.
Beauty and the beast
Compare this picture of a sunset with this interpretation of a painting by Vincent van Gogh.
You’ll agree that the first picture is beautiful. Maybe it’s not the most beautiful sunset you’ve ever seen, but it’ll come close. Probably you’ve seen thousands of real sunsets in you live. And probably you’ve seen a few hundred in photos like this one.
But tell me. How often to you take your photo album out of the cupboard to look at one specific photo of a sunset?
I found the second picture a few weeks ago while I was looking for pictures to use in my collages and I hated it immediately. It was quite clear that this was not the kind of painting I could use. So I moved on.
But then I found that there was something about this painting that made me go back an look again.
I just did a little research on the picture and turns out that the two figures on the foreground are photoshopped on top of a painting by van Gogh. As horrible as the result might be it has something that draws me in and has me looking at this painting ones in a while.
Growth
So now for two of my drawings. Christening and First step.
Christening is one of my favorite drawings. It’s a quilt like patchwork of colors. Very pleasing to the eye.
But it is also a one off. The only purpose was to test the colors of a new pencil box. But it leads to nothing.
I could of course draw lots more of those kind of quilt like designs but it would soon become very boring for people to visit this site. Knowing that they would, again, see a quilt.
The second drawing is arguably the most horrible drawing I’ve ever done. But it’s also the first in a set.
It’s the drawing I had to get out of the way before I could try something new. Although I didn’t expect it, I did learn something by drawing it. But more important. Even while I was drawing it I got ideas about what to try next.
At the moment I’m drawing the third one in the set.
I’m finding that although I have some ideas about what it should become it’s also kind of a growing experience. As I’m learning how to use my colors I find more ways to keep the drawing interesting. Not only as an idea in my mind but also as a drawing on paper.
For me, and hopefully also for you, my visitors.
So to answer the question. Do I like my work?
Some times, but I’m not trying to.
I am trying to create pictures that are interesting enough to make you want to steal a second look.
A tweet After posting my last drawing, I got a tweet from @mayavbreemen (dutch) telling me she very much liked my drawing and asking me what my opinion was of...
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday January 29, 2009
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by Henk ter Heide on Thursday December 11, 2008
This is a very frightening drawing to do.
When I did something like this last year, I thought it had something to do with the chaos. I tried very hard the figure out were the next dot should come and what size it should have to create the right feeling of chaos. But of course you can’t fake chaos.
This time around I don’t take as much time thinking about where the pencil stripes should come. I just draw them where ever the pencil lands.
Since it’s still a frightening drawing there must be something else that makes it frightening.
Thanks to my involuntary stay in hospital last week I now know that I’m afraid of something having to do with communication. Only thing is I don’t know what. I was thinking that it might have something to do with people catching my off guard. But it could also be that I’m afraid of offering my insights.
The kind of drawing I want to make for this site, the pictures in my mind, make it a very personal form of communication.
The funny thing is that I don’t really know what this drawing is about.
Everything I think about starts out with a picture or a little movie in my mind. Next I translate most of those pictures and movies into words. But by doing so I always lose a lot in the translation.
What I end up telling people is only a fraction of what I was actually thinking. I never quite understood why people understood so little of what I was trying to tell them
The thing is that I’m not always able to translate every picture and every movie that jumps up in my mind. Sometimes I’m distracted (because people are talking) and sometimes the images are so complicated that I can’t translate them
This picture is such an image.
Yesterday morning after I scanned my drawing I realized that I was doing something wrong.
Instead of scanning my work for the day I should be scanning a drawing when I reach an interesting point in the development of a drawing.
I was thinking about what I should do with the outer edge of the paper. I was thinking of working from the yellow/orange color in the middle via greens to blue at the edge. But I’ve now decided that it would give a much more interesting picture if I went from light colors to dark colors.
This is a very frightening drawing to do. When I did something like this last year, I thought it had something to do with the chaos. I tried very hard...
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by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday December 9, 2008
Two weeks ago I almost stopped drawing.
After trying to draw trees, landscapes, faces abstracts and using the teachings from two book it was more then clear that I don’t have any drawing talent what so ever.
It was also clear that I had to go through far more trouble then I planned when I started this blog. I just wanted a place were I could show the pictures in my mind in the same way as that other people show there holiday snapshots. They don’t have to take a course to learn to use there camera so why would I get so much trouble trying to do the same.
That was the point I reached two weeks ago when my involuntary holiday started.
Almost at ones I started noticing a few things. The talking in my head stopped without there being a clear reason why. I found that the more I thought in pictures the less the pain bothered me. (Which was a good thing because the pain medication didn’t work very good.) And I noticed that the moment I started thinking in pictures, I again felt the need to draw them.
