Prints

Just a quick side note before I continue with my account of the Black Sea….

I have recently been in touch with people about selling prints of my paintings.  I have sold a few in the past, but have never done much advertising for them.  Its good for me because prints are easy and fast to make, and good for the client because they are affordable, can be printed at any size and look almost as good as an original.  So, that being said if you are interested in purchasing a print of any sketch, painting or drawing of mine, please contact me at gabrielleannreeves@gmail.com.  You can find most of my work on this site, as well as at Gabriellereeves.com.

A few examples of prints sold…

“Mala in the Monsoon” Mixed Media on Paper, 2013

“Waldo” Oil on Canvas, 2011

“On Road” Oil on Canvas, 2008

“Apparaition” Oil on Panel, 2010

Thank you to everyone who has supported my work!  Now, back to the Black Sea…

Little Paintings

I made these little panels when I lived in Istanbul.  My intention was to paint as many  tiny images as I could and someday hang them in an exhibition.  However, I was spending so much time out in the city drawing from life that I almost completely neglected my studio work, and the only oil painting I completed was the “White Pigeon”. So I took back the the US this single oil painting, a few blank and half worked panels, and many travel drawings and sketch books.

When I began working in my studio again, I decided to complete some of the little panels, and worked on them occasionally in between my larger works.  They were intimate and satisfying to focus on.  So different from the larger and somewhat intimidating pieces.  I completed 6 for the Hüzün exhibition, and when I stood back to look at them hanging on the gallery wall, I realized that they looked like little icons, which linked them back to my influence and interest in early Christian art.  This gave them more significance than I had planned, and I was pleased to see other people drawn to them as well.

Since the show I have made 30 more small panels. They are of varying sizes, but do not exceed 7″ in either direction.  I intend to take some of them on upcoming travels, and leave some in my studio for future response works.  Someday, if I can pull myself away from my travel drawings and larger paintings long enough, I will fill a gallery with hundreds of these delicate little paintings, as was the original plan……..

“White Pigeon” Oil on Panel 5″x7″

“Bitmiş” Oil on Panel 5″x5″

“Self Portrait with Language” Oil and Found Paper on Panel 7″x5″

“Lessons 4″ Oil on Panel 7″x5”

“Fortune 1″ Oil and Turkish Coffee on Panel 5″x5”

“Fortune 2″ Oil and Turkish Coffee on Panel 5″x5”

 

The Exhibition

Almost two years of work, many long studio nights, and a few tears resulted in my first solo exhibition at the Corridor Gallery.  It is was an incredible feeling to see everything from my sketchbook pages to my large studio paintings occupying one space and cumulating in a statement about my life in Istanbul.  I’m happy for the opportunity to share this part of my life with the world, in the way that I know best.  Thank you friends and family for the support and encouragement!  You can read a review of the show, as well as a few controversial comments (but what’s art without a little controversy) here, please enjoy!

Dad and Grandma

After arriving in Oregon, at the end of my journey last fall, I stayed with my Aunt in Newberg  for a few days.  She has many wonderful things at her house up on the hill.  I found these tiny pictures of my dad and grandma propped up on her shelf, and sat in front of a warm stove all day, sipping tea, drawing and watching the fog slowly lift from the green and gold country outside.

Conversations on a Train

En route, from California to Oregon……

Sitting in a teetering dining car in the early morning light.  Too tired to form concrete thoughts, and still bewildered by the surreal images that danced in my head in between sleeping and waking in my seat the night before.  I peer out my window, past the vase of plastic flowers and fog on the window to the grazing cows and telephone poles, all flashing by my window like a quickly playing slide show.

I am joined by Paty, a retiree traveling from Mexico to Seattle to see a man whom she has been speaking with over the internet for years, but has never met in person.  I enjoy listening to Paty, her canter is off beat and she is strange, but kind.  She wears a black sweatshirt with elaborate white font across the chest “Queen Elizabeth Cruises.”  She points to her breast and explains that she has seen the entire world on cruise lines, and once she finds out that I am an artist, Paty suggests that I try and get a job teaching art on cruise ships.  Paty has been married three times and tells me she has trouble letting men into her heart.  She likes to paint and is writing a children’s book, and says that she is queasy from the train but orders three pancakes with a side of bacon and a cup of coffee with cream.

Paty tells me about her life in Mexico, and her cheap rent in Playa Del Carmen.  She takes a pen from her pocket and writes down an occasional word on the paper tablecloth now ringed with coffee mug stains and syrup.  Playa Del Carmen she writes.  “I only pay $600 a month!” $600, she writes.  “I have started taking Spanish classes” Spanish joins the group of random words forming between us.  “They call me Pattita.”  Patitta.  I look at Paty, and wonder how the two of us have ended up eating breakfast together, in this small sliver of our lives, in between destinations.  I think of our contrasting lives and how once I leave this dining car, I will never see her again.  As she continues to talk, peering over her dark sun glasses at me, I realize the peculiarity of two strangers sharing details of their lives with each other over stale coffee, as the landscape shifts from flat prairie, to snow coated forest, to luminous fall trees to large cities…

As I left breakfast, and found a seat in the observation car to better view the altering landscape, I observed strangers all around me, sitting as comfortably with each other as if they were old friends.  Sipping coffee, knitting, resting their socked feet on the window ledge, and conversing about where they have been and where they will soon be.  When the train screeched to a haunt from station to station, I saw them depart one by one and go their separate ways.  To disperse back into the world like flecks of grass blowing in the wind.

