I’m honored to be a selected artist of the Narthex Gallery’s A Community Inspired Group Show from August 12 – Sept 26th.
I will have two acrylic paintings exhibited at this non-profit gallery in Magnolia!
Please come!
SAT, AUG 24 / OPENING AND ARTIST RECEPTION 6-8pm – wine and snacks will be served.
Sadly, I will be out of town during the reception, but please stop by and support community artists at this fun and inspirational exhibit of fabulous artists. I love how MAX and this gallery is committed to growing an supporting the a arts and artists community.
The gallery is open Mon-Thurs, 9:30am-3:30pm.
I would love to meet you there! I will be there next Monday, August 12th for opening day and Thursday, September 14th. Send me a message and we can meet up!
More about the gallery:
NARTHEX GALLERY – 3555 W McGraw, Seattle in Magnolia.
A Non–Profit Art Gallery – Magnolia Art Experience (MAX) is dedicated to engaging and building local communities through arts access.
MAX supports and sponsors events, exhibitions and educational experiences in the literary, visual and expressive arts. MAX fosters partnerships to provide meaningful art encounters.
The Narthex Art Gallery is a non-profit gallery for artists and art lovers.
Located on the main street just west of Magnolia Village in the entry hall and parlor of Magnolia United Church of Christ, the Narthex Gallery located in the foyer and parlor, hosts the work of local artists. The church is a community hub for many groups and the gallery receives a diverse audience.
Have you ever wondered where inspiration comes from?
Personally, I’ve long carried a bias that inspiration comes from the means of expression; a painter’s inspiration must be visual, like pretty things and landscapes. A writer’s must be words and phrases, poetry and beautifully constructed sentences singing like music. A performer must be inspired by the audience.
But not really.
Inspirational is the only way I can describe my recent three-week family vacation to Cambodia and Vietnam. Yes, it was pretty, sometimes even ugly, at times musical and mostly captioned in a foreign language I don’t understand. Yet, I returned home not just inspired to paint and create but ultimately to live.
So if it wasn’t just the visual feast of Southeast Asia – what worked to inspire me? For me, inspiration always comes from family and the times we explore living together. I love this time more than any in my life. When we travel together we become a closer family, and the more deeply seated in and in touch with life I become.But there is so much more to the roots of inspiration.It also comes from seeing other families living and loving from cultures that feel so foreign yet familiar. The babies swaddled and cuddled on motor scooters. The families rushing to catch a bus. The kids splashing in the pool yelping and screaming.
It comes from the many ways of life. The shrines and monks who clutter the streets and temples of the Buddhas. The land mine survivors who serenade the holy places. Women swatting at their baskets of blacked tarantulas for sale in the humidity and heat.
It comes from beauty and its many forms. The artful movement of Apsara dancers. The ancient architecture of Hindu buildings and Chinese inspired pagodas. The sunrise caressing the Angkor towers.
It comes from exploring and being in nature. The majestic and unique islands of Halong Bay. The views from Ba Na’s Golden Bridge. The fields of lotus flowers. Getting to know the rescued animals of the Cambodia.
It comes from surprises. The unexpected smiles and sounds like the early morning Latin dancing on the streets of Hanoi. The hike away from crowded Monkey beach up lava peaks to the most amazing views.
It comes from the senses. From the taste of the most exquisite curry ever. The rich riot of seeds in dragon fruit soaked in an amazing sangria. The lemongrass scents of incense smoked rooms. The feel of raw silk. An ultra-rich and thick Vietnamese coffee sweetened with condensed milk.
It comes from new faces. The ones that joyfully greet or stare unabashedly. The old ones streaked with lines and crevices like elephant skin. The young ones wiped golden with newness.
It comes from language. Learning to say new foreign words comically, bravely, poorly. Watching people interact with deference and loud kindness.
It comes from history. The commitment of the Khmer dynasty to produce the most amazing city of temples. The young population of terror-streaked and war-torn countries rebuilding their identity and cities.
It comes from the thrill of adventure. Climbing Butterfly Valley of Cat Ba island and deep water soloing for the first time ever. Kayaking islands and caves, swimming in water warmer than the air and exploring hills and fields of foreign lives.