At this moment I actually feel the need to spent far more time drawing then I’ve ever done.
It took me a while to figure out why.
A few weeks ago I came across an article about a book in which Malcolm Gladwell argues that there isn’t such a thing as talent.
From extensive testing scientists have found that there is a correlation between the number of hours that people have practiced a skill and there level of expertise. Or more specific that anyone can get to be an expert in any skill if he is willing to practice for 10,000 hours.
But that’s also the catch. 10,000 hours is a very large amount of time. To reach it you’d have to practice 7 hours a week for the next 10 years. Or 14 hours a week for the next 5 years.
For me it answers an other question that I’ve been asking myself for years: Why is it that experts always love what they do? Is that because they are very good in what they are doing?
No it isn’t. They are experts because they love what they do.
Start playing the piano when you’re ten. Practice two or three hours a week and by the time you’re 30 you will be very good. But nobody will think of you as talented because you’ve been doing it for 20 years.
But if you’re the kind of guy for whom drawing is the reason to get out of bed in the morning. The kind of guy who fails his tests because he was busy drawing and didn’t pay attention. It could very well be that by the time you drop out of school at your 15th or 16th you are considered a talented painter (or tattoo artist).
But why is it important for me to know this? Well I have two kinds of pictures in my mind.
A large part of the pictures in my mind are based on what I see of the part of the world in which I travel on a daily bases. Those pictures feel like snap shots and I need an easy way to show them.
Although it took a while I have found an easy way to show them by showing work by other artist. The world in which they live doesn’t differ that much from mine that I can’t use them to show my world. (Or actually if they do I don’t show them.)
Then there are the pictures of my own thoughts. Those pictures are far more complicated and I never expected to just show those pictures. It’s clear that showing my thought would be far more complicated.
The more complicated pictures take far more time to draw.
Until now I hardly ever drew them because I felt that they would come in the way of learning the easy tricks needed to show my snap shots. But now I know that isn’t true.
By taking more time to draw more complicated drawing I’m learning far more. Which means that I can draw ever more complicated thought.
Two weeks ago I almost stopped drawing. After trying to draw trees, landscapes, faces abstracts and using the teachings from two book it was more then clear that I don’t...
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by Henk ter Heide on Sunday November 2, 2008
Dealing with real anger.
The series about what I learn in cognitive behavior therapy consist of the following parts:
- Cognitive behavior therapy
- Strong anonymous feelings
- 751
- Feelings scared
- Accepting comments selectively
- Mad as Hell
After I discovered that I in a sense caused my own anger I expected that I would stop talking to myself but it got worse.
It took me a few days before I realized that was because I was actually angry at a guy at my work. This lazy bastard has been doing only halve his work for years. The problem is that is that mister vd B is a manager four levels up. Two levels below the general manager. He causes a lot of problems for me and my colleagues.
Late December last year he subtracted 192 hours overtime from my time sheet instead of adding them. Which in effect meant that I started this year with a negative total of vacation hours. I found out about this last May when I wanted to plan a holiday.
I was told that it didn’t matter. I could still plan my holiday and the time sheet would be corrected.
Two months after that I found that the problem still wasn’t solved. So I started a complaining campaign that resulted in absolutely nothing.
In September I finally got to talk to mister vd B and he acted surprised. As if this was the first time anyone told him about this. He looked at my time sheet for 2008 and told me that I must have made a mistake with my time sheet from 2007. But he was willing to look into it.
One week later I got a new time sheet for 2007. He had actually forge it.
My 6 weeks period of sick leave in October and November was missing, instead he had written 3 weeks of holiday. And he had given me 39 holiday hours in the first week of the Christmas holiday!
I only work 31 hours a week.
After this I must have been very angry but I didn’t recognize the feeling.
I filed an official complained at human resources and demanded an answer by the 25the of October. In the letter I mention some details about Promen’s fraud with reimbursement of traveling expenses and told them that I would send a copy of the letter to the union if they didn’t respond in time.
Then I waited.
And as I learned to recognize my feelings of anger I decided that I shouldn’t go to the union but to the police.
The 25the of October came and went without a response from Promen.
I did hear via the grapevine that this lady of human recourses had talk with mister vd B and that he had promised to correct his “mistake” at some point in the future.
I was also told that there wasn’t much more that human resources could do. Which is very strange because Promen has rules about what will happen to people who don’t preform their jobs.
After fair warning they are sacked.
Last Monday night I was so mad I couldn’t sleep.
I wrote a little note about a few other fraudulent things mister vd B has done. (Among others forging my psychological examination in 2002. As a result of that I didn’t find out that I’m autistic until 2006.)
I told the lady of human resources that if I wouldn’t find an answer in my mailbox by Friday I would notify the police and send her the note via Promen’s internal mail service.
