I was born on the 6th of July 1947 in Almelo. My father, G.J.N. Hoogland was making a living as an art smith. His art smithy has existed until 1966 in Almelo and was located at the "Houtstek", a well known spot situated on "de Schans" in Almelo. Ever since I was a small child I was confronted with the craft art of my father. Everything my father forged he first designed on a paper. I can remember very well that on my father's workbench, always a lot of designs of curls of railings and clocks were scattered about. At a small local museum in Almelo, located on the "Korte Prinsenstraat", their is still hanging a laurel-wreath with a royal symbol in it, forged by my father. This work is dated from 1937 and was a gift from art smiths Hoogland and Nobbenhuis to the community of Almelo on the occasion of the birth of princes Beatrix.
When I was a child, my parents always had a lot of artists about the place and when I was playing and water-painting, it often occurred that my father or another artist who just stepped by corrected me. In fine, I have sucked art in with my mothers milk. I was very young when they started to teach me to look at nature and notice the details. Also the materials which they worked with, made that I became lots of respect for the crafts you can make with it. Because you don't make a lot of money by being an art smith, in a material way, my father advised me and my brothers to look for a job as an official. You could just as well call the advising of my father "pushing" because he always said: "You better make your money with a clean collar than with an overall". So that's what happened. My youngest brother Wim, born on the 29th of December 1939, finally became tax official and my oldest brother Gerrit finally worked for the regular army.
