The Unreasonable Man

Last spring I was suddenly involved in a poetry book illustration project… and here is the result:I am proud to announce today the publication of this book, called

“The Unreasonable Man”

and written by the Australian poet

Tariq Segal.

In his own words

“Well…  I’m thrilled to announce, the release of my book, my thoughts about life, through the years that this took.
Glad that it’s finished, and glad that I spent, time penning my thoughts, letting emotions vent…”

The book is designed as a coffee table poetry book. It contains 60 of Tariq’s favourite poems with each poem accompanied by either an illustration or photograph.

Tariq says:

“.. I think the artwork alone is worth owning a copy, and being able to review my thoughts as well can only but confirm your own sanity…”

Well I must confess, most of these illustrations, about 50 I guess, are my paintings.

And here is what I have written in the preface of the book:

“Having myself been an „unreasonable“ person from the very beginning of my life, my encounter with The Unreasonable Man could not fail. As I started reading his poetry, I felt at once a deep connection to his wild world of thoughts, passion and revolt, and agreed at once to become with my art, a part of it.

I was amazed to see how many of my paintings seemed to have been created exactly for his poems,  illustrating in vibrant colours, lines, forms and structures what the poet is saying in words and the empty spaces in between.

But not each of his poems found its rightful painting.. We both collaborated in a weird process of  re-creation, by which  the characters featured in some of my paintings started to assume a life of their own, moving and wandering around, invading Tariq’s universe of poetry, in search of their own particular place among his words. Sometimes they even ended up taking possession of other paintings, either chasing the original occupants away or, more peacefully, finding their place at their side. You will understand what I mean when you look at the original works through my websites!

Anyway, to work on the illustration of „The Unreasonable Man“ was a totally new and very exciting experience in dealing with my own art, seeing me naturally „forcing“ them to interact and fit to the words.

I want to thank Tariq for this wonderful experience and his wise and creative advice in the choice of the paintings.“

For those of you interested in the musings of this troubled mind the book can be purchased online from the US  at:
1.       Amazon.com : http://www.amazon.com/dp/098052380X
2.       Createspace.com : https://www.createspace.com/3354416

The books are also available through Tariq Segal himself, above all for those of you who are in Australia. If you are interested please contact Tariq at

tariq@segal.com.au

by Miki

Rainbows all over the place!

I have no idea why, although I am a physicist too, but our place is covered with rainbows, the walls, the roofs, the floors… and this with increasing tendency!

Perhaps a hint of God to me as a painter?

Everywhere these wonderful things appear, and I can’t help but be amazed, over and over. Nature is simply amazing…The following photos haven’t be retouched, this is how they came out of the camera. Why the background of the first one is so dark brown is a mystery to me, as the wall, or in this case it was the ceiling, is white… but the rainbow, yes, this is exactly how it looked like, so vibrant.

Especially funny was the light above the rainbow in the second photo, which really looks like a question mark, asking, kind of:

“What the hell is this rainbow doing above the Rock-n-Roll Alley?”

Well, when one knows Rocker Kev Moore, one does not wonder anymore…

by Miki

The Tiniest Coffee in The World

I am working right now -and for 2 months- on my travel sketches from our last trip through Portugal (3 weeks in June/July 2009). Today I stumbled upon this one, which I did quite at the end of the trip, and I thought it was the perfect one to exhibit in Cafe Crem.

There is a little, funny story connected to this drawing. As always we were in the town, Kevin sitting at Cafes reading, patiently waiting for me while I was sketching around. And like always, after 1 or 2 hours work, I joined him in a Cafe to have a well-deserved coffee. That day, as every day, I ordered in my not-so-accurate, but kind of working Portuguese language

“Um  cafe com leite, en um gran vaso, com muito leite por favor”

which means something like

“A coffee with milk, in a big glass, with much milk, please!”

This was the way I normally ordered our coffee, and normally it worked quite well, although I needed quite a long time to find the adequate words since our first trip through Portugal last year. Before I came to this final version, I must admit that I had quite a lot of trials with quite a lot of funny results. Anyway… Today the man who served us here looked a little bit weird, after he heard my order… I had the feeling he wanted to say something but either he couldn’t find the right words (to tell the truth he looked a little bit “thick”… in fact this little bar stood  next door to a psychiatric institute…) or he thought there was no chance of a real communication between us (I guess I  looked quite thick myself when I ordered our coffees in my insecure language…). The guy went inside, and after a long long time, which made me think he needed a long time to prepare an enormous coffee, he came out with that coffee cup and a big smile for me. Without exaggerating, the cup was about 3 centimetres high (1.2 inches), it was half empty, totally black… and cold! I must have looked quite shocked as the guy replaced his former smile with a desolate look! He succeeded in asking me if it was “ok”, and I really could see how much he hoped it was  right. I had not the heart to tell the truth, I just put a big smile on my face… and tons of sugar into the cup, which at least made it look full. I hadn’t the heart either not to drink the stuff, I thought it could be offending, but it was simply awful and I have felt sick for many hours after.

But at least the cup was cute and is a wonderful subject for a Cafe Crem post…

by Miki

Not just left on the shelf…

The expression “On the shelf”  usually has sad or negative connotations – but not in this instance – Eventually we got a place where we can display our mugs! I had been wanting such a unit for a long time, as, you surely have noticed, I love our mugs, and I do find pleasure in looking at them (and using them of course!) . Much better than having them hidden inside a cupboard! Kevin spent some time thinking how he could ‘adapt’ the back of some of our new kitchen units in order to show our mugs off, and this is the result.

Some of you will surely recognise “their mugs”… Susan, Shelley, Comtessine, Rainer… thanks again to all of you for sharing our love for mugs or/and the lovely gifts which are now proudly standing in our new unit!

