Cropped Union painting by Max Reif - A process of birth

A PROCESS OF BIRTH: Reflections on the creation of a new painting

Last updated: April 9th, 2019

A Process of Birth

Our house is filling up with paintings!
Where do they come from?
From inside me, of course.
I’m one of those people
who has to create Art,
it seems, to be happy.

But not just anything.
There were years when I
could get nothing on the canvas
to live!

Now, again,
for the past year,
these wonderful images—
I think they’re wonderful—
are blossoming inside me
and taking birth in the world!

They don’t just pop up.
Some deep association
creates a picture in the mind.
There has to be energy.
It has to be something you need
to see in front of you,
and you have to make it so others
can see it too!

Maybe it’s just that I’ve
decided to care.
It’s in my chart somewhere,
probably, I have to write, paint—
do music, too.
Just to show off
for Mom? Nah
Just to be a good boy?
Excel? Be brilliant and creative?
I don’t think that, either.

I think it’s more—mystical.
These plastic images,
these mental pictures
with no measurable depth—
it takes labour
to birth them—
and they change,
oh yes, they change
as you do it!

Now, I’m a lazy man,
and what’s more,
I don’t know how
to do this!
Oh, I went to art school,
for awhile,
but I’m not your
“realistic artist.”

Figurative, yes,
most always, these days,
but a bit—let’s not say surreal,
and “visionary” is not a word
it’s polite to apply to yourself.

At best—hopefully—
and it sure feels that way,
these days—transcendental,
integrative. archetypal.
Dealing with symbols, things
I care about!
Paint? Hell no,
this is heart’s blood!

And now, today,
the latest layer
is peeled off the mind
and transferred to a canvas
that’s hanging on the wall.
I’m happy with it!
And as sometimes happens,
I’m asking, “Who did that?”

Because I can’t do it.
It came out exactly
as I’d envisioned,
but I knew from the start,
I didn’t have the skill
to realize this vision!
From the first stroke
I was literally
taking a stab, then another,
starting with a quick
basic outline in colours
that might or
might not be right.

There are two figures
in monk-like habits,
embracing in the foreground,
but they don’t
have human faces.
The face of one is the Sun,
and the other, the Moon.
It had to be dramatic!
That little nexus of faces,
forming a larger mandala,
but still only a small
part of the canvas,
had to rivet a viewer!

The faces were the easy part.
And a very dark, very starry night
to set them off.
And the monks’ habits? What colours?
I started with a smoky blue
for the Sun, a whitish beige
for the Moon,
just to get something down.
Enough for a first look.

That was yesterday.
Today I went back
and just started to play.
Who was guiding the brush?
It was like that joke punchline,
“Oh my God, am I driving?”
More gold in the Moon’s attire,
more sacredness.

And for the Sun’s:
smoky blue? Why?
Is he depressed?
I mixed some lighter blue
and tentatively loaded
a brush with it and made
some strokes. Then more,
pausing now and then to look.

Yes! The Sun has nothing
to be depressed about!
He doesn’t need
to hide, to dress down!
The smoky blue
had just been
my own lack of confidence!
OK to start that way, but now,
celebrate a Sun
clothed in Sky
or something like it!

But when to stop?
How light to make it?
How does it affect
everything else?

No one there
to tell me what to do.
Except … my deepest Self.
Whom I had to trust!

Then: integrate
the basic elements.
The scene. The two
upon a flat ochre plain.
A shrine in the background.
Green hills. That dark
and very starry night.

Go over the details:
execution, as near
to seamless as possible.
And then, I realize:
it’s finished!
One more stroke
would be too much!
Just then, Barbara
comes in and says
the same thing.

Voila! The child is born!
No longer in utero—
out in the world!
And I, breathless
as a new Mom,
having just experienced
the miracle of Birth!

Now to start to get
a handle on
this galloping joy!
And send out pictures,
as with any newborn.

And then see
what comes next.

Three more recent paintings:

Gestation

Gestation painting by Max Reif - A process of birth
Painting during a creatively dry period, while feeling the need for patience and meditation, led to the emergence of this image of something new in a slow process of being born.

The Only Sure and Unfailing Guide

The Only Sure and Unfailing Guide painting by Max Reif - A process of birth
Dealing with the daunting prospect of a Trump presidency, as well as a general feeling of creative discouragement, led to the initial choice of a bleak desert background. Later, it seemed so bleak as to be uninteresting. Playing with an old tube of gold-leaf paint (finger-smearing it in) and adding some bright crimson, too, “magically” transformed the desert. 

Two Temples

Two Temples painting by Max Reif - A process of birth
This painting is an affirmation of a remarkable experience years ago, when my attention was dramatically drawn to the emphatic biblical words, “THIS [my body] is your Temple!”
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images: Max Reif
  1. Hello Max,
    Thanks for sharing your art work and your thoughts about the creation. I like them a lot but I relate to the first one, the creation of birth, more than the others. It is coming from inside to make sense.

    What do you do with your work?
    Do you put them in an exhibitio.?
    What are the deletions on the one I like?
    Thanks again for sharing.
    Effie Miri

  2. Dear Effie,
    Thank you for writing in! I didn’t receive a notification of your comment…glad I happened upon it!
    First your questions: I was with a commercial art gallery, years ago, that sold a lot of my work. Then, I sort of “lost the gift” and did not paint for a long time. This past year or two, the “gift” has come back in the sense that meaningful images end up on the canvases. Right now, they’re hanging in our home, these new ones, and I took down a lot of older ones, to make room! These are just the very recent ones, and there are a few others that for one reason or another I felt too “personal” or “specialized” to share here.
    I don’t know what Spirit will inspire/allow in the future. I’m only concerned with the process, right now, Art as a participation in a spiritual and a symbolic, archetypal process that keeps me in “the flow” during the creation of the piece (my thoughts are wonderful, I feel peace, and I also listen to classical music). Afterward, I hang them on the wall, and they remind me, and I hope help keep me aware of the symbolic realms that we always live in but are sometimes not aware of! There’s a sense in which Art, like poetry, is a record of a process in the Present, and afterward, it can give a vicarious experience to someone else, but, as I wrote once about Poetry, “Poetry is the trail of wine bottles a drunken man leaves behind as he staggers toward the Sun.”

    The deletions in the “Union” painting don’t show, because fortunately, the process allowed them to be covered by other layers, and the end-product is just one image with no evidence of the stages it went through. (Is that what you mean by your question?)

    For me, every painting is simply a participation in the Present in the archetype and symbols that have for whatever reason come to the surface and leavened with enough inspiration to get the paint flowing. I have no idea what, if anything is coming next…and I, for myself, can’t compare any…it’s all just part of the miracle of Art, which is part of the greater miracle of life and this matrix of matter and spirit we live in, so leavened with both tears and incredible Beauty!

    Thanks again for your comment and questions!

  3. Effie Miri backchanneled this 2nd reply:

    Thanks Max.
    I appreciate your answer. Yes, creating an art work is a process for the painter to go through. It is the reflection from inside and going through those processes is the whole beauty of creating a piece of art. So, it is very personal yet many people relate to the end results. It becomes the experience of other people too.
    I could relate well to the one of two people hugging.
    Now the question is how an artist going through the personal processes of creating a piece can change it with money? That of course becomes a personal issue such as need for money or the artist may create another to replace it.
    Or put a very high price to be able to separate the piece.
    Anyway, I always appreciate the art works and always look beyond the observed product.
    Thanks again.

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