Susanne Schirdewahn

A Fernweh-card from SUSANNE SCHIRDEWAHN, sent from Berlin to my Berlin adress, along with a corresponding homesickness - postcard. I got to know Susanne he first time some month after my stay in Nebraska City and invited her to take part at the project nevetheless. We met during an interview she with me about the Anonymous Drawings Project last summer.

Susanne is an extremly mulitfacated artist: She writes, draws and paints. Her newspaper columns for Berliner Zeitung are always fun to read - they show a lot of her fine sense of humor matched by a great sensibility for the people she talks with.

Ilse Ermen

Another postcard from ILSE ERMEN. Life is good! Ilse took the motive of an original postcard from Ann Arbour, Michigan / 1995

Missy H. Dunaway

A postcard from Missy H. Dunaway, a visual artist, currently living in New York. Missy and I met at the Vermont Studio Center in 2011 - she had her studii right next to mine.  When we met at VSC Missy worked on huge watercolours with feathers.

In 2013 Missy was awarded a Fulbright Research Grant for Painting in Turkey where she studied Anatolian textiles and learned how to weave traditional kilims and knotted pile carpets. In 2014 she was awarded a John Anson Kittredge Educational Grant to extend her research abroad. She made a book with ink drawings about her traveling experiences "Standing in Asia, Looking at Europe, Thinking of New York"

Lutz Bielefeld

Another two, belated postcards from LUTZ BIELEFELDT. These cards have been sent from Vienna, Austria. The Austrian postal service seems to be less efficient than the one in Egypt. (Lutz mailed his first postcard from Cairo, and it arrived way before I left Nebraska City)

"Dear Anke, Bananas,  pure oil, and a beautiful car. What else could you want!"

"One Ferneweh-milestone, or - to be more precise- a couple of them!"
http://lutzbielefeldt.de/

Carlos Silva

A postcard from CARLOS SILVA, a Berlin based artist. This postcard arrived in Nebraska City 1 week after my departure. A late, colorful surprise for the nice people at the art center. Carlos was born adn raised in Cali, Colombia. He studied architecture and fine arts in Bogota. 1999 Carlos moved to Berlin, where he lives and works ever since. Carlos is visual artist and a furniture designer. His art can be seen here and the furniture design here. If one day it will rain money for me, I would buy his white "Bücherregal S01" right away, along with one of his colorful mazy motion-paintings…

Carlos and I  know each other because we live in the same neighborhood and we have a couple of mutual friends and interests. Carlos' studio ins located a the Ateliergemeinschaft Milchhof, same as Inken Reinert, Heike Gallmeier, Marc Haselbach and Elisabeth Sonneck, who sent postcards to Nebraska as well. Carlos also contributed several times work of his for my Anonymous Drawings Project. Besides his art, architecture & furniture design Carlos loves soccer: not only watching the games on TV, but  he is also as an enthusiastic soccer-coach for kids. http://carlossilva.org

Nanne Meyer

A postcard from NANNE MEYER, sent from Japan, where she currently travels. Nanne is a Berlin based artist, born 1953 in Hamburg. She studied at the HfbK Hamburg. After here studies she was awarded a DAAD Stipend in London, where she studied animation at the Saint Martins School of Art. In 1986–87 she was awarded with a one-year stipend at the Deutsche Akademie Villa Massimo in Rome, after which she lived in Frankfurt/Main for several years. In 1993 she moved to Berlin, where since 1994 she teaches as Professor at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee. In 2013 she received the women artists' prize NRW for drawing and in 2014 the Hannah-Höch Preis in Berlin. Nanne is one of the first women artists of the postwar generation who works primarily in drawing. La Grand Dame of German drawing!

"Fernweh Good Life From Japan! I hope my Japanese with the Fuji rock will reach you at far away Nebraska. You don't necessarily have to move mountains. If you dress as a rock (German: rock=skirt) the mountains  move along with you. This way heaviness becomes ease - if that is not the good life!" Nanne's and my paths cross quite often - always when it comes to drawing-related exhibitons and tand events. Nanne has also been invited to damensalon, where we spent a nice and long evening with Stefka Ammon, Veronike Hinsberg, Inken Reinert, Eva-Christina Meier, Nina Torwart and Kertin Gottschalk. A night of meadering talking about meandering drawing and other things, over a delicious dinner and some drinks. http://nannemeyer.de

Inken Reinert

Das schöne Leben = the good life: Available in 40 brilliant colors! A postcard from INKEN REINERT, sent from Berlin Germany. Inken alread sent another postcard a the beginning of my stay in Nebraska. More about her and her work, can bee seen here. Next Sunday, March 15, Inken and her art will be guest at Sonntag Berlin. Sonntag is a social sculpture that takes place the third Sunday afternoon of every month in Berlin, Germany. For each event an artist is invited to show his/her work in a private apartment. The artist's favorite cake is made by April Gertler and Adrian Schiesser and is served with coffee and tea. Inken's favorite cake is a Sachertorte (sacher cake). I loveSachertorte, too and  I will definitely be there, next Sunday!

