They come to say goodbye early – it gets warm again today, and their car only has AWOº no Airco. It was a nice surprise to welcome them.
I’m just dreamily watching my future epoxy project
They arrived late in the afternoon, and didn’t really want to leave. A bit hesitant: “Do you perhaps have something like a cold drink? A beer or something?” Sure, it’s weather for that, but: “I will put a few bottles in the freezer now, then they’ll be cold enough in ten minutes.” That is greatly appreciated: “We need to set up the tent, then that works out fine.”
If I come to bring the cold beers after those ten minutes, they’d like to take a look at the mosaics. That is fine of course. I had no idea that I was dealing with an artist, so I apologized for the fact that it’s a bit messy in the big room. There are a few projects waiting for me to take the next steps. “Ah yes” says Antoine, “we always have projects, don’t we?”
A mosaic of a few donkeys, and a set-up for a table top of epoxy
“Look, people took their bath here, because the water is healing for skin diseases,” I talk while we’re standing at the entrance of a bathroom where the water still flows through the bath, “it has a temperature of almost 30º, warmed up by the earth, and many people came here to cure from skin diseases.”
“Can we drink it?” Delphine asks, and yes: “The water still is of great quality, we drink it every day!”
Antoine turns around and points to the mosaic: “Is that the next one?” I answer smiling: “It has been there for a while, I am now working on the renovation of a house, and I am distracted and fascinated by epoxy.”
I point to the table top: “Look, I made a set-up here, because I wanted to see how this works on a black surface. And now I have to dare to do it …”
What turns out? Antoine always worked with clay, and is now working on a very large project. He was asked to make a hundred or more statues. He makes them with …. epoxy. How about that? What a wonderful coincidence! Epoxy is not that hard to work with, but you have to everything right. Mistakes are all final, immediately. And if you do something for the first time, it is not excluded that you make mistakes.
Then it is great to get advice from an experienced epoxy artist
“What you actually need is a vacuum pump,” he says, “That prevents you from getting bubbles. Have you already watched tutorials?” I nod. “Then you probably already know that you can stir what you want, but without vacuum pump you always get bubbles. And we don’t want that. Working with epoxy is not difficult – just do everything right. And you have to use a mask and gloves because it is toxic.”
He searches for photos on his cell phone. I put my hand in front of my mouth of surprise.
“Wow, how beautiful that is! Oh, look!” Delphine is laughing and nodding next to him. She clearly is very proud, and rightfully so: unfortunately I’m not allowed to reveal what this project is about from him, because must we wait for the opening of it, but there’s plenty of beautiful things to view on his Instagram-account.
I’m over the threshold, I’m going to get started!
º AWO – All Windows Open
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We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal.
We started to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa.
You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.
Since Covid we rent the houses for a longer period of time, not as holiday houses anymore.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation.
In the weekend we publish it on Bluesky, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.