Secret Gardens

This week I've been a busy bee perfecting my "Leaves Impression" collection for a new and improved Artshop and exhibition of the Centre of Art of Rotterdam. They exist for 30 years and celebrate this by having a wonderful exhibition called "de Geheime Tuin" which translates into "Secret Gardens". The very Exciting thing is that I will be featuring most of my "leaves Impression" Collection in their new and improved shop! If you are in Rotterdam and have time on the 5th of April around 17.30, come and join me for a drink at this amazing opening! Check their website for more details.

 

Nov'82 architects

Recently I am working on an exciting project that will be in shops soon! In the process of developing my product, I visited the two wonderful architects of NOV'82 architects in their studio. I must say they have one of the most interesting studio's I've ever seen! The Building is just two meters wide and has a lovely interior that perfectly suits their needs. I got really inspired by their way of working. Visit their site for info about their projects and vision. Later more about the project I visited them for so keep an eye on my blog!

column!

Wohoo I am the new columnist for "de groene offerte" an initiative of the BNO (organization for dutch designers). If you can read dutch follow the link and enjoy my first column! You can read my column here! I'm gonna try my best to monthly produce something funny and interesting about my green design work and the dilemma's surrounding it. 

Rigorous spring cleaning!

I love this time of year, new buds everywhere and the promise of green and lush surroundings, it all makes me more than happy. This is for me also the time to start new things! For example this blog, I thought it could do with a little more than some dusting off! I changed the lay-out and made it a bit more fancy. I thought it was time for a new look, so here is my blog with a new coat on. But don't be afraid, I'm still the same. When the radar was silent there where some quite interesting things happening, so soon some more interesting new things to catch up on!

Dutch Designweek WNF auction

During the dutch designweek in Eindhoven there is a special auction for WNF.  

WNF Asked me to donate a scarf from the Leaves Impression Collection to this wonderful auction, and off course I said yes to this very good initiative! I've selected a beautiful scarf of the eucalyptus dyed collection Leaves Impression that also featured in the issue of Libelle Balance before!  

This WNF auction is filled with beautiful products that are made with good materials or have interesting subjects that stimulate consciousness or are made from recycled materials. 

Most important of all is that all the income of this auction will go to a good cause, so we all donate to the good cause! What nicer than that? Well, you also have a chance to start bidding on my scarf for a very reduced price! So check out the website, make a beautiful bid of at least 50 euro, and maybe you are the lucky owner of this beautiful hand dyed antung silk scarf! And next to that the highest bidder will also receive next to the scarf a personal letter from me explaining the whole dyeproces, a businesscard and a beautiful card from the Leaves Impression Collection. You can also start bidding on E-bay so be quick to try to be the highest bidder on this beauty because the auction closes at the 30th of October 18.00! Here is a direct link to this beautiful scarf on the auction website. And don't forget, it's all for a good cause!

eco dye workshop in Tilburg!

There is a unique chance to follow one of my workshops! There are a few places left for a workshop dyeing and printing with eucalyptus, It is in Tilburg (Holland). In this course I will teach how to dye different colors with just leaves water and a little love. You're also getting the chance to print with the leaves and you also get lot's of tips and tricks from me! I will give the workshop in English and in Dutch.

So grab this chance and follow this amazing workshop I'm giving! It is going to take place on the 27th of October, so be quick! Hope to see you there!

See more info and how to enroll on this page!

Libelle Balance meets Leaves Impression.

There is a nice article in the dutch magazine Libelle Balance showing a scarf from the collection "Leaves Impression" with an explanation of the process involved in making the lovely leaf prints. Enjoy!

staindress premiere!

After working long hours and having had great help by lot's of sweet people, my newest project "Staindress" is a fact. It had it's premiere at the wonderful event Fashion clash in Maastricht.  The Project "Staindress" is all about creating things that are interesting from simple materials, and most of all I wanted to convey that "mistakes" can make things more beautiful instead of ruining them.

