Rina Gottesman Inspirations

As a continuation of our Studio Project, we checked in on artist Rina Gottesman to see what's been keeping her busy & inspired during her weeks of self isolation, including what she's been creating, cooking, and her view of the world. She replied along with some lovely shots of her artwork and a beautiful story.

Like everyone else I am at home practicing social distancing. I am lucky that my studio is in my home so there is always easy access to paint and painting.......especially at 2 am if I am still wide awake and can’t sleep!!!

My favourite season has always been Spring. After a long winter, it feels like a time of new beginnings, renewal and possibilities. Walking through my neighbourhood in suburban Thornhill, whether it be on early mornings or on quiet evenings, I find delight in seeing signs of the earth coming to life......tulips peeking out of the soil, new buds on trees, always hearing the sound of birds. They all make me feel hopeful, something we all need these days. 

 

Being home now with all our obligations having been cancelled, has given me more time to cook and allowed me and my husband to sit down to a relaxing dinner every night rather than having our usual ‘dinner on the run’ in order to get to a meeting or watch a hockey practice. 

I prefer cooking over baking as it requires less precision and I am trying to focus on making simple meals with fresh ingredients.....chunky salads, fish etc. 

However to me,  no meal is complete without chocolate!  I think I inherited that from my mother , who felt that no day was complete without some chocolate. I keep pieces of dark chocolate in the kitchen, in a blue dish that she once gave me. Beside it is one of her small oil paintings. The two objects together, plus the taste of the delicious chocolate make me think of her and smile.

Having to stay home now has brought an end to  my daily run to Tim Horton’s for an iced cappuccino. Instead, I am brewing endless cups of decaf coffee during the day (my Keurig machine and I are now best friends) and I have started enjoying a glass of red wine with dinner. 

My mother passed away this year and when she died I stopped painting. It took many months before I was able to pick up a brush. I was just starting to paint again when COVID hit. Suddenly I found that my world had changed yet again and in those first early weeks of fearful anxiety and facing an unknown future, I could not paint. I cleaned my art studio, cleaned my house, watched cooking demos on the computer, and learned to play virtual mahjong. I also ate a lot more chocolate! But as we all began to settle into our new reality, something in me started to shift. I went back into the studio and started to work on small collages which seemed less daunting than a large empty canvas. Eventually the familiar urge to paint returned and the result was a series of paintings which I named ‘Love, Hope and Chocolate’ as well as a larger work which I named ‘Zoom’, all previously ordinary words that had now taken on a new meaning in our new world.  

I usually love to paint with music blaring in the background, anything from Classical and Opera to Andrea Bocelli and the Beatles. However, painting ‘in the time of Covid’ has changed all that. I suddenly don’t have the patience for music. Now, the new background noise for me while I paint is an audiobook which  I download from a library app on my phone. Being immersed in a storyline has been a great distraction and has stopped  me from thinking too much about everything else that’s going on. So far I have painted to books by James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks , Daniel Silva and Jeffrey Archer. When I think about it now, each of these books share a common element. Each plot revolves around a problem which by the end of the book, has somehow been resolved. Coincidence?

 

 

Ghandi wrote that : ‘ in the midst of darkness, the light persists’. Hopefully the darkness that we are all living through now will soon pass. As an artist who paints from the heart, I choose to always try and paint from a place of hope and light, and let it be these emotions that guide and shape my art and my life. ❤️Rina

Thank you Rina for sharing your beautiful work & personal journey.

To view available works by Rina Gottesman as well as our other artists, please visit www.canvasgallery.ca.