It comes from experience and the thrill of finally doing something you always wanted to do. The temples of Angkor Wat, exploring Halong Bay, deep water soloing, walking with elephants, being blessed by monk, visiting Vietnam and Cambodia.
Artful living inspires art making and for me, a fantastic vacation is a precious piece of art. I’m so excited to discover how this experience reveal themselves in my painting and my life.
And I hope it inspires you too.
My Instagram feed and Facebook page has more and in real time!
At the end of March, I FINALLYattended Flora Bowley’s Bloom True long weekend painting workshop. I’ve been wanting to attend this workshop for a few years. The workshops often fill the day the email announcement comes which is hard to plan around family demands. This year, I resolved myself to go NO MATTER WHAT.
I’ve had this secret wishing about this workshop, an intuition that I needed to be there though I wasn’t quite sure why. Now I know why.
The workshop was beyond expectations. From a fabulous eco-friendly backyard studio, luscious and healthy catering, live music, excellent instruction and not to mention people, there isn’t an easy thing to critique. Flora is an excellent teacher who shares her process for tapping your intuition and creative knowledge freely. The work and projects were designed to open us up. We painted with our eyes closed, we traded canvas, we painted around the room, we experimented with mark making, we danced, we learned a little about color, luminosity, mixing colors and some simple techniques for managing acrylic paints. We watched Flora transform a canvas through her process. We let go and trust ourselves. We worked with what’s working. We learned gratitude when nothing was because that is an opportunity to play more. It was potent magic.
The workshop gave me brand new clarity.
Mystery Embraced (c) Marika Reinke 2019 36′ x 36″ painted at the retreat.Who We Are (c) Marika Reinke 2019 36″ x36″ painted at the retreat
Three Birds (c) Marika Reinke 2019 – painted when I returned home.Marika with Three Birds (c) Marika Reinke 2019
The reason I paint is because I want to feel a specific way. That feeling permeates the outcome and ripples of a painting. I hesitate to name this feeling. Words are limiting. It’s like falling in love, it’s often called bliss or flow. It’s ease, timelessness and focus. Some say I’m passionate about it. When I paint, I am completely present. It is a moving meditation practice. When I’m not painting, I’m thinking about it like an excited kid waiting for Christmas. It’s the only thing I want to do.
Ultimately, the most important lesson I learned was the importance of pursuing the feeling. Outcomes, measures of success and will-you-like-it-worries aside, they really don’t matter. That feeling is a compelling goal no matter what you do. It can lift anyone because it gives back meaning, energy, love and focus. I suspect if we were all focused on that feeling as the goal, it would change the world.
What gives you that feeling?
Falling into Grace work in progress (c) Marika Reinke 2019 36″ x 36″Relationships are Fluid Work in Progress (c) Marika REinke 2019 24″ x 48″
C) Marika Reinke – Adventures in Art with Heart, Humor and Spirit.
Ease is radical counter-culture that requires personal trickery and magic because our popular culture pushes us towards the opposite; dis-ease and not good enough. With the popular mindset we cover up our true natures with workaholism, entertainment, politics, crisis and constant striving for more and more and more. But wait, just breath a moment, because right now is fantastically perfect. All those worries just don’t exist except in your mind. We are on an incredible journey through space and time and with each clock-hand shift unfolds another incredible new mystery with beautiful worry-less ease. The universe aids us, yet we resist.
In the keynote address Elizabeth Gilbert shared at Wanderlust Oahu, she talked about this conundrum from a woman’s vantage point. A “Relaxed Woman” is a cultural oddity. She wondered what it takes for a woman to relax and find ease and shared her noodling about what she reckoned was required for a woman to simply let go, relax and accept the universe’s wisdom. There were three ingredients to her magic potion that I love so much.
Priorities. Know what you value and what is important to you. Keep your focus there.
Boundaries. Know what is sacred in your life and relationships, draw a circle around these sacred principles and stand firm. Spend time understanding your needs. Spend time gently standing firm and comfortable in your sacred. People won’t always respect your boundaries, but ease isn’t found with people who trample on boundaries either. Find people in your life that respect and love you for your boundaries.
