This Wise Little Slothhas taught me to follow my path, play in the soulful, pay attention to signs, have faith in my craft and always stay true to myself. This moment is almost always joyful. Leave space for joy, there is no use forcing it, it will come.
Are you looking for inspiration? A little down to earth reflection and renewal? Want to stay current on what’s new and what to expect from Marika? My emails are food for thought packaged with color, soul and humor.
Loss is felt as much as for what we have as for what we think we could have had. A wound and scar, internally, spiritually, emotionally. We carry on, even thrive, but the wound reverberates.
Watercolor 19″ x 19″
Original is Sold.
This painting was a commission. My client wanted me to paint the feeling of loss that comes from a wound unreconciled. Both visceral and emotional. A tight twinning of psychology and body.
Are you looking for inspiration? A little down to earth reflection and renewal? Want to stay current on what’s new and what to expect from Marika? My emails are food for thought packaged with color, soul and humor.
There is no hope in understanding a marriage. It is bound by love and faith, not analysis. There is love in one another and more importantly love in what they create together. This home, this family, this feeling, this conversation, this intimacy, this strength, the gift giving, forgiveness and courage they form together and this friendship only exists in this marriage. It is incomprehensible… and a wondrous fact.
Are you looking for inspiration? A little down to earth reflection and renewal? Want to stay current on what’s new and what to expect from Marika? My emails are food for thought packaged with color, soul and humor.
This commission is taking me a long time to finish. I make three decisions and then I’m exhausted, and the paint needs to dry. I walk away.
As I work, I think about my client. She has an irreversible and deadly disease. This painting is for her life partner as a parting gift, in memory of their life together. Their best memories are in the water, the mantas are metaphors and symbols.
Thrilling, intimate, scary, flowing, connecting …. fill in the rest here.
We all know life is finite. But it is another thing to know death is looming. It is another thing to be touched intimately by it and be asked to partake in the goodbyes.
I love her (my client). Every decision is a worth a million more than the thought that goes into it. I want to have all the time in the world to finish this painting. I want anything to slow down goodbyes. I never want this painting done so she can never give it to him. So she will never die.
So I slow down. And reflect on color and life.
The Birth story: color and life
Of the images she gave me, there were sea turtles, mantas, sea life, water, underwater corral. Of the words she gave me, mantas, moving together, light and colors, love and the stories she has shared with me about them.
This image burned for me. This is sketched and painted on 9 x 12″.
Which eventually led to a rough idea and agreement.
I changed the mantas as little as I worked on the larger image which is about 26″ x 26″. They are purple; regal and spiritual. They come together in a more fluid shape. They merge so one is undecipherable from the other. The energize each other at the connection point.
And then I add background color. I also altered the color scheme a little, adding deeper blues and simplifying. The challenge is to keep the eye on the mantas while creating motion, energy, support and a story with color. A vivid purple draws the eye in just the right places, there should be color and contrast where meaning occurs.
The aquamarine frames the mantas. Dark colors keep the eye inward. The yellow draws the eyes to it and the mantas. Purple and yellow are complimentary colors, they glow next to each other.
Now I’m happy with the basic composition which is different than the first sketch. I took what worked from it and added and subtracted. Then, I return to the blues and yellows, softening, shading, darkening and adding depth.
This week, I came back to the mantas with more layers of colors and shading. The rewards for patience pay back huge in vibrancy and motion. The mantas are deeper purple now, the result is higher contrast which builds more energy and richness to the painting.
What is left?
I need to keep working the shading in the two mantas, their upper bodies are still a bit ill-defined and the background colors still need a few more layers for richness and just the right frame.
Mantas: A Love Story (c) Marika Reinke 2015 #WIP
She loves it. Believe me, she would tell me if she didn’t. I’m relieved and joyful. This project aches, but I’m so pleased that this painting is doing what she wants and needs it to do.
I could work on this forever.
She might have to tell me when to stop.
There is so much about this whole being human thing that I can find wanting. My imagination paints the ideal picture and nothing will measure up. It is after all, my imagination. And my perfectionism. And my idealism. Which are flip sides of criticism. It is easy to criticize. And sometimes criticism is good. It can make us better.
I’ve finally got this watercolor paper prepped to my standards, (my perfectionism) for my next commission.
The beginning, a blank sheet.
This next commission is not a perfect story. It is a completely wanting story and one that breaks my heart. Because we are human. Because we are mortal. Because in the end, we may not get everything we want out of this life. It doesn’t really all lay in our hands, there is fate and forces completely out of control. There is death.
And the most not perfect thing of all is love. There is Love. Love is not wanting. It just is. The act of appreciating Love in the face of nothing perfect is what this commission is about.
The trust placed in me in enormous.
It is teaching me to balance my perfectionism with pure and loving appreciation.
But here’s a challenge: define Beauty. And why does it matter?
I intuit Beauty is important to the human experience. I’m sure some happiness researcher has done a study that shows Beauty is important to cultivating happiness. And geesh, happiness is so important these days that scientists study it. The magic happiness pill makes lots of money.
Beauty is healing too. And Beauty is more.
Here is a story
I’ve started to sell a little on Etsy. A customer approached me in a conversation about a print Fertility. She has been having a hard time conceiving and she wanted a piece of art that would help her imagine conceiving but also a healthy reproductive system. She wanted to know what my thought process was going into this painting.
