Ode to Margaretha Louwers | She lived everywhere and nowhere, but always somewhere

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Dear Margaret,

I want to honour you today, 21 September 2024. Just today, because it would have been your 76th birthday. On 11 May 2023, we each went our separate ways. I am still here and I miss you. We shared so much for so long. That's why this ode to you, from me.

I was your first love

Early on I had a strong attraction to you. You wanted to leave Brabant for me at 17. To follow your heart: an education in art. But it became Utrecht, the Academy of Expression. Your mother thought there was more bread in that.

You passed the Academy successfully. To turn your 'zachte 9' (soft g) into a hard one, you spent evenings practising ‘goddamn, goddamn’. You had left the Catholic South behind you and the neighbours must have had some thoughts about that. It was the early 1970s and you were involved in setting up bookshop 'De Rooie Rat' (The Red Rat). This bookshop grew into the largest left-wing political bookshop in the Netherlands with the aim of providing the left-wing scene in Utrecht with left-wing political reading material.

But I kept ogling. You moved and were accepted at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. An unplanned pregnancy resulted in single parenthood in your graduation year. 1)

‘As a qualified artist, I now had to make a living for my baby and me. I had painted and etched, lithographed and drawn, I had had art history and illustration, nude modelling, moving model and still life, but earning a living, no, that had never been taught to me in any form.’ 2)

How hard you worked.

I gave you a workplace

Initially, you made large (graphic) installations, which were followed by drawings that were mostly narrative in nature, created from your memory and subconscious.

‘They are drawings that dare. They dare to describe the fear evoked by disorder. They try to give shape to very important facts of life, with the disillusionment that comes with it. The drawings play with the fact that life has no perfect order, that it is not a completed story, like a romantic film or a fairy-tale dream. Life is more like a story made up of individual pieces. So these are very personal drawings, belonging to a personal disordered story. They are drawings that do not give peace of mind. On the contrary.’ 3)

Later I would say: I had to go back to Brabant to find out that I am a real Amsterdam.

You were proud of the project ‘A correspondence in pictures’.

‘For years, Sandra Kruisbrink and you worked in the same studio complex, in the heart of Amsterdam. During those years, little by little, you became more and more familiar with each other's drawings. When Sandra left for Barcelona for a year, intensive correspondence between the Netherlands and Spain ensued. But instead of letters, you sent each other a black-and-white photograph every other week, with the assignment - and it applied to both of you - to make a drawing based on this image.’ 4)

The project produced beautiful work. Including the drawing used for your obituary. Two hands each with a boat on a silk thread: one for life and one for death. 5) At your funeral in the coach house of Park Frankendael, Sandra shared ‘that no one could describe her work better than you’.

And was your stage

You participated in Open Ateliers routes many times. In the city district where you then lived, where you worked in your studio or wherever you were invited. In your ‘Closed Atelier Route’ project, you recorded the path you took through the city. From one studio to another, 11 places in total.

‘I retreated to work there. Or to sit there and stare. To store my ever-expanding work there. Rather than a nice house, I prefer a good studio. Because studios make up my asylum. But one workplace is not the other. I spent years in some studios, others were at my disposal for short periods of time. At some studios I made long days, others I went to avoid. All of them were special. They allowed me to leave my home and still stay with myself. They gave me the opportunity to move, without falling into the displacement that usually comes with it.’ 6)

I was sometimes too much for you

Not only did you change studios regularly. You changed homes even more often. First alone, later with your daughter, later again with daughter and cats, then with only cats and finally alone again. 7) Always noises from neighbours were the straw that made your bucket overflow. And were moved out. I admired how, when the measure was full, you created new options.

Once, when an advertisement came along offering a guest studio in Peel for a year, you immediately wrote an inspired letter of motivation. You were chosen and went back to Brabant. It got you thinking about your ‘roots’:

‘I live temporarily in the south of the country. Aha, people say, back to your roots! Anyone who has ever gone back to their roots knows how that works. Roots no longer exist, time has done its work. Nothing is as it was. If roots do not exist, what is meant by this word? Everything you saw and heard, I guess. And what you smelt and tasted. What you've held in your hands. Roots have made you who you are. You could say: my roots are me. That doesn't seem at all crazy then, to go back to.’ 8)

'Later I would say, ‘I had to go back to Brabant to find out that I am a real Amsterdam.’ 9)

You had started to capture the many places you once lived. Perhaps inspired by your daughter. She described for her geography final exam paper that she had moved eight times before she was 18. She did not even count the Hubertushuis, located in the distinctive coloured building on Plantage Middenlaan and Huize Janna on Middenweg. Both houses supported unwed mothers. It gave you me-time, as they call it these days, for your choir on Tuesdays and a night off on Thursdays.

