The Artist’s Way is Here and Now
As Picasso leaves Le Bateau-Lavoir in the Montmartre, he and Fernande Olivier transport all of the easels and all of Picasso’s canvases to the new private flat with the sunlit drawing room that looks out onto the trees of the Avenue Frochot. Together, Pablo and Fernande, have found someplace very special to live and love and create art.
According to Patrick O’Brian’s biography of Picasso, the couple “had one spring mattress with no feet, one round table, one stained white-wood chest of drawers, several broken chairs and a tin bath where (Pablo) kept his books (Nick Carter, Verlaine, Rimbaud) and of course, they had their three cats.”
As a young man in my twenties, I was fascinated by these descriptions of Picasso’s studios and his early artistic life in and around Montmartre with fellow artists such as Max Jacob, Juan Gris and George Braque and I would dream about how Picasso had found heaven on earth. On subsequent wanderings through Paris, I would explore every artist’s atelier I could find and I would spend hours at the Musee Picasso. It was all so magical, mythical and inspiring.
Just last month, I was able to go to another “someplace very special” - a place where two artists and wonderful friends have found their bit of heaven on earth in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
As it happens, Brooke and I were there to attend the wedding of these wonderful people - the painter Brad Reyes and Rachel Reyes, née Hosmer, who has created the Ami handbag line. The wedding was suffused with intimacy, light and all the colors of love and friendship.
The day after their warm ceremony, Brooke and I were invited to Brad and Rachel’s beautiful home where these artists have created a work-live environment where they practice their crafts and create their handmade works of art.
Brad’s art studio is a focused masterpiece of maximized space and organized tools of the trade. The studio reverberates with passion and your eyes can’t help but obsess on the palate of colors that echo the light at play in the surrounding Santa Fe desert and skies. His brushes stand tall and at the ready like the artist himself, always in his elegant poise and demeanor. Brad’s eyes are ever alive with a wisdom and a wit that always seem to be questing to find the next angle or the next faint hue or next subtle shade.
Upstairs in the home is Rachel’s sewing room and it sings with a creative zeal but also a basso continuo of the meditative and painstaking process that is involved in her designs with fabric and metal and leather and suede. The results are gorgeous handmade bags, backpacks and totes that leap out at you across a crowded street or on a woman’s shoulder across the room. In a relatively short span of time, Rachel has already made a dent in the handbag universe by creating an instantly recognizable brand that is infinitely unique. The minute Brooke bought her first Ami bag she was already wanting her next one.
As for me, I’m also lucky to own hand made art from this uber-talented team and that is the painting LA Skyline (Dawn), No. 2 from Brad’s Urbanica Series. The painting is living music made visual and it truly captures the urban essence of the Pacific Los Angeles. It’s a treasure in our home.
If you are looking for hand made, beautifully crafted works of art made in someplace-very-special please go ahead and check out Brad and Rachel’s work. I know you’ll dig it.
Reyes Fine Art: Cities and Skies
