THE ART OF BELONGING

About

A Painter & Light

by

Pauline E. Reif

To see light in the moment

to enter this light

let go of your mooring

in a moment of love,

this is surrender only to love

and its wild arc of unexpectedness,

to see, to see and see how

light touches everything

one way or another,

to revel in its changing

forms, colors, moods,

to raise the sail

lift the anchor of

this is how it always is

like breath blowing

through white sails

like sky

 like love.

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It is my joy and privilege to share these images and words from my heart to yours, each one born from the hearth of my heart where I have come home with great joy, love, and deep gratitude. May we each follow the light home even through the darkness to our deepest belonging.

Gallery Collections

“The beauty of art is beauty born of the spirit and born again.”

G.W.F. Hegel

As Hélène Cixous so aptly suggests, the Poet-Painter is one “who uses life as a time of approaching... the one who knows how not to know.” As with all art whether it be written, painted, sculpted, or any other form of creation, the artist always begins here, in the emptiness, trusting that as we listen to the call, stroke by stroke, or word by word, the truth of this particular form will be revealed. We listen and we learn.

As a Painter and a Poet each painting is a journey for me through the unknown to the known following both shadow and light into the heart and soul of the image. Whether a landscape, an archetypal image, or a portrait, each reveals a particular gift, a message, at times pure joy, at times transmuting pain into peace, sorrow into a deeper love. It is a sure surrender to the gift being presented through my eyes and heart to yours not knowing where it will take us, but trusting it’s a journey worth taking. 

Sacred Places

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"Through me course wide rivers and in me rise tall mountains. 

And beyond the thickets of my agitation and confusion there stretch 

the wide plains of peace and surrender.

All landscapes are within me. 

There is room for everything”

 Etty Hillesum

The Earth speaks through color, light, shadow, and every form of water, land, sky, and creatures, all alive and filled with energy. Within each landscape I paint I receive and share the gift of wearing Earth as Divine ever more deeply into and through my body and soul.

Sacred Faces,Sacred She

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“All females in all the world are but my parts.”

Kali-Ma – The Supreme Reality, the Feminine Force

For the Mother seems to be saying:

...there is nothing except myself.

Ramakrishna

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Art is love. That is where I begin and what I see in each face I paint - the Sacred embodied into form. In each archetypal image of the Divine Feminine. I draw from Her loving presence within each of us, as Mother of all, honoring Her as the Heart of our own true belonging and sovereignty.