Tell me a Story

Art collecting has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. I buy art to tell my story. A secret diary as a witness to my life, if you will. Through each work I collect, I am reminded of different moments of pain or ecstasy in my life. Special memories or ....read more here.

(I am running a new blog from my own artist website, and would still love for you to read my blogs. So pardon the link on this blog, but I will keep on publishing everything on both blogs. 

If you would like to stay in touch, see my latest artwork sneak peeks or launches, please subscribe to my monthly newsletter here. Hope to hear from you in the comments! )

An Accidental Artist

I still need to pinch myself sometimes when someone asks me what I do, and I say that I am an Artist. A real one. I am amazed on a daily basis when I realize how lucky I am to finally be doing my art full time. After an almost 20 years hiatus from art (after being a graphic designer), I could not deny this urge to express myself through my art anymore, so I left the business world by taking a very risky leap of faith, and here I am. Sitting at a café in Paris, doing my art. Amazing. Read more here.

(I am running a new blog from my own artist website, and would still love for you to read my blogs. So pardon the link on this blog, but I will keep on publishing everything on both blogs. 

If you would like to stay in touch, see my latest artwork sneak peeks or launches, please subscribe to my monthly newsletter here. Hope to hear from you in the comments! )

Chagall's Demons

I have always been a huge fan of the Russian-French artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985). Chagall has been described as the greatest Jewish painter of all time, and his surrealist paintings has mesmerized me since the first time I saw it. It was therefore a great honour when I got to see the roof of the Paris Opera House that was painted by ...Read more here

(I am running a new blog from my own artist website, and would still love for you to read my blogs. So pardon the link on this blog, but I will keep on publishing everything on both blogs. 

If you would like to stay in touch, see my latest artwork sneak peeks or launches, please subscribe to my monthly newsletter here. Hope to hear from you in the comments! )

Beauty and Ugliness

Dear friend, I have left my old life behind for a new adventure! Thank you all for supporting my dream of becoming a full time artist over the past year. 

I would love to share this journey with you, and yes, that means the ups and the downs of discovering new techniques, explore different themes, pushing myself and in the process discovering more of myself and how we connect and translate in the world around us. Read more about it here.

(I am running a new blog from my own artist website, and would still love for you to read my blogs. So pardon the link on this blog, but I will keep on publishing everything on both blogs. 

If you would like to stay in touch, see my latest artwork sneak peeks or launches, please subscribe to my monthly newsletter here. Hope to hear from you in the comments! )

Remind me...

We all go through trials and tribulations, joy and exaltations, and all of these impostors are easily forgotten. 

I find it incredible (in a good and a bad way) how easy one can forget the bad things that happened and how quickly we fall back into our comfort zone, forgetting the lessons we learnt and paid for so dearly. 

Even though we obviously enjoy  the good times better, it is often during the difficult times that we really mould our character and grow as a person. 

A Little Deeper

"There are days when your life clouds over, and the world gets so dark that all at once you can't tell night from day.

There are times, when your heart cries 'this isn't happening', but the truth is cold and real, and I know this storm won't go away." - Miss Saigon

Sometimes we only grow and learn when we are going through adversity, and our character gets tested and developed in those moments. As hard as it is to get through, it is some of the most defining moments in your life. Looking back, those are also the moments that now make me smile. 

Explore this theme with me through these blogs by clicking here: A Little Deeper

Closure

As a young, shy, schoolgirl, I was often bullied. Yes, I was different from most other children, and in those days any kind of different wasn't as acceptable as it is today. Don't get me wrong, I am not looking for sympathy, it really helped me become the strong, independent woman I am today. But the worst for me, was being bullied by my math teacher. 

She was a young, attractive married woman, who - according to school gossip - could not have children. I was eleven years old at the time, and had no comprehension for what that could mean to a woman, or how hard life as an adult could be sometimes. All I knew and understood, was that she was a horrible, mean-hearted, unsympathetic, cruel monster, that made my life a living hell at the time.

I will not be mediocre!

" The things that mean a lot"
Oil & Pastel - A Odendaal

 “We must overcome the notion that we must be regular...it robs you of the chance

to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.”

All around us things are happening everyday. World-changing, life changing. People's lives are at stake, your future, countries' destinies. What do you do? Nothing. People are yearning for your point of view, what do you say? 

No comment...

Don’t let your encounter with God leave you untouched!

Since it is Christmas time, I'd like to share with you one of my favourite poems and discuss the meaning of it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and find a little bit of the hope of the Christmas miracle inside this poem. 

Don’t let your encounter with God leave you untouched!

A Journey to Happiness or Heartbreak

My husband and I have always been rather adventurous in life and embracing every challenge that comes our way, but this year we have embarked on the scariest journey of our lives. After seven years of marriage, we were ready to start a new chapter in our lives and start a family. Turns out it is not always the easiest thing to do...

