We met in 1989. She was still young. I was still young. Probably we both thought we were adults, in that irritating way that only very young people can think.
That was in hotel school. The training that indeed shaped us, laid the foundation for the rest to come. Then we were not friends, more close acquaintances? We did know each other’s ups and downs, and moved in circles that sometimes overlapped. And sometimes drifted away from each other again.
Fast forward. More than 25 years later, we met again in an old coffee factory in Friesland, where Fransje, reteel happy with husband and two children, suddenly appeared (at least to me) to have become a renowned artist. Overwhelmed I was by the colors, the dimensions, the power splashing off the canvases. And I had no walls in my home in Wallonia where these artworks would come into their own. But I promised myself a real Versloot. For when I grew up.
Some more years later, I was living in Sweden. And Fransje and her boys came to stay with us, blow out and breathe. Life had given her a huge thump; her beloved Jan had died. I saw the sadness but also the strength. Which also translated into her paintings. They were different. More reserved.
When we returned to Holland, we suddenly had a house with blank walls. And Fransje came, saw, browsed and came back again with a trunk full of paintings from which we could choose. And we chose two.
Initially because of the colors. And then, the shapes that emerge from the paintings, also depending on the light and the angle at which you look. I always see human forms, in one it is a group, in the light gray it is a couple, a man and woman. Movement sometimes, stillness sometimes. Forward! At ease! Future-oriented and also retrospective.
Always, whether I am sitting at the dinner table or just waking up; these paintings make me happy. They belong to Fransje. But they are also Frenchy. Important. Because they also tell me something about friendship.
