Helen Reinhold

Fusing Real With Ethereal

BY MARIAN FRANCES WOLBERS

Helen Reinhold-Gordon’s brush finds a moment and moves it into a realm that extends beyond the canvas, where viewers can enjoy it again and again. Her style is straightforwardly delicate, evocative, uncannily deliberate. It’s imbued with honesty, wonder and the moment…the moment when an ordinary foggy sky clears to reveal a glowing lavender-leafed tree floating (Fading Mist), or when crimson blazes beyond flower petals (Red Is Red Is Red ).

Reinhold explains, “I’m compelled to paint common everyday objects — landscapes or human figures that tell a story to the viewer pausing long enough to notice. These seemingly unremarkable images present themselves to me repeatedly, and I need to show the oomph. The way a person sits and tilts their head: this tells you stuff. The way the light rests so briefly on flowers, rocks, vases in a still life, perhaps the glint off the rim of someone’s glasses…”

Oil paint suits best: “My early years found me using watercolors like they were acrylics, thick and opaque with very few washes. I figured I might as well jump to acrylics, but those found me painting like they were oils, so I eventually went right to the source.”

Art Emerged Early

“I grew up in a very creative, over-the-top, ‘too much’ family of making things. Extraordinary things. I witnessed a creativity that never questioned how to make it but how long will it take.

I was a curious, persnickety child that had to get in on everything. I think my older sister put the first crayon in my hand and made the pupil scribble while she played the teacher. Eventually, I had to draw as well as she did. A gold star placed on a coloring page at age five joyously did me in, and there was no turning back.”

She adds, “My mother would reward four children with a trip to the Reading Public Museum for behaving at mass on Sundays. How brilliant was that?”

Fast forward to 2023: “Lately, I’m curious about how light, atmosphere, water molecules affect a potential creation. In past work, it was all about the flowers in the still life set-up. The focal point has evolved to how light passes through the glass of a vase and then the water, visually manipulating the stems feeding into the water… How does one create atmosphere, particle changes and manipulation of space whenever light comes into play?”

Berks County

Powers Success

With a summa cum laude BFA from Kutztown University, Reinhold credits the Berks environment. “Becoming a member of Berks Art Alliance in the mid-90s opened doors via the workshops offered, opportunities to exhibit, and the members who were so sharing of their knowledge.”

Becoming a member of Art Plus Gallery in West Reading provides “an amazing experience not only in exhibiting my work in a gallery but gaining knowledge on the business side of art. Serving on the Board of Directors for the last four years has certainly opened my eyes to running and maintaining an art career.”

Exhibitions at GoggleWorks, Wyomissing Art Institute and PSU Berks “had me crossing paths with individuals who have now become my students at the Yocum Institute and at my home studio.” helenreinhold.com