San Francisco Snap Shots, some highlights…

A farmer’s market in the Mission neighborhood

At the SF MOMA

Self Portrait in the MOMA

Learning to Sail

A walk with a friend

Lost in the Tenderloin

Wondering the streets of the Mission

Downtown

Taken from the SF MOMA

Public Transportation

By early November, I was in the beautiful San Francisco, and as a first time visiter, I was anticipating the chance to ride the antique trollies!  Each one is unique, and they come from different cities all over the world.  I grew up in a small town in Wyoming, so needless to say I am not used to public transportation.  However, when I lived in Istanbul, I learned to love the tram, ferries and mini busses…mostly because it is a great opportunity to draw my fellow commuters.  After exiting the yoga retreat, hopping on and off the trollies in San Francisco, visiting museums and galleries, and all the while holding my little black sketchbook that has traveled with me from Turkey to Wyoming to Chicago to Canada and New Hampshire to Colorado and at last to California…..I felt vivacious, buoyant, happy.

Pleasant Valley

Now, remembering California…

My excursion last fall was unplanned to say the least, so when I ended up at a yoga retreat tucked away in the Sierra Nevada Foothills, I was less than surprised.  At this point, I was just putting one foot in front of the other, my direction lead only by intuition.

I traveled for 12 straight hours from the coast to the mountains, first by bus, then bus again, then train, and at last a car.  I have to say, my experiences thus far of traveling by bus in the United States have not been the most pleasant, but as a traveller you learn to put on your head phones, prop up your feet and ignore the crazy banter from the man sitting two seats back and focus on the next destination.  I switched buses and stations, waited for departures and ate trail mix while sketching and reading.  The day slipped by as I sat in various seats with friendly or unfriendly neighbors, but I just stared out onto the passing landscape with my sunglasses gently slipping down my nose.

I had enjoyed the train ride into Sacramento, but after arriving found myself sitting in sweltering heat on the steps of the train station, hoping desperately that my ride would recognize me as the girl from Wyoming or Colorado, or somewhere around there…a girl who was traveling in California without direction, and who wanted to come stay at the yoga retreat for a time.  After reading The New Yorker, finishing my trail mix and watching the sun slowly slip behind the glaring skyscrapers of Sacramento, I spotted her…my wonderful, sweet host, standing by the Starbucks, with large dark sunglasses, and a hand-written sign reading, Gabrielle.

Pleasant Valley Sanctuary was more to me than a resting place, it was solitude and silence, nights of laughter, mornings of peace, long conversations in the afternoon and endless cups of tea accompanied by wonderful books.  As part of the intern experience, I absorbed as much as I could about meditation, yoga theory and concepts of spirituality.

This is a part of the country where the energy is different, people look you directly in the eye, you can feel the sincerity and trust in their voices.  You can go swimming in the river in late October before driving into the nearby town and meeting people with names like Distance and Starlight Compost at the laundromat.  I left Pleasant Valley on a bus heading towards San Francisco, wishing I could stay longer but knowing I had do move on…I was filled with the bliss of a child.

Late Harvest

I flew out to California this fall with the intention, among other things, of spending time on a vineyard, stomping grapes.  I’m not sure what gave me this idea, or why I was so adamant about it, but it all seemed so romantic in my head.  When this goal proved more difficult than I imagined, I had to improvise and create my own harvest and grape stomping project.  I was on the Mendocino Coast in late October, doing a work exchange and staying in a historic water tower.  After  a little poking around, I found someone who was willing to let me and several others pick all the grapes we wanted from their vineyard.  The grapes would have all gone to waste, because apparently the owner of this vineyard had too many other projects to tend to, and couldn’t deal with a harvest this year.

So, we drove out to the small vineyard and started down the rows, filling baskets, bowls and bags with tightly bunched beads of fruit.  I had never seen grapes like these, so dark and rich in color, so beautiful and so sweet.  Some of the grapes were shriveled and turning to raisins, as it was late for harvesting, but, there were still so many that could be used.

After loading up all we could, I headed back to my temporary home with sticky fingers.  The next few days were consumed with de-stemming, rinsing, boiling and straining the grapes for juice and jelly.  While I was working on this tedious project I realized what my fascination was with this process.  It was just that…the process.  We live in a society obsessed with convenience.  Doing anything by hand has become such a rarity, that no one seems to stop and think about where our food comes from, how it is made, and who was behind the whole process of making this food available to us.  Everything we buy is packaged, and comes from some obscure place, and is produced in some ambiguous way.  The increasing distance growing between us and our food is a thought that has consumed my mind for a long time.  It informs my artwork and my way of life.  Nothing gave me greater pleasure than picking those grapes one bunch at a time, taking them home, shifting through them, and transforming them into my own product to be consumed.  The whole method is meditative, and enhances a respect for food, for the earth.

After endless jars of jelly and what seemed like buckets of juice, we still had two large bowls of grapes.  So, I washed my bare feet and stomped away at them until every grape was crushed.  I did some quick reading on homemade wine, and left three gallons of my handcrafted pinot noir to ferment in the bottom of the water tower.  I don’t care if I never get the chance to taste it, I only wanted to stomp grapes and make wine…and I did.

By the Sea

I can never shake the uncontrollable urge to travel.  I just spent a month of intensive work in the studio, and after painting for 8 hours a day, I had no desire to get out and draw.  Traveling, drawing, writing and getting new energy from unexplored places is vital to my life as an artist.  So…I booked a one way ticket, packed a bag and found myself here, on the northern coast of California.  The sea is beautiful, and the sound of the gulls reminds me of Istanbul.  I realized today, as I perched on a rock with my sketchbook, how much I miss being so close to the water.  I am usually not interested in drawing landscape, unless it involves figures or buildings, but the rocks jutting out of the water in this cover were enticing, and I was very happy with my little drawing.