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MINDKISS. Following OUBEYs Tracks

The end of the year is fast approaching. For many people this is a time to reflect on what they hope the coming year will bring and plan for what they intend to do. And for some people it’s a time to stand back a little and ask themselves what really is important in their life.

The same goes for me even though in my case this question is my constant companion throughout the whole year. It’s a question that came upon me with a previously unparalleled degree of intensity in 2004 when OUBEY tragically lost his life.  

At that time many well-meaning people advised me to sell OUBEYs pictures, make closure on the past, and devote myself to planning my own future.  

This I have not done. What I embarked on was something completely different. 

Unexpected Energy

When I became aware that OUBEYs art still had its whole future ahead of it – over and beyond his sudden death – I was filled with a flood of unexpected energy. The certainty that my skills and abilities, my knowledge and my drive were still needed and esteemed released a whirl of energy in me out of which the MINDKISS Project was born. In the most difficult period of my life I found the courage and the determination to fix my gaze on the future without forgetting or repressing the past.  

No doubt some people must have looked at me with a mixture of pity and compassion and thought that the great mountain of work I was now embarking on was little more than a distraction, a way of avoiding grief or confronting reality. Yet this is precisely what I didn’t do and I have never regretted it. At that time I did the very best I could do – for OUBEY, for his art but also for myself. And this has remained unchanging through to the present.  

A New World

Once I had catalogued OUBEYs body of work, in 2006 work began on the MINDKISS Book, followed one year later by work on the OUBEY Experience Film. The enthusiasm for OUBEYs art and for my own endeavours shown by the people I collaborated with inspired me and spurred me on to think in terms far beyond those of books and films. I was ready to journey in new worlds. From that point onwards I channelled my energies into travelling the world with the paintings and making new experiences of a kind I’d never known previously in my life.  

I had numerous highly personal encounters with amazing scientists, researchers and artists. I felt the fascination that OUBEYS paintings held for Maoris in New Zealand, people in Uganda and even managers at an international conference in Vienna. Getting to know all these different people’s thoughts and reactions to OUBEYs paintings was a marvellous voyage of discovery for me filled with many moments of joy. A matchless priceless present for which I am deeply grateful.  

And as it turned out, my way really did become my goal. And along this way a new sense of meaning has come into being – not just for me alone but for many others as well. A sense of meaning that enables OUBEY to live on.  

I still continue my travels. After a conducive two year break, I have a whole slew of new ideas for the future. Many are still in the embryo stage. Yet one of them I have recently brought to fruition: to write the story of how MINDKISS came about in e-book format. Why should I do this? Because even today many people still ask me about the particular circumstances in which this project was born. If you too are curious, simply download my e-book “MINDKISS. Following OUBEYS Tracks” for free and read how MINDKISS came about and what great things this project has set and still continues to set in motion – with many behind the scenes glimpses.   

More Dagmar Woyde-Koehler

Dagmar Woyde-Koehler
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COUNTING THE YEARS MAKES YOU OLD – CURIOSITY KEEPS YOU YOUNG

As I was channel zapping recently I came across the blind auditions of The Voice of Germany and watched them, spellbound by the performance of one of the contestants. The singer was called Ludmilla Larusso, and hadn’t chosen a pop song but an opera aria, Nessun Dorma by Giaccomo Puccini and what she made of it was truly impressive. That by itself should have been extraordinary enough. But when she told us that she only discovered her vocal talent and began singing when she was well over the age of 40, I was really bowled over. And I was also extremely pleased because for me this was a marvellous illustration of one of my principles of life – that it’s never too late to embark on something new.

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If the plan comes unstuck – well, that’s life!

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. I love this quote by John Lennon. Well, how many of us love making plans? From complex plans for our future lives to detailed plans for our travels or even simple plans for our daily agenda, people have a natural tendency to try and shut out the uncertainty the future holds by making a plan. When we have a plan we feel safe and assured. The only problem is that a) things happen differently and b) to what we expected …
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Art is like a children’s game

"It took me four years to paint like Raffael but a whole lifetime to paint like a child again."

This was said by no one less than Pablo Picasso. Even though his paintings had long been ranked by the art world among the best ever painted, learning to paint like a child was apparently a major concern of his.

Just watch children at play. In their games they create their own private world. We grown-ups perhaps don’t take this seriously and think “oh, they’re just playing”.

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