Jopie Huisman route, Rijs - Workum

The country of Jopie Huisman
The Workum area was the source of inspiration for the painter Jopie Huisman. The landscape, but also the discarded rubbish he found on farms.
Worn and soiled underpants can't lead to anything... Rembrandt never got it into his head to paint one and Vincent van Gogh never even started it. But Jopie Huisman put the garment on canvas with fine brush strokes and endless dedication, including the countless repairs. That painting - in addition to all his other images of worn-out shoes and clothing and of Frisian landscapes and ordinary people - made him world famous in Friesland and beyond.

He witnessed the opening of his museum at the time, quite rare for a living artist. It started across the street in 1986, in a (too) posh building with an unfortunate staircase and impractical layout. Comedian Freek de Jonge and former Prime Minister Jelle Zijlstra both called Huisman'a painter of compassion\\\' and that name has stuck. And to think that Jopie had actually not wanted to exhibit a single painting after three were stolen from an exhibition in Nuenen - the place that Vincent van Gogh made famous. Fortunately, friends changed his mind and founded the museum for him, for which a new, much more spacious building was erected across the street in 1992. In 2001 it was expanded again with a space in which Jopie's work shed was housed.
Jopie was born in 1922 in Workum, the youngest of seven children. At the age of sixteen he found work in a pottery factory. From a young age he was obsessed with drawing and painting. Since 1960 he scrounged around in old iron and rags. He traded, but also kept a lot, such as old shoes, dolls and worn clothes. After his divorce in 1974, he chose to depict objects and people as realistically as possible. He painted them meticulously. Like the knitted underpants with countless adjustments of a poor woman from a women's house, the only thing left of her. Huisman called his painting a tribute to women."I knitted every stitch with my brush\\\", he said afterwards,"because I didn't want to cheat her.\\\"
Huisman started painting as he started breathing, he said."Without me being aware of it. It's just an urge, from within. Just like eating and drinking.\\\" Jopie was also a philosopher. Admittedly from the cold ground, but what else do you expect in Friesland? He used one-liners that have stuck, such as'Iron doesn't make you any wiser\\' or'What isn't can't be counted\\'.
Not all of his paintings and drawings can be found in the museum in Workum. The painter often ran out of money and paid off debts (eg the dentist's bill) with one of his works. He also gave away paintings at parties or as a memento of proven friendship.
The cycle route takes you through'the land of Jopie\\\' - past favorite places of his, locations that played a role in his life, places that have been a source of inspiration for his paintings and drawings. In Workum we pass the house where he lived, the former inn that he used as a pottery studio for a while (unsuccessfully), the Catholic church with which he was at odds, houses that he drew, café De Zwaan where he was often part of the conversation .
His parental home is just outside the city; he returned there in the course of his life and continued to live there until his death. It stands on the Breewarsdyk, a short distance from his beloved Workumermeer, which was drained in 1880. The water next to the house was his favorite fishing spot, where he (preferably at night) fished for eel; that is to say, with a tangle of earthworms strung on a string - without a hook - he tried to flip the eel into his boat. He smoked the fish in his shed.
Striking are the many offers at farms along the route with which cyclists are now lured to get off. For fruit, eggs, cards, children's clothing and also for coffee with delicious apple pie in the garden of the Pypskoft farm, which is Frisian for'pause\\\'. Jopie also scraped a lot of farms in his own way, to pick up'junk\\\' that sometimes still yielded a lot, such as old iron, tiles and stones. He returned many times to paint a dilapidated barn or a view, such as in Allingawier, a museum village in the Aldfaers Erf route.
The cycle path is not always clean, but sometimes goes straight through the meadows, across the farmyard. And a Frisian farmer simply knows the proverb:'It is the farmer allike folle ort de ko skyt or de bolle\\\'. He doesn't care if the cow shits or the bull...and where he does it.
After Allingawier, the horizon remains dominated by the typical Frisian landscape with high skies, the vast carpet of green grass and red dots of farms and climbing trees in between. At Piaam we continue along the Zeedijk, with a trip to a bird hide in the countryside outside the dikes.
Via Gaast and Ferwoude it goes back to Workum, via inner paths or in the lee of the dike. At the harbor is the Ligersbolle, the lying bank, where Jopie probably told one of his many tall stories and where others now exchange them about him. Just like they do at the butcher, the bicycle repair shop or the local tourist office. Because Jopie Huisman is still very much present in Workum.
Jopie Huisman has sometimes been called the'Rembrandt of the 20th century\\\': a very special man who not only made movingly beautiful paintings, but also had a very special way of life.'Painting is like life itself, a resistance to death\\\' was one of his thoughts. A visit to his museum is therefore very worthwhile. Moreover, the Southwest corner is the most beautiful landscape in Friesland, with 360-degree panoramas.

The Jopie Huisman Museum, Noard 6, is open until October 31 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Sundays and public holidays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. November-December and February-March 1pm-5pm. Info tel. 0515-543131 and www.jopiehuismanmuseum.nl.
Don't forget the binoculars (Bird Hut Piaam). And at the start of Workum, walk through the Tillefonne alley, the beginning of an old church path to the Zeedijk. Jopie could have painted it that way.