I don’t believe I’ve ever been so angry as I was Tuesday morning on route to my work. People must have thought I was mad as I was yelling to myself at the top of my voice.
Wednesday my manager told me that I will be having a talk with someone on November the 10the at 10 o’clock. He didn’t know with whom but I would get a notice in the mail.
I didn’t get a notice in the mail so I still don’t know with whom I will be talking but I’m assuming that it will be with the general manager. He is the only one in the company with the power to sack mister vd B. Which is one of the two solutions to the problem that I find acceptable.
The other being that mister vd B is convicted for fraud and spends the next few years in jail.
Dealing with real anger. The series about what I learn in cognitive behavior therapy consist of the following parts: Cognitive behavior therapy Strong anonymous feelings 751 Feelings scared Accepting comments...
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by Henk ter Heide on Sunday October 26, 2008
Dealing with anger by selectively listening to comments.
The series about what I learn in cognitive behavior therapy consist of the following parts:
- Cognitive behavior therapy
- Strong anonymous feelings
- 751
- Feelings scared
- Accepting comments selectively
- Mad as Hell
One of the assignment of CBT two weeks ago was to find the psychical sensations associated with feeling angry.
Seeing as how easy it was to find the psychical sensation associated with feeling fear I didn’t expect that to be very hard. But it turned out to be impossible.
Although I’ve been angry several times in the last two weeks I never noticed that I was angry until the anger passed. So I did notice that being angry causes you to raise your voice. And I noticed that I have trouble expressing myself when I’m angry. I kind of loose the ability to talk.
But I don’t know how it feels.
Talking about this with the psychiatrist, he suggested to investigate whether I have some thought or feeling just before I get angry. So if I can’t recognize my anger by the psychical sensation I might at least be able to recognize it by the thoughts I have just before.
That assignment turned out to be far more easier then I expected. You would think that if you aren’t aware of your feeling of anger you wouldn’t know what happens just before you get angry. But that turned out to be obvious.
I’m always commenting on myself. Or actually I’m always imaging people commenting on me.
Turns out that when I imagine someone talking me down, I feel scared. When I imagine someone giving me a comment in which he tells me that he didn’t listen to something I had to say, I feel anger.
After I found that, I figured I should go to the next level. Knowing what scares and angers me, I should be able to avoid getting those feelings altogether.
But I’ve tried for years to stop myself from imagining people who are commenting on me. I’ve never succeeded and I really don’t know how I could. Further more the comments I imagine that people are giving me are based on comments I really get from people. They frighten and anger me just as much when I get them for real as when I imagine it happening.
Thinking about something a Steve Pavlina says somewhere in his blog: You can decide for yourself which comments have meaning for you and which don’t.
Sometimes people are only commenting because it’s easier for them to let you do the work then to do the work themselfs.
I decided to only accept two kinds of comments:
- Comments about things I can actually change.
- Comments about things that are my responsibility.
This is the point I reached last wednesday. After living with these rules for two days it seemed as though all my problems were solved.
I came across several situation where my feelings about myself improved significantly after using these rules. Some of those situations only existed in my imagination while others were actually happening.
The most important one was when I told my father that I had found out that something I used to fight about with my mother really wasn’t my fault. Most autistics have this problem.
But he didn’t believe me!
That horrified me until I realized that it really didn’t matter anymore. This isn’t something I can change, whether he believes me or not. It’s not my responsibility to decide what he believes. And last but not least I been living on own for the better part of 30 years so he can’t really hurt me.
I really expected that this would be the end of my problems. That I would stop talking to myself and start drawing and writing art reviews again.
But it didn’t. The talking to myself has actually gotten worse. I can’t find the energy to draw and to write reviews. (Although I will be publishing the blog carnival next wednesday.)
But the anger and the fear are gone!
I just have to figure out what’s next.
Dealing with anger by selectively listening to comments. The series about what I learn in cognitive behavior therapy consist of the following parts: Cognitive behavior therapy Strong anonymous feelings 751...
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by Henk ter Heide on Monday October 20, 2008
Recognizing some more feelings.
The series about what I learn in cognitive behavior therapy consist of the following parts:
- Cognitive behavior therapy
- Strong anonymous feelings
- 751
- Feelings scared
- Accepting comments selectively
- Mad as Hell
The thing is.
When you’re writing a series of articles about the therapy you’re doing to learn to recognize your feelings, you’re tempted to wanting to write the causes of all those new feelings you find. But it doesn’t always work that way.
Last week I was going to write an article about the link between friendship and fear. But it didn’t feel right.
(That’s one of those strange things of being autistic: How can you feel that something doesn’t feel right if you don’t know what you’re feeling?