I thought I would also show you what our new kitchen looks like… it is not finished yet, there is a lot of little jobs to do for the kitchen chef Kev Moore, but we are slowly getting there… Where Kevin is sitting- you can’t really see it on the photo- , the breakfast bar has the shape of a Gibson Explorer guitar … Kevin (who else!) made the pattern in cardboard, our carpenter – who already did such great works for us and whose son Macauley has exhibited some of his art work in The Minibar) cut the wood. and now we are waiting for some black and white mosaic tiles to cover it… We’ll show the result when it is finished!

… and on this side of the mugs unit, is our office, with our desks and computers, on which we write to you all, dear Cafe Cremers!

by Miki & Kev

For Shelley

we were very glad to see you here today, and we wish you a great day with your family, and of course some great food tonight at the restaurant!

Big hugs

by Miki & Kev Moore

Another Baby Bird…

Just in the moment I saw Nicole’s Baby Rainbow bird in the Mini Bar this morning, another bird appeared in the palm tree in front of my office window…

by Miki

Mugs from Germany

Last weekend Kevin was again away gigging in Germany. Honestly, I hate it when he goes, although I am sincerely glad that he can live out his passion on big stages with such great bands and great musicians as Christie and BC Sweet. Always when I see photos or video footage of the gigs, it strikes me how happy Kevin looks: no doubt, music is his world. and I know it will always be.

Anyway, not everything is negative for me when he goes away. Most of the time, when he comes back, he has a little something for me. This time, it was something very special. Rainer, a German fan of Christie, who over the years became a friend of the band and in the meanwhile, since I met Kevin,  of me too (although I never met him personally), had brought to the gig 2 new mugs for our mug collection.. such a lovely gesture from him, isn’t it?

And here they are! I chose the one with the German colours, naturally,as I lived most of my life in Germany! I love my new mug and my coffee tastes especially good in it, of course 

In the background of the painting you can see the members of Christie: Jeff Christie, Adrian Foster, Simon Kay and, last but not least, Kev Moore. By the way, I hope the guys will forgive me if I put Kevin in the foreground, but well, HE is my boy and he clearly gets most of my attention.

A big thanks from Kevin and me to our friend Rainer!

by Miki

Twin Tawers for Reveng

by Macauley, 11 years old

Two days ago, when our Carpenter’s son was amusing himself creating artistic works, he drew,with no prompting, this startling image, entitled “Twin Tawers-For Reveng”. I’m not sure what’s more remarkable, the fact that a boy who was just a toddler when it happened is so aware of this world event, or the fact that he advocates revenge. Perhaps in school they highlight the upcoming anniversary of the tragedy nowadays and it is in the forefront of everyone’s minds, adults and children alike.  Certainly, the date September 11 has nothing but grim connotations to me now.

by Kev Moore

Everi wan died off the boom

by Macauley, 11 years old

Another young artist, called Macauley, 11 years old, has accepted to have some of his works published in Cafe Crem.

Macualey is the son of an English handworker living here, and who is actually building our little home sauna (yes, even in Spain, a sauna is useful, although here and right now any place without air conditioning is a sauna itself). School hasn’t started yet in Spain, Macauley comes with his father, to us, helping him with the building sometimes but spending most of his time in my gallery, drawing and painting.

As you know I am always curious about childrens art. As I saw that picture which he has just drawn, I thought it was worth sharing with you all.

I interviewed the young artist about his work, asking him if all these people are his friends. I got it quite wrong, as his answer was

“No, these are my enemies, and the boom kills them all!”

.. But as to the question of whether these enemies are all real and if he has really so many in life, he said:

“Some are my friends too…”

And then he pointed at Dany in the middle of the picture, and explained to me that he was a fat kid, and had to die first… On the back of the drawing is written:

“Everi wan died off the boom”

He also asked me if I paint “War pictures”. I said no, being more from the pacific kind…

PS: if you live around here, and need a carpenter, just ask me for a reference: Macauley’s father is doing a great job!

by Miki

Café and Coffee Life in Holidays

I was looking through our last Spain/Portugal photos this morning, searching some featuring me sketching – many people love to see photos of an artist at work…), as I remembered that this year we didn’t publish anything in Cafe Crem about that trip.

So, I have chosen for Cafe Crem some of the photos showing our Cafe Life on holiday. Most of the time, when we sit at Cafés, I am sketching, and Kevin is reading.

Well, this one is sitting at a cafe, but the coffee mugs are there, I am sure you can spot them between us! It was the first morning in Cadiz, we had the motorhome parked directly by the beach.

KEV: “Are you sure you don’t have a Snoopy head on Miki, you look like you have floppy ears!”

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One of the many cafés where we sat on the main place of Cadiz. Simply wonderful and very relaxing!

KEV: “Indeed, I’m probably asleep in this photo…”

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Another morning coffee, in Chipiona this time, a little bit further up along the Atlantic Coast of Southern Spain…

And no, it was not Carnival;;;   

KEV: “To paraphrase a Toto song, it looks like you could have a Party in your Pants!”

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On the beach of Chipiona…

In Serpa, portugal, where we spent the whole last week of our holidays. Always on the road with the bikes!

KEV: “Can you see a pattern emerging here? – Kev asleep in a chair!”

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On the way back, coffee in the motor home.

Kevin is already rehearsing on his “air guitar” … as soon as we we come back he will have to fly to Bosnia for a gig with BC SWEET.

KEV: “If you look really carefully, you can see that I have broken a string….”

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And if you want to see the sketches I did on that trip, please go here. I haven’t finished yet, but I am working on it!

By Miki and Kev Moore