Back to the Art Depot...

Our main destination was the Depot,

We were lucky enough to score free tickets for a 10-minute tour of one of the storage compartments, Strangely blamed on COVID restrictions, no photography was allowed. Luckily those same restrictions limited our group to just six people so the tour guide mostly spoke English for our majority’s sake.

This was taken under one of the glass walkways across the building.

We saw some workers packing up a painting, likely for shipping to another museum. 

We also saw someone examining a wooden biblical sculpture. 

The freight elevator is massive, which is understandable considering the size of some of the works of art. 

Veronica captured folks admiring the view.

An added bonus during our visit was that the private collection sponsored by RaboBank was open. The Shooting Lesson was a large-scale piece made out of colored Styrofoam. 

Back to Rotterdam...

At the end of the January, we headed to Rotterdam with Veronica and Brett, who was visiting after spending Christmas with his family in San Diego. 

We covered a lot of ground, including Het Wasserij, the sustainable fashion incubator…. 

…this pretty gazebo…

….and the Art Depot both during the day and again at night to see the light show after surviving eating dinner outside at Brewdog.

We also passed this adorable mini-bieb. (As a side note, we now pass four mini-biebs on the route to our local train station.)

 

Spotted on Trail...

In addition to spotting some deer, we also saw this funky door on a tree...

…hiding a blue hand with a thumb up.

In another there were happy gnomes waiting for Spring.

Shhh! What do you suppose this sculpture is doing in that bush?

I always love reflections and appreciate the combination of art amongst nature.

 

Any Excuse to Hash...

Not that we need much of an excuse to hash, when we heard that Cockatool, the harrier who organized the Eurohash Scottish cruise, was in town, we wanted to see him. As expected, he made the trail quite entertaining. Here he was trying to convince Opee to go across that log to search for trail in the bog, but Opee didn’t fall for it.

And here he was racing Opee to the top of the playground...

…and convincing Opee to go through this sculpture...

...which he also crawled through. 

Eventually the walkers and runners joined together at the drink stop.

After the circle back at the start, a bunch of us headed over to Kompaan for some real beer. 
 

January Full Moon...

Opee started the New Year with haring the first FILTH Hash of 2022 in Leiden. It’s always nice to have Veronica hash with us with the added bonus that she takes incredible night shots. Of course, it helped that she has a steadier hand and newer phone, and there was no wind.

While our headlamps definitely made us look like dorks, I must admit that I really love mine.

 

Love Ox-Alien...

My favorite Rotterdam street artist is definitely Ox-Alien. His signature is the alien with an O and X for eyes, which he started painting in 2004. A Rotterdam native, his art is scattered all over the city.

This particular piece has an interesting history. When an entire block of houses was demolished because of bad foundations, one family refused to sell their home that had been in their family since 1903. 

It was a gift to cheer up the family after the facade of their house had to be taken out to accommodate the pile driving machine for the new foundations. 

We spotted this one on an older building under construction. 

 

De Wasserij: A Fashion Incubator

Until the early 1990s, De Wasserij was an industrial laundromat for the adjacent hospital. In 2019 it reopened as an incubator for innovative fashion. 

Since creativity flows there, there lots of artwork throughout the building, which happened to be closed when we arrived. Lucky for us someone walked out and we managed to get in and then one of the designers offered to show us around.

Saskia Markx specializes in upcycling leftover and vintage silk fabrics into beautiful scarves through her silkscreening skills. Some of her fabrics are crazy long, so she often uses this communal workspace, where she also hosts workshops. It was impressive to learn that she designed the uniforms for both the employees and visitors to the Art Depot.