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In 2016, the Elbe Festival to celebrate the existence of Hamburg’s Sandtorhafen took place for the first time. How quickly time flies!

There I met the crew members, who proudly told me about the new construction of their Ewers. (Uns Ewer) Typical for the ship type of the Ewers is a so-called flat bottom, exactly right to transport vegetables in the river deltas of the Elbe. This was and is cultivated in the Vierlanden, just outside Hamburg. Only today it is transported by truck and then by motorway.

The members presented themselves in historical clothes and so I came to pictures of the market woman.

Market Woman, Gouache, 18×18cm, 2020, Astrid Volquardsen

The paper I use (Toned Tan by Strahmore) works best the less I paint on it: That means: put shapes in gouache, leave them alone. If I use fewer brushstrokes, the better the painting will be. Richard Schmidt once said so beautifully: Don’t fiddle around.

What was just meant to be a trial and error now turns out to be my new artistic direction.

I’m really starting to get going. As the Elbe pilot.

I find the combination of sketch, colour application and free space particularly appealing in the design. For me this means a new exploration, which gives me a lot of fun.

On a last warm summer day 2 years ago, she suddenly stood in front of me: Madame S. – as if she had emerged from a painting by Manet. She told me that she and her husband liked to dress in 19th-century style. They did so in the context of »lived history« (The Emperor is coming) and as on this day, in their free time. Madame S. told me with pride that she had sewn this dress herself.