THE MAGIC OF CLAY

How her grandfather’s furniture workshop and years of global encounters have inspired the amazing works of Dutch artist Petra de Vree. In recent years, Vietnam has been her focus.

Petra with a sculpture, inspired the Vietnamese Nypa fruit.

The first thing you would notice in Petra de Vree’s living room is the incredibly beautiful dining table, big enough to accommodate 12 people. The table is in massive wood and looks like it weighs half a ton. She designed it herself during her years in Bolivia.

Petra designed her own dining table during her years in Bolivia.

“The carpenters had a Caoba tree brought directly from the forest, a tree big enough to cut a 14 feet piece of wood,” says Petra. 

The texture and smell of fresh wood in processing has played an important role in her creative efforts since her childhood in a small, pittoresk village in the Netherlands.

“My grandfather was a furniture maker and my father a carpenter, and early on I started making things out of leftovers in their workshop. At the same time, I often went with my father to pick vegetables, getting the feeling of soil in my hands. This led me into the magic of clay.”

Petra does not work with just any clay. She prefers the black clay of her own country.

“When we left for Bangladesh in 2014, I brought 600 kilos of Dutch clay with me, and the remaining clay moved on with us, when we moved to Hanoi in 2017. I still have enough for a year or two.”

Petra’s works from Bangladesh is displayed in her studio.

Petra’s unique clay sculptures has indeed resonated around the world, wherever she has lived and worked as an artist. Her works are clearly inspired by the local scene, be it Ghana, Bolivia, Nepal, Guatemala, Bangladesh or most recently Vietnam. 

Petra’s husband is a biologist and an anthropologist with a long career in Dutch development assistance programmes around the world for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Along their way through the world, she has set up her own space as a professional artist.

Lady of the Lamps

“In Ghana the called me ‘The Lady of the Lamps’, because I started a lamp production in cooperation with the local blacksmith,” says Petra with a grin. 

In Bangladesh, they made this fascination documentary The Beauty of Clay , where you can learn more about her works.

Just a few weeks ago, Petra’s works were exhibited at Hanoi Studio Gallery.  A sculpture, titled ‘Da Song’ (Vietnamese for Living Rock) struck me immediately as perfect addition to my own modest art collection. The asymmetric and rough features are obviously inspired by Halong Bay, topped off with the fine features of a human face.  Inevitably, the ‘Da Song’ moved in with me yesterday, now sharing my magnificent view of the Red River.

Female strength and beauty are recurrent themes in Petra’s works throughout her career:

“Born between two boys I liked the kind of games they were playing, or other things they were doing, so I played with them. But if they gave me a certain roll because of being a girl I felt the injustice of not being a boy.  Deep inside I knew I would be capable to do the same as them or what was expected from them.  Nowadays I like to show with my sculptures the talents of women. It makes me really happy to see the younger female generations, women like Jacinda Ardern and Amanda Gorman, taking their space and being a positive inspiration for girls.”

In Hanoi, Petra has also started her own art courses in her To Ngoc Van studio.  Some 20 students are learning how to cope with the mysteries of ceramics.  From the works, I saw there, including a nicely crafted dragon, it looks like Petra will leave another living legacy behind here, when she and her husband move on to their next destination. 

LÆREMESTEREN ER GÅET BORT

– DET KRÆVER IKKE DET STORE TALENT AT OPSPORE ULOVLIGHEDER. DET GÆLDER OM AT AFSLØRE DE LOVLIGE URIMELIGHEDER.

Sådan lød en af de centrale journalistiske ambitioner, som jeg og andre unge journalister fik venligt, men bestemt terpet ind af vores læremester Jørgen Flindt Pedersen, som døde i dag 80 år gammel.

Det var en meget stor dag, da Jørgen ringede til mig i maj 1988: “Det er en bedrift, at du har skrevet en nuanceret bog om Egon Weidekamp. Vi har lige mistet Lasse Ellegaard. Kunne du ikke tænke dig at træde i hans sted?”