The Divine. Develop an intentional relationship with Divinity or Mysticism. There is more than the physical on this planet and you don’t need religion to explore it. Convene with your soul, celebrate your spirit and hunt out connections in nature and the universe. Meditate. Reflect. Get curious about the unknown.
Real wisdom and food for the soul, so simple and yet always a practice.
C) Marika Reinke – Adventures in Art with Heart, Humor and Spirit.
February in Seattle has been unseasonably cold, snowy and icy. A blessing because life slows down; I didn’t have to chauffeur anyone anywhere and the kids loved playing in the un-Seattle-like deep snow.
Before the snow, I was getting restless and frustrated with painting. Creativity is always a dance between process and product, the act of loving process and being in the moment creates the best art. Pressure shifts the focus away from the beautiful moment to a future possibility which the moment never lives up to, it’s a perfect formula for frustration. I needed to free myself from the pressure.
I skimmed through Dean Nimmer’s Art from Intuition, reflected on my intuitive painting class with Flora Bowley last fall and I pieced together an experimental antidote that I’ll call a Freedom in Art Day. Here is what I did.
I sketched a few nothing special sketches. The goal was to sketch an idea, not perfect it. I sketched 7-8 ideas in about 10 minutes. I took this idea from Dean Skinners 30 sketches in 30 minutes exercise.
I laid out three new paintings and their materials. This is idea is borrowed from Flora Bowley who recommends painting on 3 canvases at a time. I alternated materials and substrates so each painting had its own medium and substrate. In short, I had a mix of paintings on watercolor paper or linen, with acrylics or watercolor with some new Open and Fluid acrylic paints to play with.
I added 3 paintings I was struggling with to my original three which means I was set up to work on 6 paintings.
Before I began, I committed to process and less to outcome, insisting on experimenting and not getting caught in the “Everything must be beautiful” dilemma.
I rotated through the six paintings until I got tired of one and then moved to the next one as the current one felt stale.
I didn’t know what I was going to paint when I started. The images I sketched out began to emerge in my painting; women, brain, birds and more.
Four birds *work in progress* acrylics on linenLadies *work in progress * acrylic on watercolor paperThinking *work in progress * watercolor on hot press #140
magic *work in progress* watercolor on cold press 140#forest fairies *work in progress* watercolor on 140# cold pressancestors *work in progress* acrylic on packing crate
The snowy week was a marathon of painting that took me through the day and the next. The structure released all tension from the creative process and helped me break into new ideas. The new materials and substrates held my attention and encouraged me to explore. I can’t say any of the paintings are genius, and not all of them will make it to my portfolio, but the ideas flowed. I felt fresh. I felt calm and in love with painting again, forget pressure.
The moment is the gift.
C) Marika Reinke – Adventures in Art with Heart, Humor and Spirit.
There are two types of power; traditional and authentic.
Accumulating traditional power demands sacrifice for a well-understood balance; power must be earned by privilege and accumulated. Traditionally, status, money, fame, and politics demand specific expenses. Time for money. Privacy for fame. Quietude for politics. Authenticity for status. Responsibility for influence. These are economic exchanges that offer calculable and physical profits; requirements are met, titles are gained, tribes grow, conquests are made. It is power created and maintain by externalities.
Authentic power exists in love, truth, creativity, spirit, integrity, hope, joy, spirituality and even childbirth. With authentic power we are reminded we are co-creators of this astonishing life, not the gatekeepers to the traditional and mundane. Power is seeded internally and then nurtured. Authentic power exists without rules of economics or privilege to validate it. More threatening, this is proof that a creative force is alive and powerful in anybody. Authentic power is not an exchange, it is a fact of living. A woman, an artist, a human being on the verge of creation, art-making, expressing authentic truth and human right is about to inaugurate a miracle and confirm, once again, that there is a universal alternative power. Authentic power is free. It’s inside us, expressed in creative endeavors and among those we connect and love. It is the ultimate empowering life-source; free, abundant, and available.
