Original & Unfiltered

My mom, Julie Rhem, has been painting for years. I never thought much about it at first. Now I find myself wondering what she was working through, what she was seeing, what the act of making something meant to her.

I sat down with her recently to find out.

When did you start painting? Was there a moment that pulled you towards it?

I started painting in a period of big transition in my life. I was in the middle of a divorce. It was very therapeutic. I had fortunately joined a group online and the focus was painting and collage with the point being to process life and emotions rather than to create an end product. This was very new to me. I found thatI could sit with a blank page and paint and just start to really get out what was inside of me. I had never really painted before. I remember sitting at the kitchen table and putting out all the paints and paper and brushes, and just returning to it whenever I felt like it… usually at the beginning or end of the day. I would leave everything set up so that I didn’t have to organize it all over again when I wanted to paint. I love exploring with colors and shapes and textures. And then I would add quotes on top of the paint that I was inspired by.

Has your painting changed over the years? What does it look like now compared to when you started?

That’s a good question, and I’m not sure. I think that my painting has probably become a little more structured that what it started out as as being. And I’m not sure I like that. I’d like to work on it. I enjoy painting the most when I’m not actually trying to create something.

Is there a subject or image you keep coming back to – something that won’t leave you alone?

A subject I keep coming back to is probably trees. I absolutely love painting, trees, roots, leaves, and bark. Sometimes trees without leaves. I just feel a connection to the tree if I’m painting them and I find them so beautiful. I also find I enjoy painting spirals. I like incorporating spirals into a lot of things that I paint. I might add some spirals on the tree trunk or just within some small areas on whatever I’m painting. I think because it feels like energy and emotion moving.

Has life ever made it hard to paint? What brings you back to it?

Yes, sometimes life gets busy and it can be challenging to get everything in that I want to do, including painting. I think an awareness of how important is it to my internal life is what brings me back to it.

What does painting give you that nothing else does?

Painting and art journaling give me a feeling of peace and freedom. Emotions can get heavy and art journaling helps me release emotions. I’m always surprised at how thick my paintings look or how heavy the colors are, and I think that’s often because there’s an intensity that is being released. Writing words is very challenging for me, expressing myself in words and getting out my internal experience into that form is very challenging. So painting by comparison feels very freeing and easy.

Is there something about your work you’d want people to know about your work that they’d never guess just from looking at it?

Maybe how messy my painting space is. When I’m art journaling as frequently as I’d like, usually my space becomes very cluttered with paint bottles and brushes and dirty paint water in glass jars. I also love candles and usually paint with a lot of candles lit. Oh, and that there’s usually a cat that has sat or walked on the painting at some point!

(My mom as a child in the ’70s!)