Art for a small price

'My father painted those, he became an artist after he retired.' The lady leafing through the artworks on the wooden print rack looks up. I recognize her little smiling eyes from King's Day three years ago. 'Yes I know that, I already have some of his paintings in my house and was really hoping you'd be here on the sidewalk in front of your house again.' 

It is not yet nine o'clock in the morning when three people have already returned especially for the 'art for a small price': unframed artworks from the clearance sale of the atelier of Claire, my father's stage name. Gladly I inform him via Whatsapp that sixty euros has been sold already and that everyone wants to come and pick it up later, when he himself is there.

I am proud of my 82-year-old father who went to art school when he was sixty and became a successful artist after his retirement. His father thought he should learn a trade, so he went to the textile school, first as a buyer and later as a designer and vendor of carpets. But the artist's blood kept on streaming and eventually found its way.

He was also proud of me when I, at just eighteen, was admitted to the Rietveld art academy. Together we had taken painting lessons one evening a week for the years before. I did get the chance to do what I wanted, but left the art academy after a year, even though my painting teacher also encouraged me to stay. The atmosphere of saying you're great and criticizing others didn't fit at all with who I am. I was able to do what my father was not allowed to do, but chose something else. I can imagine now that it was quite a shock for him at the time, but I have not noticed anything of it. I especially remember how I was supported in making my own choices, even when that went against what my parents wished for me.  

With a naughty-boy smile, Papa Claire is selling his art this King's Day. Parkinson's disease now regularly affects his body and memory, so he doesn't paint much anymore. Now his charm and mercantile spirit are on fire again and he has a nice story to add to each work of art about how it was born. The revenue this year will be donated to Doctors Without Borders. And who knows, maybe he'll push back his boundaries and start painting more often.

Sitting next to each other on a folding chair, I warm my hands on a mug of tea and watch him savor his orange biscuit. His unsteady hand that struggles with the cake fork to take another bite and his somewhat hunched shoulders betray his age. But in no time he is back on his shaky legs and straightens his old back - as far as it still goes - to step energetically towards the young man browsing through his works of art.

As I look at my father the artist, I see it very sharply. It was precisely because he could not keep his young back straight then and had to bow to his father that he encouraged me to make my own dreams a reality. And that my children are now doing the same in their own unconventional way. 

It is surely no co-incidence that as a guide I help others to make their dreams come true. To live your childhood dream at the age of sixty to taste the joy and success of it, my father did it. He is the living proof that you are never too old to start doing what you want.