Meet Cynthia Reid of CynART in Willis

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cynthia Reid.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I became a high school art teacher by accident. A day-dreamer and an under-achiever; as a student I didn’t give much thought to the future. I was an English major at Syracuse University because I liked to read. I took an art class for non-majors and rediscovered how much I liked to draw, paint, and make things.

This was the early 1970’s, so of course, I dropped out of college and left the east coast headed for California with two friends. We spent the second night in Colorado and fell in love with the mountains and the air and the blue sky. We rented a house, got low-paying jobs, found boyfriends, and I enrolled at the University of Colorado as an art major. A little more than a year later I had married, moved to Texas, and decided waitressing was not my thing. So, back to school again, this time at Sam Houston State University as an art education major. Secretly, I really couldn’t imagine myself as a teacher… but I needed a career.

As it turned out, it was a very good fit for me. I enjoyed my students and really loved “turning them on” to art. I tried to have an orderly yet relaxed classroom atmosphere, where students were supported and encouraged. Over the years, quite a few teenagers took art who were not successful in other classes, and were even discipline problems, but bloomed in my classroom through the love of art. It’s a powerful force for good.

I taught high school art for 28 years. Not really retiring, I then taught Design, Drawing, Art Appreciation, and Watercolor at Lone Star College. In 2012, I left Lone Star and began teaching Watercolor at SHSU; that same year I began working for The Woodlands Arts Council to produce The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival. My job was Artist Management… you know the joke — like herding cats!

During my teaching career, I was making, showing, and selling art through various means, including outdoor festivals, galleries, one-person shows, and commissions. When I first moved to Texas, I had found the scenery to be unspectacular. Where were the mountains? As flat views were uninspiring, I looked elsewhere for subject matter and had settled on photographing old buildings and painting from those images.

Eventually, holding a brush in my right hand and a photograph in my left, trying to stay faithful to the appearance of the actual building, grew tiresome. Around that time, I took a summer course at the Texas Tech Center in Junction, where art teachers went to make art, refresh their spirits, and meet lifelong friends. I went back the next nine summers, always studying with Sara Waters, a mentor who helped me to see myself as an artist who teaches, rather than a teacher who makes art. I explored still life and landscape and began to find beauty in my local landscape by learning to take a closer look, focusing on the frequently overlooked details. My art became about the natural world, from direct observation, photographs, and my imagination. Three themes have emerged.

The first depicts close-ups of the ocean or other bodies of water — waves, ripples, reflections, and the shoreline. The appearance of the surface of the water is affected by colors mirrored from land and sky, the movement caused by tides or currents or winds, the textures of whatever may be in or on the water, as well as the depth of the body of water. The work is process-based using various textural techniques, such as spattering paint and the use of masking fluid, to build up many layers on paper in an attempt to capture the elusive qualities of water.

The second theme is closer to home and focuses on the trees and plants of the East Texas landscape; basically what I see in my own backyard. An appreciation of organic shapes and patterns in nature led to study of intersecting branches in a seemingly impenetrable screen of trees, the complex interweaving of grasses and small plants in a square foot patch of meadow, or the effect of the late afternoon sun breaking through a landscape of native plants.

The third portrays silhouettes of birds, animals, and leaves, painted with a negative painting technique. I use wet-in-wet to build up layers on paper creating a dense and dynamic composition. The effect is very different from the realistic 3D space and depth of the landscapes. Each layer is very flat with the subject frozen in silhouettes, but depth is achieved through the many layers and the contrast between them.

I now live with my husband Martin on six acres in Willis with two dogs and two cats. The environment and lifestyle, as well as my experiences as a Master Gardener and a nature enthusiast, have strengthened my connection to nature and influenced my recent work.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Are there smooth roads out there? I didn’t find them until later in life. I had my baby girl in my late twenties and took a year off teaching. The second year, I went back but just part-time. By my early thirties, I was divorced and a single mom and teaching full-time. My struggles were with time and money — never enough of either.

To further complicate my life, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 35 and underwent a radical mastectomy. I’m now a 30+ year survivor, but the prognosis at the time wasn’t encouraging. It was definitely a struggle, but having cancer was a major motivator in my life. I had always told myself “someday, I’ll paint” — I was making art, but mostly examples to show students, and not dedicating much time to art that was my own. I was taking art classes at SHSU, and enjoying them, but I didn’t have a goal.

So, with my mother’s support, and some money my grandmother had left me, I took a year’s leave of absence from teaching and became a full-time student at SHSU, working toward my M.F.A. in Painting. The following year found me back to teaching and continuing to progress part-time toward my degree. It was so very satisfying to develop a painting habit and I was proud of the body of work I produced. My master’s thesis was “The Portrayal of Age in Architecture Through the Watercolor Medium,” and I photographed and painted buildings for many years after attaining my degree in 1988.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I’m an artist and my specialty is watercolor. A high school art teacher has to know a little about a lot of processes and techniques — both 2D and 3D mediums, as well as technical skills such as how to load and fire a kiln. For my own art I decided long ago to focus on one medium and try and develop some degree of skill. I’m an Elite Signature member of the Watercolor Art Society – Houston; I participate in their shows as well as a few others. I have an Etsy shop where I sell my work, and in 2018 my watercolors were shown at Glade Gallery in The Woodlands.

I also work at Glade Arts Foundation, a nonprofit in The Woodlands, as the Director of Education. I find instructors and set up classes and workshops for adults and children, as well as provide experiences for students on field trips, both from schools and home-schooled. I’m in the process now of finalizing our exciting summer schedule for kids age 7 – 14 — we’ll have some great classes with amazing instructors!
At Glade, we offer free classes to a variety of special needs groups. A group of special needs adults come to Glade monthly for four hours of art with a loving and energetic group of volunteers. We work with the YMCA program “Bright Life” on a regular basis. I’m proud that we are setting up a new program called “Looking Together” in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association, where we’ll facilitate a monthly conversation starting in April about specific artworks in our museum venue with patients with early-stage dementia and their caretakers. Our mission is to bring fine arts and cultural experiences to The Woodlands while giving back to other local nonprofits.

I continue to teach the Watercolor class during the fall semesters at SHSU, and also beginning Watercolor classes at Glade. Each summer at SHSU I co-teach a five-day workshop for art teachers with my colleague the amazing Edie Wells, and that’s super fun.

What were you like growing up?
I was born in New York City and grew up in Blauvelt, NY, about 20 miles north of the city. My childhood was flavored with the cultural advantages that came with being so close to one of the most exciting cities in the world. At the time, our town and area were surprisingly rural. As a child, I ran and played in the woods, building forts, spying on neighbors from the branches of a tall maple tree, and guiding my leaf boats down a tiny river in a roadside ditch. Returning to the woods and fields for inspiration feels like home.

Pricing:

• I sell original watercolors that range in price from $20 – $3500.

Contact Info:

• Website: cynreid.com
• Phone: 281-705-3882
• Email: cynthia@gladeartsfoundation.org
• Instagram: instagram.com/cynreid
• Facebook: facebook.com/CynART
• Other: etsy.com/shop/CynART

Image Credit:
Martin Amorous, Mark Dean, Susie Flatau, Edie Wells

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