Proudly nasty, I joined Anja, my mother-in-law Sauci, and millions of others around the world last Saturday to attend the Women’s March. Museum Square in Amsterdam was full of pussy hats, face paint, smiling faces, and righteous indignation.

I don’t often attend protests, not in the last place because I’m cautious …

As part of the Rijksstudio Award 2017 I created a map of Amsterdam. Using high-resolution photographs of 252 individual paintings available in the Rijksmuseum online catalogue, I recreated Amsterdam’s many waters using pieces of sky.

“Slept a little, had a midnight snack, went in for a bathroom break. Slept some more. Basically the life of a four-year-old” she says, and she tells me about her flight to Stockholm. She has been sleeping poorly lately; I say “lately” but I only met her last month, so I don’t know what her sleep hygiene is, although …

In many ways, 2015 was a transformative year for me.

Much of my soundtrack of 2015 is made up of party songs that played at the bars I used to frequent while I was living in Haarlem. The feelings invoked by some of these songs are entirely devoted to a particular crush I would have had at the time.

Each song has the capacity to bring me back …

I offered this confession as part of my confirmation into the Mennonite Church of Haarlem. While I recognize a few details that make me chuckle or cringe, much of what I believe today is reflected in the words below. At the time, I believed this church was the most at-home I would ever be able to feel at church. After I moved away …

“I’ve heard someone compare it to the relationship between a parent and a child. I imagine a child wanting to create a birthday card for his mother, opting to draw her portrait on the cover. Does that child draw a lifelike portrait of his mother? No, but it sure is endearing. I just want to draw the most beautiful portrait I can with …

Christmas break is passing by me like it passes by an ambitious teenager. I greeted all the things I could do with great enthusiasm. Sadly, that feeling quickly turned into terror once I realised two weeks isn’t that long and I need to sleep.

Productivity-wise, man can only fail under such conditions, this I know.

Meanwhile, I keep being amazed by …