KIRSTEN REED SHARES HER STORY OF GRIEF AND HOW ART HELPED HER HEAL
By Liesel Schmidt & Anne Hunter
Artist Kirsten Reed has fond memories of the unspoiled beaches and white sands of Northwest Florida from her youth. “I love our beaches, the trees, and the natural dune life. I spent many years growing up along the sandy shores of the panhandle, and I’ve watched it change over the years,” says Reed, who once served as a public relations executive for Sandestin Beach Resort at Sandestin, where she met a life long friend, Kim Duke-Layden. “We met when Kim came to work at Sandestin and immediately hit it off!” Their first big project together was coordinating the Women In Wine festival which was held at the Market Shops in Sandestin. It was Duke-Layden who would introduce Reed to Anne Hunter, the gallerist who would ultimately host a show for Reed in Seaside.
The artist’s native roots run deep. Reed calls Nashville home, but her parents live in Niceville, where they purchased their home in 1979. “I always come back to visit friends and family. Much has changed, but I still take in the senses of our beautiful environment – the sound of the waves, the smell of the air, and the sight of a lovely sunset against the ever-changing painting from Mother Nature.”
The natural paintings she sees all around her can be seen in her work. But so, too, can the many joys and struggles she has experienced throughout her life. There is not simply acrylic layered onto the canvases bearing Reed’s signature; no simple whims guiding her hand as she the moves paint on her palette. Heart, soul, faith, emotions, prayer, and benediction are the very essence of all she creates; and, just like Mother Nature, the finished product is often far more than she could have ever imagined.
Artistic since childhood, Reed’s greatest outlet for her creativity initially took her in a direction that made the most financial sense; and for most of her adult life, she worked as a freelance writer for marketing firms who could put her talents to use. But when the tragedy of losing her younger child in 2000 after a short, heart-wrenching twenty-seven months filled with struggle began to seek release through painting, she realized that a once-abandoned passion could become more. Even with the paintings she was creating during the earliest days of dealing with her grief, however, Reed didn’t seriously consider turning her “hobby” into a legitimate career until the market crash in 2008 led to a decided downturn in writing opportunities. Coupled with various other changes in her life, the newly found time she had to focus on the outcries of her heart to pursue something that truly fulfilled her led her to the canvas—and the encouragement of others to sell her work gave her the courage to spread her wings and explore her talent.
Her first show gave her the resolve she needed to continue, seeing the way that people responded to her pieces and connected with them. “Being there, face to face with them and watching people look at my work and respond was really unnerving at first, and it took me awhile to learn how to represent my art and sell my art and talk about my art in a confident way,” Reed recalls of that very first foray into the market, which was held at a barn show hosted by the Mars Corporation at Milky Way Farms in her home state of Tennessee. There, in the massive horse-stall bearing the name Snickers, Reed learned that what she was doing with palette knife, paint, and canvas was more than just an expression of herself—it was a truly God-given gift that could speak to people and touch their hearts.
More than just a method of working through the grief of losing a child, painting is also her way of working through all of the emotions she faces in her life as each day unfolds—whether good or bad. “I think that healing is never complete,” she says thoughtfully. “Grief is something that always resides in you; and sometimes it takes up more space in us than it does in other times, but you just kind of learn how to make it behave and learn how to manage it. I would certainly say that there are moments in my life when it’s more pronounced than others; and sometimes a painting of something that is really looks, on the canvas, to be very happy looking is not how I was feeling when I painted it—it’s what I want to feel,” she explains. “The experience of losing a child is always there, so that grief is always there; but I think we’re constantly evolving in our lives and we just kind of learn to accept ourselves or love ourselves better and to know what we want in our relationships with others and know what we want in our lives and then go on from that. Life is one of those tricky things that we’re constantly trying to figure out, but no one ever really does. You have moments of real passion and clarity and joy, and then you have those moments of darkness and grief, and I think my art has helped me through all those emotions that life brings by expressing it onto the canvas. I really feel like God has given me this desire to create, so there must be a reason that I have it in me—it’s something that feeds my soul, but it’s also something that I think is a gift that I can share with others.”
That gift, that God-given desire to create is one that finds its greatest purpose when she least expects it—though it could well be said that God knows what He’s doing as He guides the movements of her hand. From commissioned pieces that have hidden meaning until their unveiling to messages that are revealed only after someone else has opened her eyes to them, Reed’s paintings are the culmination of prayer and creativity—sometimes literally so, as she often writes a prayer that has weighed on her heart onto the canvas before she begins her work. Regardless of whether that prayer is scrawled onto the material before layers of paint cover its words or whether they are simply whispered as she works, she lets the spirit move her, allowing herself to be the conduit through which a message can be given—and sometimes that message is one that finds the heart that needs to hear it without her ever knowing who was ultimately needing it the most. “Sometimes what reveals itself in a finished painting is really what lets me know that it was God-led and that painting is my true purpose.”
When it comes to Seaside, Reed says fondly, “I love the concept of new urbanism and would love to see it spread nationwide. It make sense to bring community together again. In this day of cell phone addiction and people ‘communicating’ without physical interaction, a community that offers central gathering places and is walkable weaves its residents into a daily life that only serves to strengthen.”
From angels to vibrant bouquets of flowers and serene sunsets, there is emotion at work on Reed’s canvas; and the purpose she feels in creating them is a beautiful thing to behold.
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Kirsten Reed | COASTAL SENSES is hosted by Anne Hunter Galleries. Reed’s exhibition will run from October 1, 2018 – December 31, 2018, at 25 Central Square, in Seaside, Florida, and at 104 North Barrett Square in Rosemary Beach, Florida. Ten percent of all sales of Reed’s paintings are contributed to Children’s Volunteer Health Network.