I designed and constructed the dress myself with (much needed) help from my lovely mother (as I have never made clothes before!). The material of the dress is a high quality organic silk. Which I silkscreened with a homemade PH value changing silkscreening ink. I made this ink from inviromentally friendly materials that are used in the food industry.

To really understand and see the effect happening, I decided that this had to be captures in a short film which would also was an opportunity to really create the fairytale like atmosphere I had in mind when I made the first sketch on paper. This made me search for a professional to help me with this. I found a real professional in Rico Sohilait who has a company named "laid back productions". I wrote a script, found locations to use as filmset and Rico decided to help me. Which he did wonderfully! This video really portraits what I had in mind, so thank you Rico and his assistant Robert Jan! This video needed also unique music, the music is composed by my new love! Jolle Roelofs who is a great Composer and pianist.

Below the video showing the transformation of this dress and underneath some photo's of the performance and also of the presentation in Maastricht

The photo's are made by Jolle Roelofs and the Film by Laid back productions, enjoy!
PS: If you want to use the photo's for your blog or something else, that's cool but please remember to mention the project and a link! Thankss!


next blogpost is all about, "the making of staindress" plus the people that helped to make it reality!


staindress from wieteke opmeer on Vimeo.

New developments!

After having a busy couple of weeks and a small trip to get away from everything for a few days I'm back at work again! 

I'm filling my days lately with a very interesting project. I am doing interesting experiments with lovely organic silks and home made formula's to create interesting effects on fabric. I can't tell everything yet but I can tell that it is promising to become a very interesting en beautiful project! This all I am doing for the event "Fashion Clash" in Maastricht. This event will take place in the beginning of June this year, For the exact dates check out their website. The organization for this project did a nice interview with me which you can read through this link (very Happy with it!) 

 

Next to this I have become a columnist for the website Duurzamelifestyle.nl, A very nice dutch website what writes about everything that has to do with incorporating sustainability in daily life. You can read my first column about my work as a designer (written in dutch) through this link, so enjoy!   

And of course in the last blogpost I was giving away a limited edition art catalog from a communal project I did. The person who got this is Dorie! So Dorie if you want to send me an email containing your postal address then I can send you your gift as soon as possible! 

Below some pictures from my dyeing adventures for the upcoming fashion project!

never-ending-art publication 2011

A while ago I had the start of an exhibition called Never ending art (see the my blogpost about that here). At this exhibition I presented the work "Bosfeestje". A few days ago this Exhibition came to an end and this was celebrated with a lovely day in the forest where the whole project started and with the presentation of a beautiful publication of this project. All the artists who participated worked together to make a communal art piece in the forest to announce the start of a folly which will be build later on. I took some photo's during this day, so enjoy!

And to celebrate this closing of the exhibition with all you readers I want to give one publication box away! (a description of this box is found below) If you want one of these publications let me know why you want this box plus your postal address and send this in an email to  wieteke"at"wietekeopmeer.nl . I will announce who the lucky winner is in the next blogpost! The publication will be send to you! (if you live abroad please understand that I will charge just the shipping costs because otherwise it will be a very expensive gift) Please note that this publication is in dutch!

We started this day with the presentation of the publication of this art project and giving the first issue of this publication to the director of the foundation of city and nature, Hans Warrink (picture above)

Also nice was that the landscape architect who designed this area was also present. He could tell us a lot of interesting features of this lovely forest near Almere in Flevoland.

The publication consisted of a box with a small booklet containing a description of all the interesting art projects produced for this exhibition.

And next to the booklet the box is filled with A6 format cards with pictures of the artworks. Each artist has their work presented on three of those beautiful cards.

After the presentation the artists all went for a long walk through the forest to determine the perfect spot for our communal artwork, during this walk we found the forest just preparing for spring, which was very nice to see.

After this walk we determined the best spot for a communal spontaneous art work made with recycled materials.