".. and sometimes the good life tucked around the back of Fernweh, but you always can retrieve it, every moment!"

Alex Klenz

A postcard from ALEX KLENZ, a Berlin based visual artist. He was born 1974 in Bützow, Mecklenburg, Germany. We studied at the same art school, Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee. Alex has quite an affinity to drawing and collaborative projects, which is were we often meet -  literally and as like-minded artists. Alex is the co-founder of the artist group Tennis Elephant and the co-operative gallery Andreas Wendt. In December 2014 a book titled AEOU with a collection of Alex' drawings has been published. Besides art and drawing Alex likes hiking and other sporty activities.

"Dear Anke, the good life exixts. - good luck!"
http://www.alexanderklenz.de/

Katharina Hinsberg

A postcard from KATHARINA HINSBERG, sent from Neuss, Germany. Katharina is a visual artist with a focus on drawing and installations "posing fundamental questions about time, space, and the subjectivity of drawing."  Her work has been widely exhibited in Germany and abroad. Since 2011 Katharina is a professor for conceptual painting at the HBK Saar. She and her work is represented by the gallery Werner Klein in Cologne. 

Katharina and her family live close to Düsseldorf, at the Raketenstation Hombroich which is part of the Museum Insel Hombroich, which was founded by the art collector Karl-Heinrich Müller in 1987."In creating this unique ensemble of art, architecture and landscape, he was true to the tenet of the Impressionist Paul Cézanne – ‘art in parallel to nature’. Museum Insel Hombroich is a special place, away from the bustle of daily routine and fashionable trends. It is an invitation to enter into the adventure of a direct encounter with art and nature. The Museum dispenses with signposts altogether – visitors are free to find their own way in the extensive parkland and make their own discoveries of art and nature alike. This freedom of the spirit is at the heart of the Museum’s particular charm. A day at Museum Insel Hombroich wakens the senses." Last spring Katharina invited Inken Reinert, her sister Veronike Hinsberg an me to stay in her Hombroich-studio in for one week last spring while she was in Italy. Thanks to Katharina's hospitality we were able to create a collaborative drawing, surrounded by the beautiful landscape, the parks of the Hombroich island, the impressive architecture by and the eclectic collection of art.

Steve Snell

A postcard from STEVE SNELL sent from Hastings, Nebraska/USA. Steve is a visual artist and a performance artist: "I like to call my art practice adventure art.  I use the term to describe a performance-based action of adventure, in which I (or someone else) use creativity and imagination to have an exciting and remarkable experience.  These adventures are then transformed through various artistic and popular media in order to build a mythology and share the story with others. Adventure art is an attempt to live life as though it were a movie or at least present the image that it is one."

Steve's adventure art is currently on display at the KHN Center for the Arts in Nebraska City: "Welcome to Adventure Art" He created an immersive art installation for the KHN gallery: Video documentations of his adventures, paintings, watercolors, and various artifacts -  all installed on wood-covered exhibition walls. Steve worked on this complex and detailed installation for quite a while. I saw it growing during my time as a resident artist at KHN.  For the opening reception of this show Steve brought a some of his students of the Hastings College where he teaches painting, digital media, art history, and adventure-art.  Among his students are Jasmine Radetski, Pat Nelsen, Katherine Arias, Lauren Maystrick, Jessica Gonzalez, Lauren Shomaker, Ryann Swanson and Luke Ervin.  http://www.steve-snell.com/

Tamara Arroyo

A postcard from TAMARA ARROYO sent from Madrid, Spain. Tamara is a multitalented visual artist -  she makes site specific installations, objects, animations, and she draws and edited several artist books and created various public art projects. "The work I’ve been doing involves actions in which I observe and interpret the space surrounding me and strike up a dialogue between the real and the imaginary. It is based on real spaces to which I add elements or act through drawings to make them a place for thinking and researching what happened before…–I make installations and on-site drawings and adapt myself to this permanent impermanence, and why the materials used are reflected through photographs."

Tamara joined a group show "Dibujando páginas" at Columpio Galería Madrid the - same exhibiton space where I had a so show 2010. She also took part at the Anonymous Drawings Project several times, this is how we got to know each other.

