Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebekah Molander.
Hi Rebekah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story… well I guess in a way for me, that’s all I do is tell my story.
I’m an artist, my story is painted across dozens of canvases, bits and piece of me, scattered in paint across dozens of canvases. The honest truth is I can tell you a highlight reel, but if you really want to know me, my art will tell you more about me then my words ever will.
How did I get my start? Art has been my passion as far back as I can remember. An Artist is all I ever remember wanting to be.
I wasn’t a particularly talented kid. I don’t think anyone every looked at me and said “wow, this kid is special, she has a true talent” But I loved it any way. And I worked at it, and I was bad at it, and I loved it so much I just wouldn’t let go. I mean I still make as much if not more bad art than I do good art. But I try again, I practice, I make mistakes and I try to learn from them, where did this go wrong, what doesn’t work about it, what feels off and then I do it again.
This “Art Life” wasn’t handed to me. I wanted it, and I worked for it. I still work for it every day.
The thing for me I guess is, I don’t really think about making art when I’m painting, I don’t think about what people will like, what will sell, maybe I’d be more successful if I did, but I don’t. When I’m painting I think about life, I think about my feelings, I think about where I am, what I’m working through. Sometimes I think about what makes me happy, sometimes I think about what breaks me. Sometimes I’m just working through a particular moment. But it’s all there, my whole life and story documented on canvases in paint. Things I will probably never find the words to say.
Things maybe that I’m not really actually trying that hard to find the words to say it.
But, my Actual Start, I guess I feel like the moment I really became an Artist is when I sold my first painting, and that happened in August of 2020, because this Local Houston Radio DJ was kind enough to read an email I sent him about Houston Art, and then for reasons I still don’t know he, Rod Ryan, talked about Houston Art and Me on the radio and then one of his thousands of listeners looked up my social media and saw a painting she loved and then she sent me a message and she bought that painting. I still keep in contact with Keli. That was the moment I thought, Oh my gosh, what if I can really do this. Thats the moment I first really felt like an Artist. I will forever be thankful to both of them. Selling my first painting changed my life.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Is anything worth doing ever smooth and easy?
It’s been an incredible road!
Life is bumpy. We all have struggles, we fall down so we can learn to pick ourselves back up. I’ve fallen down a lot, but I always get back up. Every time I stumble I learn something new.
I’ve learned to not be limited by other peoples thoughts, opinions or expectations of me. No one but me knows what I’m capable of.
I’ve learned the difference between living and surviving.
I’ve learned I can’t grow inside my comfort zone.
I’ve learned when you don’t know what to do for yourself, start with doing something for someone else.
I’ve learned sometimes, suffering is just suffering, it doesn’t make you stronger, it doesn’t build character, it only hurts, and that some things and people you just need to walk away from and let go.
I’ve learned anyone who requires me to shrink myself to and make myself smaller to fit into their box, isn’t someone I need.
I’ve learned shining the light on others success and happiness doesn’t dim mine in the slightest.
I’ve learned I’m responsible for my own happiness, and I want to surround myself with people who support and encourage that, but not only is it no one else responsibility to create that for me, no one deserves to have that much power over me that they control it.
I’ve learned there is always room for growth.
I’ve learned I need to be more patient with myself.
I’ve learned the importance of passion.
I’ve learned I’m can be a lot, and I’m not for everyone.
I’ve learned I very often don’t see things the way everyone else does, and that’s a strength for me, not a weakness.
I’ve learned I that softness is not weakness. Kindness and gentleness does not mean small and fragile. It takes a lot of courage and strength to be so delicate in a world that can be so cruel.
I’ve learned to be the person I needed most in my life.
I’ve learned life is a balance between what we can control and what we can not and I’m working on living somewhere between effort and surrender.
No, my road hasn’t been smooth, but it’s been incredible, and I wouldn’t change any of it.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m an artist, mostly a painter, but I also work with wood and resin, I’ve done some really fun projects and pieces with wood and resin. I also build my own canvases, the frames for them, I cut and plane everything myself and put them together by hand and then I stretch and hand gesso the canvas, so every piece from me is custom and 100% hand built and created by me from start to finish. Cradle To Grave Art, I don’t think that’s a very common thing to create and work on a piece like that, from the start of building the frame, to painting, all the way to installing in someone home. Cradle To Grave Art is a phrase a very good friend of mine coined that I happily embrace.
Painting is the heart of it for me though. That’s where my heart really is. I like that I do different things, and it never gets old, today I’m cutting and sanding, today I’m mixing and pouring resin, it’s all good, and it changes up my days and it keeps things interesting, but painting is the heart.
I’m a contemporary artist, I work mostly with acrylic on canvas, but oil is where I started and I still work with it for certain pieces, but for me, I can do more with acrylic.
Contemporary art for those of you who have heard the term but aren’t exactly sure what it means is really, to me, like I just couldn’t pick one style so I take a little bit from several and then put them all in one painting, and so I end up with series of paintings that have a particular feel to them but when you see a painting from one series next to a painting from another it almost looks like two different people painted them. Actually even within a series sometimes, this past couple of weeks I painted 3 different flowers in three completely different styles. They are all flowers but the mood and attitude and feelings are so completely different. But I love that, every one of them got something different out of me. It never gets boring for me.
Building tables and charcuterie boards, clocks and things, the time, the skill, the labor, the problem solving involved satisfies one side of me. But getting lost in a painting, taking a feeling I don’t know how to put into words and putting it on a canvas…. It’s emotional, it’s peaceful, it’s where I’m happiest.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I don’t know if it’s interesting or surprising but when I was younger I was a U.S Competitive Swimmer. Not like summer league swimming, like very intense competitive swimming, with a very strict schedule. Monday through Friday I had practice early in the morning before school then afternoon practice and then there was either Saturday morning practice or you weekend was occupied with meets. Anyone who grew up swimming like this knows, you have your swim coach you have to answer to after each event at a meet, and then you have your parents you have to face after, who are going to re-coach you and really point out where you messed up and why you weren’t the best.
Anyone who knows me is probably saying, you are not competitive. No, No I’m not. I don’t love competition. My only competition is myself, it’s plenty and enough for me, I’m not looking to beat anyone else or pull them down, stand over them in any way. I’m pushing and testing my own boundaries, but I don’t want to be “against” anyone else, I don’t need to be “better” than anyone else. It’s just not me. But from a very young age it was who I was told to be!
I swam until I hated it and then I quit when I was teenager to the extreme disappointment of parents and that’s when I picked up yoga.
Almost 30 years latter, I’m still doing yoga. I have daily practice I do at home almost every day, and this year I added to the yoga an Aerial Class. I don’t know if you know what Aerial Silks are, but I’ve wanted to do this since I was little and here I am in my 40’s. Never too late to start something you wanted to do your whole life. I LOVE this class so much.
Yoga and Aerial are about me working on me.
My art is about me working on me.
I don’t do competition. But I am always working on me. I don’t need to be better than you, I just want to be the best version of me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.followyourartbyreka.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followyourartbyreka/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FollowYourArtbyReka
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6uJRjBN4WLfNVGsGhEeGjg
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@followyourartbyreka