I’m told that is because reacting to a feeling is regulated by one part of the brain and recognizing a feeling is regulated by an other part. That second part of the brain doesn’t work as it should in autistics. But it’s still very strange.)
Last week I discovered that the always present feeling of cold has nothing to do with autism.
Apparently I’m afraid of something and have been so for years. Only I don’t know what it is that I’m afraid of.
Last night I found an other sign of fear.
I’m about 30 kilo over weight as of result of my ever present feeling of hunger. I’ve tried to start a diet several times but every time the feeling of hunger wins out.
Last night I had two opposing feelings.
On the one hand I had the feeling my tummy would burst but at the same time I had a feeling of hunger.
So I eat. About twice as much as I would have eaten on a normal day. The feeling that my tummy would burst became much stronger. But still I had the feeling of hunger.
Thinking about it, it became clear that I was interpreting this feeling wrong.
So what could it be.
Luckily I know the list of psychical sensations associated with feeling scared. Just like a few weeks ago I found that knowing a list and recognizing a feeling are two separate things. But when you start thinking about what a feeling could mean it’s far more easier if you know the list.
In this case I have a fairly nasty feeling in my throat.
I used to associate this feeling with being sick. But some 20 years ago I found that eating something would make this feeling go away. So I concluded that it probably would have something to do with feeling hungery.
But now it’s clear that concussion was false. This is also a feeling of fear.
(Of course eating when you’re scared will give you the feeling that you’re in control and then the feeling of fear will pass.)
So I’m scared.
And I’ve been scared for at least the last 20 years.
And I have no clue as to why I’m scared.
It’s actually a nice to know that I’m scared.
As strange as that may sound.
Recognizing some more feelings. The series about what I learn in cognitive behavior therapy consist of the following parts: Cognitive behavior therapy Strong anonymous feelings 751 Feelings scared Accepting comments...
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) I will be able to publish the 4th edition of the Art Showcase on the 26th of March.
Accepting comments selectively
by Henk ter Heide on Sunday October 26, 2008
Dealing with anger by selectively listening to comments.
The series about what I learn in cognitive behavior therapy consist of the following parts:
One of the assignment of CBT two weeks ago was to find the psychical sensations associated with feeling angry.
Seeing as how easy it was to find the psychical sensation associated with feeling fear I didn’t expect that to be very hard. But it turned out to be impossible.
Although I’ve been angry several times in the last two weeks I never noticed that I was angry until the anger passed. So I did notice that being angry causes you to raise your voice. And I noticed that I have trouble expressing myself when I’m angry. I kind of loose the ability to talk.
But I don’t know how it feels.
Talking about this with the psychiatrist, he suggested to investigate whether I have some thought or feeling just before I get angry. So if I can’t recognize my anger by the psychical sensation I might at least be able to recognize it by the thoughts I have just before.
That assignment turned out to be far more easier then I expected. You would think that if you aren’t aware of your feeling of anger you wouldn’t know what happens just before you get angry. But that turned out to be obvious.
I’m always commenting on myself. Or actually I’m always imaging people commenting on me.
Turns out that when I imagine someone talking me down, I feel scared. When I imagine someone giving me a comment in which he tells me that he didn’t listen to something I had to say, I feel anger.
After I found that, I figured I should go to the next level. Knowing what scares and angers me, I should be able to avoid getting those feelings altogether.
But I’ve tried for years to stop myself from imagining people who are commenting on me. I’ve never succeeded and I really don’t know how I could. Further more the comments I imagine that people are giving me are based on comments I really get from people. They frighten and anger me just as much when I get them for real as when I imagine it happening.
Thinking about something a Steve Pavlina says somewhere in his blog: You can decide for yourself which comments have meaning for you and which don’t.
Sometimes people are only commenting because it’s easier for them to let you do the work then to do the work themselfs.
I decided to only accept two kinds of comments:
This is the point I reached last wednesday. After living with these rules for two days it seemed as though all my problems were solved.
I came across several situation where my feelings about myself improved significantly after using these rules. Some of those situations only existed in my imagination while others were actually happening.
The most important one was when I told my father that I had found out that something I used to fight about with my mother really wasn’t my fault. Most autistics have this problem.
But he didn’t believe me!
That horrified me until I realized that it really didn’t matter anymore. This isn’t something I can change, whether he believes me or not. It’s not my responsibility to decide what he believes. And last but not least I been living on own for the better part of 30 years so he can’t really hurt me.
I really expected that this would be the end of my problems. That I would stop talking to myself and start drawing and writing art reviews again.
But it didn’t. The talking to myself has actually gotten worse. I can’t find the energy to draw and to write reviews. (Although I will be publishing the blog carnival next wednesday.)
But the anger and the fear are gone!
I just have to figure out what’s next.
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