PATRICK DE VRIES - featured artwork "Prince Rogers Nelson painting"
"1984, 14 years old. Just a normal evening at my desk in my bedroom. I am doing some painting and
drawing and in the meanwhile I listen to the radio, recording the music I like with my tape deck. At
one moment I heard a new song, 'Let's Go Crazy,' too late to record it but the song wouldn't go out of
my head anymore. The man and his band, Prince and the Revolution, changed my taste of music. I
needed to hear more of him. Let's go crazy, Purple Rain, When Doves Cry... loved it.
Then one day his movie came on television and later his concert from the Purple Rain tour. Every day
when I came home from school, when I was 15 and 16 years old, I had to put the VHS tape in the
video recorder in the living room. Poor mother of mine, every day this concert or movie. She never
complained. I watched the concert almost 200 times and the movie also over 100 times.
At school I was mister Prince. The girls and boys who read pop magazines gave me all the posters and
pictures from the magazines. Within a year there was no wallpaper visible anymore. I bought all his
records. When I moved to another school I made new friends and one of them was Jolanda. We
listened to the music of Prince with my Walkman almost every day. She had one end of the headset
and I had the other. After graduating we lost track of each other but we stayed in each others heads
for more than 20 years. After I was divorced and lived alone with my son for 5 years, I found Jolanda
through Facebook. We wrote 2 weeks on Facebook and made an appointment to meet each other.
She told me she listened to the music of Prince every time she thought of me. She wasn't happy in her
marriage and within 2 months she moved in with me.
When she opened her suitcase the first thing I saw was the Prince DVD. It's like we had never been
apart. We are soulmates. I have a couple of illnesses but that doesn't matter to her. When I feel sick
or have a lot of pain I listen or watch Prince and when I am busy with my airbrush I always have Prince
playing on the background. His energy when he is on stage fills my battery. The statement he made to
the world not to be a slave of money and live your own life the way you want to, inspired me also. His
nonstop energy to make music, day or night made me do what I love, making art. I had to give up
sports, oil paint, pastel, acrylic paint because of pain and allergy. I knew Prince was in a lot of pain
with his hips and other body parts but he kept doing what he lived for, his music. Now I have found a
way to do what I like, the airbrush. With his music and the energy that comes from him, I can do what
I love, despite of the pain I can airbrush a few times a week.
My wife and I hoped to go to a Prince concert some day but then the terrible news came... Prince
dead at the age of 57. That night my whole life as a teenager past by. The nice times I had in the
neighborhood I lived in, the nice times with my parents, my school time. Too young to leave us, too
young because I think he wanted to make a lot more music for us. I cried that night just like I cried
about my mother who also passed away too young. It left a hole in my heart.
Prince. I wish you heaven. Thanks for all your energy and inspiration. No one can ever replace you.
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