Anouk was
privileged to grew up in Amsterdam Holland and already knew as a young child she
was going to be an artist. In Amsterdam she was exposed to world class art and
early on she showed signs of a multitude of talents in visual as well as
performing arts. Her parents fully supported and encouraged her.
She studied drama as well as costume and textile design and was part of a
traveling theater group before she started studying sculpture at the prestigious
Rietveld Akademie.
In 1969 she was offered an opportunity to travel to the USA to study sculpture
at the Brooklyn Museum Art School in Brooklyn, New York. There she met and
married an American sculptor.They traveled and lived all over the US and in
Holland and had two daughters.
In Amsterdam they bought an old sailboat where they lived a romantic life as
true bohemian artists and made art even when the children were very small.
In 1971
they moved back to New York City and Anouk created large fiber art wall
hangings for several years.
In 1975
her husband and she, now living in L.A., learned to be silversmiths and started
selling their jewelry at Arts and Crafts Fairs. This was a more lucrative way to
raise a family than as sculptors.
It was at
the Californian Art Fairs that they were first introduced to the art of
"scrimshaw" (engraving and inking of images on ivory or bone) and began to
create their own scrimshaw pieces happy to be able to combine sculpture and
drawing skills.
In 1980,
after a divorce, Anouk, settled with her daughters in Santa Cruz CA where she
started taking classes at Cabrillo College and studied painting, drawing,
jewelry, printmaking and art history wmeanwhile continuing to sell her scrimshaw
jewelry.
In the
next 25 years she built up a large national and international following of
collectors of her scrimshaw art.
In her
spare time however she painted and drew and after taking a month long Monotype
Printmaking workshop with Howard Ikomoto she completely fell in love with this
form of printmaking. Afterwards she started taking workshops with well known
artists like John Maxon and Joseph Zirker.