After a few doctor's visits, we have decided to go to a Fertility Clinic, where we started with In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF). For someone as terrified of doctors and needles as I am, it was quite a daunting prospect, but we committed to the process, so off we went with our purple bag full of magical pills, vials, needles, and a crash course in "how to become an overnight nurse", for my husband.

Too much love can kill you...

"Resonance"- Annemie Odendaal
Charcoal & Oil

Let me just start off by saying that I believe in love completely. Especially after my divorce. I am more certain than ever that love really is everything (1 Corinthians 13). I have also learnt that Love can only be Love if it is Freedom. Control is not love. Rules and changing someone is not Love. Compromising until you bleed is not Love. 

Apparently I am not the only one confused about the whole love / marriage thing. Books have been written, movies made and wars fought over Love, and I am still not any closer to understanding the full gravity of it.  After studying the Love Languages I do however grasp a bit clearer why some relationships just work, while others are hard work, frustration, fighting and doomed to fail.

Thy Enemy is My Enemy...

No, it is not from the Bible and definitely not Biblical either, but a true fact of life.

If I introduce you to a friend of mine, you might become acquaintances, or not. You might even become friends at a later stage, or not. 

The opposite however, is not quite so boring. Nothing binds two people as tightly together as a shared enemy. If I introduce you to a friend of mine, and you accidentally find out that you both know and hate my cousin, you will become best of friends in an instant. A bond as thick as can be.

There's Just Some Things That Time Cannot Erase...

"Still Haunting me"
Annemie Odendaal - Charcoal

Once while visiting in Washington, I saw a park with statues for unknown fallen soldiers. It stirred something inside of me, not specifically because it was for soldiers, just because of the intense pain I felt when I saw it. It somehow echoed my own pain and loss. I came back home and immediately drew this sketch, to remind me of how moved I was by this incident.

Do you know how much pain you carry inside of you? Can you name it, or does it just drift around in a muddy sea of confusion and grief?

A Dangerous Prayer

I know they say "be careful what you wish for", but sometimes it is really good to be kicked out of your comfort zone, to grow and to strengthen your faith and character. A man who really knew what this meant, was St Francis Drake. 

Here is a prayer he wrote, which touches me deeply every time I read it:

Disturb us, Lord,
when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Miss Understood

"Pity the Child" - Oil
by Annemie Odendaal

Pity the child who has ambition, Knows what he wants to do
Knows that he'll never fit the system, Others expect him to
Pity the child who knew his parents, Saw their faults
Saw their love die before his eyes
Pity the child that wise
Pity the child but not forever, Not if he stays that way
He can get all he ever wanted, If he's prepared to pay....
from the musical "Chess"

To Regret or not to Regret...

Annemie Odendaal: "More lives than One"
Charcoal

I have always said that I regret nothing I have ever done in my life. Good or bad. It made me who I am today, it taught me lessons and it brought me to where I am at this moment in my life. 

Or did it?

Turns out there is one thing I did in my life, that I will regret forever, and that was getting married. Even though I am single again now, I just cannot shake the uneasy feeling that because of the mistake I made, I might be at the wrong place in my life right now.

Suicide Watch.

The age old question: Can you go to Heaven if you commit suicide?

Charcoal  - Annemie Odendaal
"The Life she longed for"

How will we know? It's not like we can pick up the phone and ask them. Although I cannot conceive that our merciful God will not have any circumstantial clause where we can be forgiven and still go to heaven, I understand that it is a great sin and one the Bible warns us against. 

I also know that a lot of people have been saved by the bell so to speak, like the murderer who hung on the cross next to Jesus. When he realised Jesus was innocent, and took accountability for his own sins with true repentance, God told him that they will be together in Paradise that same day. 

Fat and Happy?

Annemie Odendaal: Oil & Charcoal
"The Weight of my Mistakes"

I used to think, and believe, that I am fat and happy. Over the past two years, I am embarrassed to say, I have picked up a substantial amount of weight. I just wrote it off to all our travels and love for good food and wine, and never really lost sleep over it. After my sudden divorce however, I just started losing weight spontaneously. I did not put in any effort, and I wasn't in mourning, denying myself of good care and food. No, it just-happened.

That's when I started thinking. Is your weight gain a symptom of something else that might be wrong in your life, something bigger that you might not even be aware of? 

What do you see?

Annemie Odendaal: "Ballet Shoes"
Oil & Charcoal

As a painter, you are required to look at things a little differently, a little deeper. Paint that emotion behind the eyes, capture the magic that isn't visible on the surface. You have to look at an object and see how things really are. You can not draw from memory, you have to really look investigatively. We have to examine every angle, it is the only way to develop or grow in your style.

Years ago the Impressionists tried this for the first time, followed by the post-impressionists, expressionists and cubists. Until then, everybody painted just what they saw on surface and from memory. Everything was picture perfect and pretty. Almost documentary, which make sense, since there wasn't any cameras.