"Love" as a title for a Forno?

Love brings people together – yes, it enables the sharing of wonderful feelings for one another. Inspired by this feeling, I created the Forno pictured here in mid-November 2024. It is one of my artworks that I began creating in August of last year. It is titled ‘Love’. I painted it in a matter of seconds, and it captures a spontaneous eruption of this unifying emotion.

The Forno "Love" has a history spanning 38 years

The turquoise heart, with the winking eye painted on the right-hand side, reflects the peace of love. At the same time, the winking eye conveys the humour associated with it. It is left to the viewer to decide whether they might also detect a hint of sadness in it. I chose the colour turquoise for the heart, inspired by a ring I bought in the souks of Marrakesh, Morocco, in 1987. It features a square-shaped stone of this colour. I wore this ring for 12 years, until I placed it on my father’s ring finger in 1999, shortly after he passed away just before Christmas. I do not know whether he took it with him to heaven. :)

My father

Throughout my journey through the year 2024, my father has constantly accompanied me from well, from there; indeed, at times I even felt as though I were speaking with him. He was a tremendous source of support for me during this difficult phase of my life. Even a year earlier before I acquired the ring, and after a second stay in Morocco necessitated my admission to the psychiatric ward of the Free University of Berlin my father contributed to my recovery through his presence there on many evenings. I can still vividly recall his brown leather sandals the fifteen-D-Mark kind in which he walked by my side through the psychiatric garden back then. The sandals clattered in time with his stride. It was their buckles that made the sound holding his feet steady, and bringing order to my mind. Six weeks after I became a patient in Berlin-Charlottenburg in early June 1986 thanks in part to medication I was able to be discharged; the following year, I completed my Abitur and obtained my driver's license in Berlin.

My father, the Forno "Love", Judith and I

There is a sustaining bond between my father and me one that, throughout my childhood and youth in the 1970s and 1980s, often drove me to despair. After many years of estrangement, and acting on the advice of my then-girlfriend Gudrun, I participated in a systemic family constellation session with her in 1998, led by Dr. Albrecht Mahr. Following this and shortly before his death I had a deeply meaningful and loving heart-to-heart conversation with him at my parents' home in Amorbach. That experience continues to sustain us to this day and holds us together. The genesis of the Forno titled "Love" stems from a feeling of being in love. For the past year, I have been in contact with Judith. I harbor deep feelings for her and very much hope to meet her soon and get to know her better. <3