Visiting a friend…
 We kept this little studio space we lived in Belgium, before getting our home in Austin. It’s become a creative haven for us, and many others over the past ten  years of so (maybe 12 now). And a place of creative exchange with our many european friends. So thankful for what it carries and continues to carry for us and others.
 Always great to come back. Sometimes, we spend more of the year over here, but recently we’ve been renovating our art house home in Austin, so have used it more as a base of landing and restoration when hanging in Europe. Such a love-space with tiers (and some tears) of memory for us. Good to be back.
 Nice working on our little studio here in Antwerp this week, and getting to be monastic for a bit. Always like awakening to church bells, sea gulls and ship fog horns (some of my favorite things conjoining, convening, co-mingling in mid air!)-like waking up in a morning poem, or a Chagall painting.
 From here, i can see three churches, and europe’s first skyscraper (not as beautiful as the churches). Good to be back friend! Love this little monastic haven studio.
 Getting it ready for the next monks today, along with the church bells and the sea gulls (zeemeeuwen). Nice Saturday in Antwerp. Indian Summer here.
  Pieter Bos (dutch author of “Theology of the Nations”), who i spoke with several times about coming down here, calls this city a creative friend. I’ve always experienced that to be true. Feeling welcome, is needed in our times, as is friendship. So glad to see you again friend.
 These photos (sorry been in a pano mood lately) are just in and from our studio apartment space, and our courtyard garden with fish pond-things like, our czech spices, because Amy learned how to translate all the spices when we lived in Prague, and gifts from friends over the years (some wedding gifts from dear friends, some left by strangers who passed through this way once, some left their spiritual journals or art sketches; i love how spaces collect layers of meaning over time-and how each layer matters, “each person we’ve known and dared to love is part of the exhibition of our lives!”).
  Sorry for the longevity of my musings, just cleaning this space today-i like to integrate art with the seemingly mundane chores of saturday cleaning- and it made me thankful again for the grand narrative of our lives, and how they collage with one another! Life is beautiful also in the end, as well as difficult.
  I’ll put some up of our hood up next. Enjoying being monastic here this week.
 Thanks Antwerp, good to be back friend. We’ve loved being here over the years- it’s good to know we will always be friends. And good to see you again.
  And this is also of course to prove to my wife, that i did in fact clean the space today, as I promised! Nice to see it shining again!