For self-conscious and insecure humans, any power is a tempting target. Economics of power are always at play. It is not unlikely that someone or some institution will test the title to his/her influence. The traditionally power-starved or hungry will think, perhaps unconsciously, “I can take a little bit of this power and I will feel so much better, so much more in control.” A sweet piece of someone else’s authentic power is a battle trophy that feeds a human desire to feel powerful. Perhaps that is why authentic power is diminished into the frivolous; even as battles continue over reproductive rights.
Imagine a world where we chose authentic power. Sure a little traditional power might keep us in line. But if we all claimed and honored that authentic power in all of us, it would change the world.
C) Marika Reinke – Adventures in Art with Heart, Humor and Spirit.
I find daily practice tedious. Really, I do. Even with a morning ritual, I would rather have daily variety than a predictable plan.
An unpredictable day lifts me from monotonous self-talk. Instead of the self-same stories, I can create detached fables in my head. This protagonist is confident, capable, able to adjust and flex my muscles into any new challenge. I can surprise myself. With new context, I am awed like a newborn. It’s a joy to be different, just different.
In contrast, day by day progress is a slow measure; an increment here, a millimeter there and then a few subtractions just to rub it in.
It’s the reason I need my daily practice.
C) Marika Reinke – Adventures in Art with Heart, Humor and Spirit.
Coffee. Journal. Meditation. Movement. My morning ritual.
Some people swear a ritual makes the day better. Some days, I swear if a day could be worse, what would it be without it?
It is better than rushing out the door as I gulp down my coffee and stuff my face. It’s better than a never-ending ache for time alone to think. It’s better than insisting I don’t have time to pay myself some time. My time is the morning and my quiet, rhythmic ritual.
It’s like a warm up for a workout; a necessary prelude to the day. The older I get, the more I need it too. My body-mind won’t operate without a little shaking out each morning.
I return from the ritual a little cleaner. The world a little neater. My mind a slight more organized. Nothing perfect, but I’ve swiped more ready-energy and dusted my nerves with calm.
The day’s remainder is hardly habit and anti-ritual. I can invite its un-structure now.
C) Marika Reinke – Adventures in Art with Heart, Humor and Spirit.
A wise person claims that asking yourself, “Am I better than yesterday?” is a powerful daily life practice. Whether the answer is “Yes” or “No” during the pursuit of mastery, the practitioner’s reply must be a life-affirming, “Yes, I’m getting better at this because I practice.” Wisdom claims that answer drives doggedness through the stagnant times and frustration.
Easier said than done.
I reflect on my own pursuits which spread across parenting, painting, writing, climbing, fitness, mindfulness and admit there is no clear and simple answer. I have given up in the past. I’ve conceded defeat. I’ve believed I can’t do better. I have many excuses too, and I hate excuses. I’ve discovered that what you might call my doggedness is not certitude, but an overall concession and helpless defeat that I can’t do anything else than this.
So, without anything better to do, I continue to practice. Sometimes I remember to ask myself. “Am I better than yesterday?” But mostly I don’t.
Then, sometimes I come across a project or circumstance that reveals my progress and I get a second wind. This painting is it. It is my answer to the question. Yes, today I am better than yesterday.
C) Marika Reinke – Adventures in Art with Heart, Humor and Spirit.
Friendship is a like a bucket two people work to fill with Good. The fuller it is, the more stable and long lasting a friendship, the emptier and the more precarious. Good times, trust, presence, laughter, listening, giving, integrity, and love all fill the bucket.
Investing in a loaded bucket creates a lasting friendship because sometimes we mess up. Dishonesty, disappearing, not showing up, silence, smothering, missing being there and other dissatisfying behaviors take from the bucket. If the bucket is full enough, the friendship can last a transgression with tons leftover to cushion a mistake. A good friend will start to fill it up again. If the bucket isn’t nurtured, a transgression or two can grind down a fledgling friendship before it can bloom.
The bucket is sacred. A friend that doesn’t understand or abuses the bucket wears a friendship down. A friend that that respects the bucket will last forever.
C) Marika Reinke – Adventures in Art with Heart, Humor and Spirit.
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