Artist Statement
I was born gifted in art, and in one form or another art has been integral to my life. Studio artist, participant in shows, art teacher on every level, and later a registered art therapist in Michigan. Realizing art is a projective of one's self, emotions expressed from the unconscious, and joy and grief in the awareness of the world around us - I used artworks of patients in a major psychiatric hospital. Art psychotherapy proved we are what we draw. Understanding this afforded healing for many. My own studio work conveys joy, energy, and a delight in color as I grow closer and closer to the power and mystery of my Abiquiu world.
Co-founder and director of the acclaimed poetry festival ‘Dichter aan huis’ in The Hague, Ton Haak began writing his own poetry after arriving in America.
His first book, ‘Whims and Whispers, Pouts and Shouts’, is a handsome volume hand-bound by artists Bev Taylor and Tara Churchill of Farmington, NM. His second volume, ‘Abitare Abiquiu – Backtracking, Sidestepping, Cutting Across Northern New Mexico’, is also handmade by Taylor and Churchill. It is a collection of thirty poems about the land and the people of the Chama River Valley, with the title taken from the Italian word "abitare," meaning, habitat.
Twice a year, Ton Haak (with Jay Buros and Elizabeth Ayres) organizes the Abiquiu "Raven in the Sun Salon" at a location on County Road 142. Local writers, singers and musicians perform before a decor of paintings and photographs, also by local artists, which cover the high walls from ceiling to floor. For each Salon a new theme is chosen.