You didn't get enough time to complete the project on your residential houses, but you did leave a proof of the cover: Where she lived until she moved. 10)

The introduction was also finished and immediately the summary: ‘She lived everywhere and nowhere. But always somewhere.'

You planned to dedicate it to your granddaughters, for whom you were Omadam: Grandma from Amsterdam.

I was a source of income

Making ends meet as an artist was often not easy. To pay the rent - of both house and studio - you sometimes rented rooms to foreign students. With divided success, but you also kept special friendships:

‘Davide came from Italy and studied philosophy. We usually met in the kitchen. Sometimes he would cook Italian for me, with tiramisu for dessert. In the morning, I watched him carefully build up the ingredients layer by layer and cover it with cocoa powder. In the evening, after spaghetti, we each took a big piece of dessert. Perfetto! We ate the remaining portions for breakfast in the morning, forgetting about time as Davide taught me about Plato, Hannah Arendt and Kierkegaard. Since his return to Italy, I have never eaten such good philosophy.’ 11)

You were at home in the many museums, galleries and theatres that house me. You organised tours and gave regular lectures and courses on ‘looking at modern art’. You had a loyal bevy of course participants. You also gave city tours for the Flemish Cultural Centre ‘De Brakke Grond’ for many years.

... a place to share

‘My books no longer seemed to fit on their shelves and I made a selection of copies I don't need to grow old with. Which I no longer put energy into. But which were good books. In second-hand bookshops, you don't get anything for those copies anymore. You get referred to the thrift shop there. I'd rather give them away then, I decided. I made notes on which I wrote that this book is offered to you by a book lover who cannot throw away books.

I took a tour of the city with a stack of books with those notes, scouring for suitable places to drop my gifts. A covered corridor, an entrance hall, a set-back front doorstep. The rain didn't have to reach it, but the finder did. I imagine a poor student or welfare mother may have wanted to find one of the books. After all, the neighbour from charity is usually yourself.’ 12)

You loved books. After moving house, the first thing on your bookshelves were the bookshelves again. Your huge collection of art books was always expanding. Leaving Scheltema without a new acquisition was unthinkable. And when it was your birthday, everyone would always get a book.

...and of inspiration

Our shared love of the arts came to full glory before the Gay Games in the late 1990s.

‘About a year before the start of the Games, you became (the third) Culture Manager and thus the one who gave the Culture programme a definitive shape with passion, vision and expertise. You put together a good team of staff and volunteers and strengthened ties with numerous participating arts and cultural institutions in Amsterdam.

You arranged for artist Sam Drukker to produce striking sketches of your Culture Department. Through a self-made bulletin and Sam's portraits, you presented the team and the Culture Programme, opc reatively to the rest of your colleagues.

You fought - with the absolute support of sports manager Jip - to ensure that culture became as visible to the outside world as sport and the motto ‘Friendship through Culture and Sports’ was lived up to.

Thank you for everything you have meant for Gay Games Amsterdam 1998. Thanks to you, thousands of visitors and participants from all over the world were able to experience the quality and diversity of art and culture from the lhbti living world in Amsterdam in August 1998.’ 13)

I grew with you
 

You stood at the cradle of a special housing project on Zeeburgereiland. Because 'The elderly should be able to live comfortably in Amsterdam for life'. Together with housing corporation de Alliantie, I provided the opportunity for a new housing concept. A place where all residents have humanism as a shared vision of life: the Acropolis Tower. 14)
 

"Humanists believe in the power of man. Values such as freedom, self-determination, tolerance, equality and personal responsibility are central. Translated to the residential community, this means that residents live by these beliefs, in freedom but with respect and care for each other and our environment. The term “good neighborliness” fits exactly with this: we look out for each other, but respect everyone's freedom and own responsibility.

