New start (the old blog is just TOO old.)

Let me introduce myself: Leo Cappèl. I am a sculptor/painter, a musician - lately mainly late Medieval and early Renaissance instrumental music - and finally I am an author. I have been writing most of my life, novels, non-fiction, translations, stage plays and short stories.

I won't always have time to update this blog, so please be patient. And also, please write to me. leo.cappel@xtra.co.nz will find me.

My earliest memory is of my grandmother teaching me how to say cigar in Dutch ('sigaar', I was born in Amsterdam). My grandmother also spoke Yiddish, but she thought Dutch was enough to start with. Words intrigued me then, and have done so ever since. Words, sounds and patterns - read: writing, music and sculpting.

            During the war I had to hide with a family in Friesland. The adults spoke Dutch as well, the few kids I met spoke Friesian. After the war the Red Cross sent me to Switzerland, to live with an elderly couple who spoke only Swiss-German. The Dutch word Papa became Tatte in Yiddish, Heit in Friesian, Vater in Switzerland. Later still, when I was an art student in Paris, it was Père and now it's Dad. How could I not be fascinated?

            I am a graduate of the Rietveld Art Academy, Amsterdam. I worked as an art teacher, as jeweller, visual artist and as scuba diving instructor before emigrating to New Zealand.

            I was offered a position at the Canterbury Museum, making small diorama displays, mainly for country schools, and some years later I found myself creating the very large dioramas in the Auckland Museum.

            We got restless, decided to build a 54 foot yacht, so my wife Karen and I could go back to sea. It took 7 years of weekends and holidays, financed by writing, performing on stage, playing music and building unusual musical instruments in what little spare time we could find.

            We lived on board, getting ready to travel overseas. Then a bombshell: the asbestos in my lungs - legacy of my Auckland Museum job! - started to play up, no more ocean sailing after all. My response was to write a cheerful novel: "SAIL THEATRE, SAIL", to be followed by another novel: "PIV", several stage plays, and three musicals. The musical I liked best was one I wrote for young people, and which was produced by the Northland Youth Theatre: "PAGAGENINA'S FLUTE".

            After 16 years aboard we moved to the top of a hill on tiny Kawau Island, where there are no shops, no roads, no rubbish removal or any other services apart from electricity and telephone, and where we got our mail delivered by the Royal Mail Run ferry twice a week.

            Finally, after 10 years on the Island, we became landlubbers in Whangarei.

Leo Cappèl