Jeg revnede af stolthed den dag og tilgav Jørgen det fuldt og helt, da jeg senere fandt ud, at vi var hele tre journalister, der blev hyret til i fællesskab at fylde Fyrtårnet Ellegaards journalistiske vandrestøvler ud.

Det blev nogle fantastiske år på Det Fri Aktuelt under Jørgens utrættelige journalistiske indpiskning. Han havde meget svært ved at holde sig til sin egen jobbeskrivelse som Chefredaktør.

Han ville være med selv på de dagsorden-sættende historier. Jeg husker en dag, hvor jorden for alvor var begyndt at brænde under fødderne på finansmanden Klaus Riskær Pedersen, som på et tidspunkt havde arbejdet som researcher for Jørgen i DR. Med Jørgens hjælp fik jeg en interview-aftale med den belejrede Riskær i hans herskabslejlighed dør om dør med Amalienborg. I sidste øjeblik stod Jørgen ved mit skrivebord med et: “Har du noget imod at jeg tager med?”

Min rolle blev i praksis at tage noter og skrive artikel-udkastet, og det blev selvfølgelig et af de bedste interviews jeg nogensinde har haft en aktie i. Et andet typisk Jørgen-øjeblik kom, da han modstræbende bevilgede mig en reportage-rejse for at besøge alle borgerkrigens parter i Cambodia. “Det er en rigtigt godt koncept du har lavet, jeg ville bare ønske det var mig selv, der skulle afsted,” sagde han – og mente det.

Mennesket Jørgen kom jeg for alvor til at mærke, da jeg knækkede sammen efter nogle barske oplevelser i journalistikkens tjeneste og blev sygemeldt. Et par dage senere lå der et håndskrevet brev postkassen. Jørgen fortalte, hvordan han selv var brudt sammen med et angstanfald på Storebæltsfærgen og var bogstaveligt talt blevet samlet op fra gulvet af folketingsmedlem Birte Weiss, som tilfældigvis var med samme færge. “Siden da har jeg altid gået rundt med stesolider i lommen, og det skal man ikke skamme sig over,” skrev han.

Et stærkt vemodigt minde er Jørgens tale ved redaktionschef Rolf Gecklers begravelse. Rolf var ikke fyldt 35, da han tabte kampen mod kræften. Jørgens farvel til Rolf var noget af det mest ubærligt smukke, jeg har hørt.

Vore veje skiltes, da Jørgen blev direktør på TV2, og jeg selv kort efter forlod journalistikken til fordel for Udenrigsministeriet. Der gik næsten 20 år, før vi blev genforenet i Hanoi, hvor han og Birgitte boede hos mig. Jørgen medbragte et eksemplar af sine erindringer ‘Hjerteblod’ med en dedikation, som gjorde mig lige så kisteglad som dengang med Ellegaard. Jeg sidder og bladrer i den nu, mens tårerne triller mere end en anelse.

Under Jørgens første besøg herude arrangerede vi en aften for herboende danskere, hvor Jørgen fortalte om sine oplevelser, da han dækkede Vietnam-krigen for TV-Avisen. Han tryllebandt en fyldt sal inde på Hilton-hotellet. Jeg havde også Jørgen og Birgitte med på min ‘Hanoi History Mystery Tour’, og han kvitterede året efter med en magisk rundvisning i sit elskede Kerteminde.

Det var også ved den lejlighed, at Jørgen kom med forslaget om, at vi sammen skulle lave den ultimative dokumentar om de infame langtids-følger af ‘Agent Orange’, som det amerikanske luftvåben sprøjtede ud over Vietnam. Jørgen havde allerede spottet hovedpersonen: 20-årige Hoan, der var født uden ben og med en arm. Hun havde skrevet til præsident Obama og bedt om hjælp på vegne af hundrede tusinder vietnamesiske ofre. Jørgen havde synopsen i hovedet, og få måneder senere var han og Birgitte tilbage i Hanoi.