The Acropolis Tower is emphatically not a care apartment, but we do have an eye and ear for each other." 15)
 

I rejoice in such initiatives. They suit me. And I regret that you didn't get to enjoy the beautiful apartment overlooking the locks for long. You turned out to be ill.

Finally, the Alzheimer's Center was able to diagnose you. It was Progressive Supranuclear Paresis (PSP), a rare brain disease associated with motor symptoms, eye movement disorders and dementia. You received the care you so desperately needed in your last home, the Open Hof in Amsteldorp.

The move to a temporary home during the demolition and construction of a new home, you did not make it. Two weeks earlier I had to say goodbye to you. You were spent.
 

I am proud of you

Your legacy is great. Your works have won a place in homes of lovers. They prove of comfort and keep you alive. Work is still available through various Art Loans and from your overflowing storage.

Your talent for language was at least as great. All your life you wrote from you in the black booklets of Moleskin. And online many of your writings can be found.

"When I write I draw on my memory. I usually do the same when I draw. My memory forms - so to speak - the pantry for my work. And my work, in turn, an ode to my memory." 16)

With this ode to you acquiring an eternal place in a museum of the city, it feels like it was meant to be.

"If you are world-famous as an artist, your name falls in books and magazines and your work is everywhere. If you are not so famous, you dream of a book about your work. Sometimes that dream succeeds. A beautiful book is one less thing to worry about, for the creators and their next of kin. As an artist, you sometimes wonder, if your life's work, with your death, will disappear as much as you do. Or will it stick around for a while? Time will tell, - when you are no longer around....

Be that as it may, relatives find it easier to find a place for a book than for work that has never been sold. The artist does not always succeed in selling the pieces, leaving behind an empty studio. What will the heirs do with it if the creator's own opinion is no longer decisive?

In the worst case, there will be a container into which everything is thrown. Sometimes there will be another exhibition, or a sale. Or everything is given away. Or the studio remains intact for a while. Either way, an artist's work demands a farewell, even if it is not world-famous.

It has been said, works of art are children of the artist. Like real children, they are not easily accommodated as orphans. Parents want it arranged before death where the children will stay when they are no longer there themselves. Similarly, artists want to know their children are safe. With a book, that succeeds. The legacy becomes manageable; the work will not disappear with you immediately." 17)
 

Margaret, you belonged to me

There were few by whom I felt so seen and known, few who fitted me as you did. Unfortunately, our time together ended and two boats now sail their own course:

"Unknown which surprises and thrills, opens new horizons. Unprecedented." 18)

With love,

Your city, Amsterdam

P.S. Inspired by the project “Women of Amsterdam an ode,” I -your daughter- write you into the history of the city where you were so at home and which is no longer the same now that you are no longer there.

Notes:

1. Louwers, M. (1978). Lies.
2. Louwers, M. (2009). Anjeliersstraat, Gesloten Ateliers Route.
3. Dodessini, D. (1999). De wanorde van het leven, inleiding uitgave Margaretha Louwers tekeningen.
4. Wichers, C (2004). Toelich􀆟ng op de tentoonstellingen bij SBK, Project een corresponden􀆟e in beeld.
5. Louwers, M. (2000-2003). Geen 􀆟tel, een corresponden􀆟e in beeld.
6. Louwers, M. (2009). Ten geleide, Project Gesloten Ateliers Route.
7. Louwers, M. (onbekend). Pluis.
8. Louwers, M. (onbekend). Terug naar je roots.
9. Louwers, M. (2009). De stad uit, Gesloten Ateliers Route.
10. Louwers, M (onbekend). Ka􀅌 ontwerp, waar ze woonde tot ze verhuisde.
11. Louwers, M. (2009). Eten tegen het vergeten, ingezonden stuk, Het Parool, 17 april 2009.
12. Louwers, M. (onbekend).
13. Iniatiefgroep Gay Games Amsterdam (2023). In memoriam, website, 25 mei 2023.
14. Louwers, M. (onbekend). Vergadering.
15. Informatiefolder Akropolistoren (2023).
16. Louwers, M. (2009). Eer􀆟jdse objecten, Museum van de Persoonlijke Herinnering.
17. Louwers, M. (2015). Nagelaten werk, website Open Ateliers Nieuwmarkt.
18. Louwers, M. (onbekend). Spreuk op kunstwerk, in serie (foto).