What are you supposed to write at the beginning of a new year, especially if you have good reason to assume that you can foresee even less what it will bring us than any given normal year?

On the other hand, does such a thing even exist, a "normal" year? One can certainly discuss that.

Yet what most people are likely to see similarly is that the last two years in any case are probably not part of the "normal" years. Both my stroke and the ongoing corona pandemic have demanded everything from us and have taken away almost any normality.

As if by a miracle, I survived the stroke. I am now much better again, even if it will take a while before I am fully recovered.

The corona pandemic instead will probably keep us in suspense for a while, even if we hope that the worst will be over by spring.

One of the guiding principles of my artistic work, namely that everything is constantly changing and that therefore there are no eternal securities carved in stone, was impressively confirmed for us in the past year.

To be honest, we keep wishing, against our better judgment, that this wasn't the case, that we could rely more on things going the way we imagine and plan.

We could imagine that you might wish the same. Wouldn't it be good if they existed, these inviolable securities?

But there is probably no point in hoping for it. There is probably only ever security for a limited time.

For me this means that it is inevitable to always adjust to the new, for better or for worse.

It means not to rest on the supposed certainties and to always dare a new departure, even if this often stretches the limits of what seems bearable and admittedly often goes beyond our comfort zone.

Perhaps the photo of one of my sculptures, a boat with billowing sails, taken on a winter evening, may be a symbol of this departure. The departure into a new year, a year we know about even less than about every “normal” new  year anyway.

With kind regards and best wishes for the New Year

Wolfgang Sandt