Vi diskuterede projektet videre i detaljer, mens han lige lavede en dokumentar-udsendelse om en dansk, pensioneret lærer der knoklede som frivillig på et provinshospital i Bao Loc. På den sidste dag i Hanoi, gav han mig en liste at arbejde videre med. “Vi ses snart igen,” sagde han. Men det gjorde vi ikke. Nogle få måneder senere fik jeg den triste meddelelse om hans slagtilfælde. Endnu tristere er det at vide, at Jørgen nu er helt væk.

Æret være hans minde.

WOUNDS WITHOUT HEALING

Today I hand over my blog to two distinguished poets, one inspired by the other in a truly moving symbiosis. Take a few moments and listen to Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai and Dan Shea

TEARS OF QUẢNG TRỊ

by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

After the last American soldiers
had left Vietnam
and grass had grown
scars onto bomb craters,
I took some foreign friends to Quảng Trị,
once a fierce battlefield.

I was too young for war
to crawl under my skin
so when I sat with my friends
at a roadside café, sipping tea,
enjoying the now-green landscape,
I didn’t know how to react
when a starkly naked
woman rushed towards us, howling.

Her ribs protruded like the bones
of a fish which had been skinned.
Her breasts swaying like long mướp fruit,
and her womanly hair a black jungle.

I was too young to know
what to say when the woman
shouted for my foreign friends
to return her husband and children to her.

Stunned, we watched her fight against villagers
who snatched her arms and dragged her away from us.
‘She’s been crazy,’ the tea seller said.
‘Her house was bombed.
Her husband and children…
she’s been looking for them ever since.’

My friends bent their heads.
‘But the war was here forty-six years ago,’ I said.
‘Some wounds can never heal.’ The tea seller shrugged.

And here I was, thinking green grass
could heal bomb craters into scars.

SOME SCARS NEVER HEAL

by Dan Shea

Inspired by

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai‘s

poem Tears of Quang Tri. 

Green Marine deployed to

Quang Tri Province, Viet Nam 

August – October 1968

occupation machine gunner

The thunder of artillery

was a heartbeat of war

death danced to it’s tune

helicopters kept the rhythm

Mountain Jungles took 

our breath away, a sniper’s

bullet sang, you don’t belong

a marine fell, baptized in blood

Death tapped me on 

my shoulder, I refused 

the dance, a mortar shell

a vibrating cymbal in my head

It was over fifty two years

ago, some scars never heal

war was wrong, I an enemy

we should have been friends.

A WRONG FLAG IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME

Today, I am handing over my blog to Viet Thanh Nguyen: “What these particular Vietnamese have done is treasonous , shameful, and stupid. They own this behaviour. And so do those who didn’t march and continue to support Trump.”

By Viet Thanh Nguyễn

Vietnamese Americans flew the South Vietnamese flag at the attempted coup.

Even mainstream conservatives are calling this sedition. Too bad it took the storming of the U.S. Capitol for them to finally realize that Trump has always been a danger to the country, and believes only in himself, not the GOP and certainly not the entire USA.

And some Vietnamese Americans, who fled an authoritarian regime, who have always cast themselves as patriots, are going all-in on aligning themselves with a pro-Trump, cult of personality movement. that is inextricably intertwined with white resentment, white privilege, white supremacy, and apologizing for the Confederacy and defending it.

I am hearing from Vietnamese Americans who are pained by seeing their relatives continue to endorse this. I don’t know what to say to them. We love our relatives, who love us. They are good people. But everyone has to take responsibility at some point for what they believe, what they say, and what they do.

And what these particular Vietnamese have done is treasonous , shameful, and stupid. They own this behaviour. And so do those who didn’t march and continue to support Trump.

Việt Thanh Nguyễn is the best selling author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Sympathizer and several non-fiction works, including The Refugees and Nothing Ever Dies.