Heike Gallmeier

A postcard from HEIKE GALLMEIER, sent from Berlin, Germany. Born in Berlin in 1972, Heike studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Mainz and finished her studies in the master class of the sculpture department at the Art Academy Berlin-Weissensee. She lives and works in Berlin. "Heike's works are acts of self-portrayal and escapism, surrogate worlds and projections. She investigates these phenomena working on her spatial arrangements built from everyday materials and found objects (staged photography and installations), as well as by photographing and filming found examples of staged situations and existing sceneries. Painting and photography, set design and performance blend and complement each other. "

"Surrogate landscapes: the pure being as a condition. direct impression of
the unknown. Everything makes sense. the flow of action and thoughts the good life" 

Heike has her studio at Milchhof Berlin, same as Inken Reinert, Marc Haselbach and Elisabeth Sonneck ans many others "Milchof" is a former school in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, now transformed into a studio building for more than 40 artists. Some of Heike's work and a text (in English) can be seen here: http://heikegallmeier.de/pdf/surrogate_landscapes.pdf

Frank Diersch

A postcard from FRANK DIERSCH, sent from Woltersdorf, Germany. (A small town close to Berlin) Frank is a visual artist. Yes, but this is not the right term to describe him. He is "The soldier of drawing" the master of ink drawing. One of these great guys from the former east, who really know how to draw, and to draw and to draw more, and more, obsessively and extremely skillful - in a good and wild way.

Frank was born 1965 in Berlin. His work has been widely exhibited. 1998 he received the Egmont-Schäfer-Award for Drawing. He teached at various art schools such as Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg. Frank is represented by the Gallery Franzkowiak, Berlin. http://www.frank-diersch.de/

Kerstin Gottschalk

"the good life is when I am able ot leave everything like it is, then there this deep humming, the sound of th egood life." A postcard with a small, rectangular magnet. I arrived here in an envelope, sent by KERSTIN GOTTSCHALK, from Berlin, Germany. Kerstin is a visual artist. She creates the most surprising installations with common, easy to find materials. Such as veneers, concrete, wax, confetti, waste paper, stickers, wrapping film and many more. 2000-2007 Kerstin studied at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee with Prof. Katharina Grosse. Kerstin was also one of the organizers of stedefreund berlin, an artist run project space located in 3 different places between the years 2006 - 2012. Stedefreund was a project by twelve Berlin artists who shared the idea of a collecting point for thematic and spatial interventions. I always liked the openings with intelligent, well done art and a good crowd. They definitely left a gap in the Berlin art scene when they had to close the door of their last location Berlin-Mitte. Kerstin's and my paths not only at crossed stedefreund but also at damensalon berlin. damensalon is a private, monthly salon with special guests. Kerstin was part of it for a couple of years and I still am. Kerstin and I also joined Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt in 2008, a postgraduate program for female artists. Besides the art world, Kerstin and I share the passion for the same coffee places in our neighbourhood, where we often meet, by accident.

Corinne Laroche

A postcard from CORINNE LAROCHE, sent from Paris, France. Corinne is a french artist born in 1957. A graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, she lives and works in Berlin and Paris. In 2008 she was awarded the city of Saint-Ouen prize for the arts. Her work was shown in 2009 by the galleries Jordan-Seydoux (Berlin-Paris-Zürich) and Fruehsorge contemporary drawings (Berlin). Recently her works have entered the collections of the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein Artotek and the Artothèque of Angers.

I met Corinne through the Anonymous Drawings Project, at several drawing related art openings in in Berlin, a the art fair Drawing Now in Paris, at private dinners, over coffee and cake, in our studios and elsewhere.

I admire Corinne's ability to create carefully drawn structures and systems without loosing visual lightness and ease.

Gabriella Disler

A postcard from GABRIELLA DISLER, sent from Zurich, Switzerland. Gabriella is a swiss visual artist based in Basel. She makes drawings, photos and side specific installations that deal with light, space, shadows and the interaction of it all.

 I met Gabriella in Basel and Zürich in the context of the Anonymous Drawings Project and the art fair Liste Basel.

"I'm interested in the fleeting glance, which touches the world and yet doesn't fix an image of it"

Katrin Ströbel

A postcard from KATRIN STRÖBEL sent from Stuttgart, Germany. Katrin lives and works in Stuttgart (D), Nice (F) and on travels. She studied visual art, intermedia arts and literature. She holds a PhD in art history and teaches since 2013 as professor for drawing at Villa Arson, école nationale supérieure d'art Nice, France.