Fertility (c) Marika Reinke
It took me a year to conceive my daughter. I relate to this struggle. It was one of my most difficult times.
Here is my response.
I painted this when I was having a hard time conceiving as well. It is such an exhaustingly emotional and baffling time. I didn’t know what was wrong or if there was something wrong. It was just hard and trying and gut wrenching. As you know. I was learning a different relationship with my body. I didn’t have full control of it. I was powerless in a way I never expected.
With this painting I was trying to imagine what my body looked like from within. I was learning to love me as I was. That it could be beautiful, not a scientific drawing, an x-Ray or broken somehow. It was and is amazing.
So it is a painting of a beautiful womb, artistically experienced (not scientifically rendered) from the heart. There are ovaries, and layers of red, shapes of the feminine ovals, circles and hearts. It is a place of love and power as it is. It is a place of potential.
There are suggestions of implantation. Yes. At the time that was my dream. But not a reality.
The blues are deeply soothing and mark and frame the womb. They bring power and contrast to the subject. They are organic shapes to suggest movement, other organs and life. I love that you see feathers! Yes!
Personally, I love the colors in this painting.
For my limited edition prints, I will hand highlight and embellish the painting with iridescent paints, silver or gold. If you have an idea you would like me to embed in the painting when I do this, I’d be honored to mark it that way for you as well. I embellish them when the order comes in. If you decided to purchase it, just send me a message and I can do this. They are high quality prints on watercolor paper and take this paint beautifully.
My hope is that it would help give you some peace and self-love in a difficult time and it would be meaningful for you as well.
In all, we exchanged 37 messages. By the 6th or 7th exchange she purchased a print. For the next dozen or so, we exchanged messages on how to hand embellish the print. This customer took full ownership of her print, directing me to mix a 1:1 ratio of gold and silver and very specifically directing me to the places she wanted highlighted. Here is the result:
Fertility highlighted (c) Marika Reinke
I loved the exchange. We collaborated and connected. As we communicated, I learned about her and her trying time. I have deep empathy and hope for her. I hope that she loves herself and through her process she becomes a mother.
Equally, the process made us both vulnerable. I had hopes this print would bring her peace and support. She had hope this print would touch her and bring her beauty, healing, peace in an emotionally exhausting time.
I mailed the print and we waited, holding our breath that our hopes would be realized.
Here is the beginning of her 5 star review. I say we succeeded:
“When I saw my painting I could not restrain tears of joy and hope that filled me up. Thank you, Marika, for a beautiful custom work! …”Read more here (In my opinion, it’s a good read).
But also this is Beauty. Not just Art the Product, but the Whole Process. Beauty.
Truth: An artist comprehends no separation between art and life.
But recently I learned that I subconsciously regard aspects of my art as separate.
I have told myself this: Writing is not painting. But writing is most definitely art.
In this way…
When I decided to take the leap of faith and become a painter, I let go of others’ judgment and my worry. You know, that little voice that wants to please and seeks praise? I threw that out the window. It does not help the artistic process. Truth: I have an unique artistic voice that is not for everyone and that is the nature of art.
My paintings touch people and some people profoundly. I focus on this. When I paint for someone or some theme, I do my best to put their skin on and see the world from their perspective. The painting should be profound for that person or theme. If it touches more people in the process, that is a lovely side effect.
Paintings are an expression that creates meaning, relationships, and ultimately expand our understanding of life. Mine will do that for a few or many. But not all. Ok. I accept this and let go of worry.
When I handed “A Healing Place 2” off to my client, she stood in her living room and announced that she was going to read the story card aloud to her daughter and husband.
“Ack!” I choked and covered my face. I had a mini-panic attack right there. I wanted to run.
It was a Moment of Truth. A Teachable Moment.
Here on this blog and in all my marketing attempts I have exposed (one aspect of) my artistic soul in a gallery of public paintings and processes. I have no panic attacks. It is a struggle but ultimately I trust myself here.
But in that moment I could not listen to someone pronounce my words. I wring heartache into writing. I did not want to hear it and be faced with a critique.
Some damage, huh?
Writing is a cracked and bleeding medium for me. This is a revelation. I have been manipulating words and hiding behind the painting, a coward. Writing and I have a long history, longer than painting, but before I knew how to protect myself from all the real, imagined and self critics. It is my first love saturated with juvenile expectations and painful miscomprehensions. It is riddled. A puzzle of meaning and pain.
I need to get over it. If there is something my painting can teach my writing, this is it.
A healing place in not a simple beautiful place. It is complicated with compact meaning. The tumult of injury, lingering pain, peace and healing. A place of innocence, a place before the world completely changed. A place to return and make sense, to pick up this life and re-puzzle it, but maybe…not… solve… it. A small hope to fit a little better. A place to relearn to love oneself as broken and complete simultaneously. A place of redefined beauty and ever-altered perspective.
Watercolor 24″ x 18″
Story
This painting was a commission for a client who deeply loves and connects with Arches, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. She deals with chronic pain with a cheerful disposition and laughter. These parks were the last long vacation she had before she discovered the root of her long term pain, which has since not been resolved. These red, red, walls are packed with meaning.
And in hanging this on her wall, I hope it brings her peace and my hope of some alleviated pain.
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