. . .a bit about me. . .
I was born in Rotterdam and educated through the International school systems in Holland. My multi-national family worked in the fashion and leather trading business, giving I exposure to all aspects of the leather business. Furthermore, I gained the opportunity to travel often and frequent local museums and galleries. All along, I had an extreme fascination with mass-production techniques and the creation of art, always keeping a sketchbook during my travels with conceptual sources of inspiration.
After high school, and being awarded the school's "Art Award", I left Holland and moved to Boston to study fine arts. At the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, in combination with Tufts University, I completed my BFA degree with a major in computer graphics, and became particularly fascinated with sculpture and three-dimensional computer graphics.
Still inspired with the mechanics of mass production and looking to continue my studies, I moved to New York to study the Masters of Industrial Design curriculum at Pratt Institute. There I received a full time scholarship and completed the program with my thesis entitled: The New Industrial Design Process - A Comparison of Traditional and Computer Assisted Methods in the Practice of Industrial Design. Upon graduation, I was awarded the Certificate of Excellence for Outstanding Merit in Graduate Industrial Design.
As a design professional, I freelanced in New York in the areas of conceptual design for products, packaging and displays, model building and color research. This work was done for numerous customers such as Armani, Barney's Display, Oleg Cassini, Dieffenbach Elkins, Edwin Schlossberg, Ledan Inc, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pharma Design, Tufts University and Wolf Marketing.
During this same period, and with great interest in high-tech communications equipment, I became employed by AT&T, Bell Laboratories, later known as Lucent Technologies. Working at Lucent for eight years as an industrial designer and member of technical staff, I obtained an Executive Master of Business Administration in Technology Management degree from Stevens Institute. At Lucent, I obtained two United States patents for communications equipment technology.
All the while, traveling with my mixed media sketch books continued to be a big part of my life and of a great source of inspiration. In New York I started making ceramic sculptures on the weekends. Here I felt a great instant satisfaction in making contact with clay. My sculptures, were influenced by bulls and my work was exhibited in the Ambassador Gallery in Soho, NY.
During my last year at Lucent, in 2000, I moved to the Netherlands, where I took the opportunity to open the Lucent Industrial Design Center Department representing Europe, Middle-East and Africa. This office was situated in Hilversum.
Directly after in 2001, I became employed with the Amsterdam-based design firm Springtime for one year. There I worked on ride able products, alternative scooters, as a design project manager. After I made a conscious decision to reconnect with my passion for fine art. In 2002, I founded Greeneye Studio, and started working on one off art pieces, art commission, glass workshops and small design projects.
As an artist I missed the social contact of working with others in a team, and soon discovered that my fascination of color, lines and shapes played an important role in my development. I satisfied this need by studying Art therapy in Leiden. In 2006, as part of completing my training program for Art Therapy, I worked as an art therapist at an english speaking primary school in Amsterdam.
In 2007 I completed my degree for art therapy and started offering art therapy for individuals/ groups and creative coaching workshops for businesses. I also worked as an art therapist for seven months with groups of psychosomatic patients at the clinic, Eikenboom, located in Zeist.
In 2009 I took over Atelier Werkplaats Molenpad, which was set up in 1975 by Michiel Dhont. At this Atelier I offer intuitive painting courses for personal development. It’s a wonderful space to grow and develop. Please make an appointment to stop by!
Experience clarity, creativity and life through art!
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