Katrin's drawings, installations and videos deal with semiotics, the relation of words and images, (pictorial) languages and cultural codes. Through travel grants and longer stays in Europe but also Africa and America since 2004 (France, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, the U.S. and Peru among others), her work has included more and more intercultural and socio-political questions like impacts of urbanism and architecture, migration, borders, intercultural communication. Besides these rather political or cultural themes, an important subject has been the basic reflections of the meaning and function of contemporary art in so called "western" and "non-western" contexts. Above all Katrin is the founder of "lininenscharen", Stuttgart based platform and network for contemporary drawing. http://www.katrin-stroebel.de

Stefan Riebel

A postcard from STEFAN RIEBEL, sent from Berlin Germany. Stefan asked me to write the above dedication on the ground, somewhere in Nebraska City and then sending him the digital image of this writing. We would print a small edition of postcards. So this postcard is a collaborative work of the both of us, and part of Stefan's conceptual series dedication pieces. I wrote the dedication on the alley, right behind my studio in Nebraska City.

Stefan almost exclusivelyworks in series in the field of space-related performance and conceptual art. He focuses on a non-expressive way to deal with information, statements and descriptions and furthermore he to developes interactive and model-like open structures, processes and concepts. All of his works deal with very basic questions, for instance: what art could be, how something turns into art, what sort of significance art could have, how the relation between art and its audience might be..  He is also the co-founder of the "month of performance art - berlin”and the founder of the splendid „institut für alles mögliche (i-a-m) in Berlin - a highly recommend art&residency-space. "i-a-m" runs spaces, organizes events and openes up free space for experiments and tests of all kinds. It can be seen as an organism, an attitude, an idea, an offer on how artistic collaborations / gatherings / society could look like. Last but not least Stefan often collaborates with Ilse Ermen, among other things they created an ongoing postcard-project called "Abwesenheitsnotitzen" (out-of-office noticifications).

Ilse Ermen

A second postacard from ILSE ERMEN, sent from Lampaul Plouarzel, France.  I made a rough translation form German: "fernweh is my very own motivation, i wanted to go away early in my life, only away from here, the lower rhine. someday, finally, around my 20th birthday, after I laying on a sack at home for one year, I packed my little suitcase and took the train to paris, to register for the entrance examination for the local art academy (which was not quite state of the art, already back then), beach the accepted me over there, i stayed for a while, approx. 6 years. during this entire time and the following period I travelled foam a to b  more frequently: across europe and the near east, south america. (although i never pounded the numbers of all the things one should have seen, i hate tourism) movement became my second nature, and if somebody suggests me to travel for recreation i can only laugh. 4 weeks at the very same place are a recreation already. returning to the village, like many people strive for their retirement, would be the equivalent of a death sentence to me."

Ilse i a conceptual artist with a very close realtionship to language, words and a postcards and many other things.  I always enjoy converstions with Ilse, not only because of her very subtle and intelligent sense of humor.  She really has an eye for the concealed, but nevertheless interesting oddities of life and language. I already recieved another Fernweh postcard from Ilse: here. 
http://www.ilse-ermen.com/

Eva Nikolova

A postcard from EVA NIKOLOVA, Eva is a Bulgarian‐born visual artist, based in New York. She works primarily in drawing, printmaking, hand‐drawn animation and alternative photo processes exploring themes of memory and identity in relation to a sense of place. She holds a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Southern Illinois University and a MFA in Printmaking from Indiana University, Bloomington. In Eva's artist statement I found many topics closely related to "Fernweh..the good life: "My work grows out of a sense of place - a place which, while it is very much part of me, I am no longer a part of. The deep affinity I feel for emblematically Balkan structures and sites is the corollary to the rapid homogenization of space in a world madly rushing towards cultural and economic singularity. But the intense gravitational pull of these images on my immigrant’s imagination is also rooted in a sense of personal dislocation – as much cultural as physical. In grappling with the meaning of “Home”, the house – the archetypal image of home – takes on narratives of memory, longing, desire, and ultimately opens up onto issues of identity. Architecture becomes the allegorical guise through which I explore the connections between iconic cultural objects and the construction of identity and memory - personal and collective, individual and national."

Eva is my studio neighbor at the Art Center in Nebraska City. She is a very nice night owl, she loves to work in her studio during the night time. And she experiments with the most different substances like an alchemist, which is very interesting and mysterious to me. When I am opening my blinds in the early morning sometimes there is still light in Eva's  studio. I found her postcard this morning. I guess she slipped it under my door right before going to bed. Thank you Eva for your nocturnal postcard and this very true definition of the good life. http://evanikolova.com