You don’t have to tell artist Marion Janssen-Quaadvliet that carnival in Oeteldonk is so beautiful that you want to capture it. She paints Den Bosch and Oeteldonk, among others, and she makes emblems of the latter. Marion: “I ordered a hundred emblems, they were reserved within an hour.”
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Marion has now increased the circulation of her emblems. She regularly encounters Oeteldonkers during carnival with one or more of her emblems on their jacket or smock. “I sometimes spot them when I’m waiting at the bar or the toilet. That is a lot of fun. Sometimes I say something, it depends on the situation,” says the artist about her painted emblems. “There are of course 160,000 residents of Den Bosch and there are not that many emblems. This makes it unique, because it is small-scale. You have something unique on your jacket or smock, a small painting.”
New York? Den Bosch!
Marion has been painting all her life and works as an artist. In her garden the easels are ready for the painting lessons she gives to children. At one time De Bossche worked a lot with oil paint, at another time with acrylic or Indian ink. But she always works in series. For example, a while ago she made a series with New York in the leading role. “What I can do with New York, I can also do with Den Bosch.”
From painting to emblem
No sooner said than done. Marion made a series of paintings in which Den Bosch is the setting… Or you could say the protagonist. “When that series was finished, of course I couldn’t pass up Oeteldonk. And so I got to work. Gradually the idea came to have an emblem made from the paintings.”
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Like Oeteldonk emblems over the counter
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The first emblem that residents of Den Bosch could sew on their smocks was that of St. John’s Cathedral, with all those Oeteldonk flags. “The response was so nice. My field of work is painting. Emblems, that’s something completely different. I ordered a hundred decals. Within an hour they were all reserved via Facebook. A year later I released the painting of the Dragon Fountain as an emblem, this time in a higher edition. So I released a new emblem every year. I scale up a bit every time, now I really have stock. At a certain point you also become overconfident,” Marion says with a laugh.
Six emblems
There are now six emblems: Marion has no plans to expand this series for the time being. The important or recognizable things in Oeteldonk are depicted. St. John’s, the Town Hall, Knillis, Hendrien, the Dragon and our Sweet Mother of Den Bosch. The emblem of the Dragon and Saint John are also available in large sizes.
A few years ago Marion exhibited at the Oeteldonks Gemintemuzejum. “The museum bought the painting of Kerkstraat with Saint John for their permanent collection. It is a reflection of the times, they said.”
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Eight times back
After the last carnival, the City Hall emblem was released. “I went back eight times before I got the right photo. One time it was a market and all the stalls were in front of the Town Hall. Another time the prince’s car and his entourage stood in front of it, so there was something different every time. On a Carnival Tuesday I shot the perfect photo. I had exactly in my head how I wanted it to be.” Marion photographs and then paints that image on canvas and brings her own to it touch On. The emblems are made from that result.
Face masks with Den Bosch skyline
During the corona pandemic, Marion was unable to teach and exhibit. “I thought that I would like to have a face mask from one of my paintings. The skyline of the Bossche Markt, for example. No sooner said than done. It worked the same as with the decals; they were impossible to drag on. I got calls from people hoping they would be back in stock. I had eight different face masks. Corona was of course an unpleasant time, but this ensured that I could still fill it in creatively.”
An artistic emblem on your keel soon?
You can view Marion’s work on Marion’s website. You can order the emblems on this site. The small emblems cost around 9 to ten euros and you can now temporarily buy the large variants for 15 euros, including shipping costs.