Photographing mom's work

It's been about three months since I helped my father clean out mom's studio at the Brookletts Building in Easton. We ended up donating some supplies to the Academy Art Museum. Other items were given away to her artist friends in the building. A fledgling painter, I took her paints and brushes and some odds and ends – mom had a lot of useful items. Most importantly I moved her unframed artwork to my basement in Catonsville, MD where it sat untouched for awhile.  Last month I guess I reached the right emotional place to start going through it all and so I began doing just that. I am about 40% done and have taken over 1000 photographs. It's been rewarding to see what she produced over the years and to study her technique. She had a very loose, free technique which is quite appealing. Not all of the work is gallery-worthy of course but there have been some lovely surprises. Like the painting below of my mom and her mom shelling peas in Finksburg, MD in the 1940s.

- Jack

Nancy South Reybold December 31, 1936 - December 4, 2016

It's been a month and six days since mom passed away, moving on from this world to cross over into what she referred to as her "new adventure". I can speak for my family when I say we all miss her graceful and loving presence and are still trying to get used to the idea that she is no longer going to be in the kitchen ready to greet us with a big hug and a smile when we visit. She was laid to rest last month outside of St. Georges in New Castle County, DE. The Reybold clan is not a large one but we've been around a long time and many of our people are buried there in St. Georges Cemetery in the older graves on the higher ground of the westernmost side. There's a beautiful large tree there near the old carriage road where my parents had a lovely (and practical) headstone bench made to mark their passing and give future visitors a place to sit. My brothers and I have plots nearby.

I took this picture on a spring day in 2014. The sky was beautiful that day and under puffy, white clouds I explored the grounds while my parents chatted with Patsy Wilson (R.I.P), an old childhood friend of my fathers who ran the cemetery. Near the road I came across the tombstones of my great-great-great-grandparents Major Philip Reybold d. 1854 and his wife Elizabeth d. 1852. These are tall, grand, obelisk-style monuments befitting the old "Peach King" and his wife. On the side of Elizabeth's weather-worn obelisk are the words, "Our mother. She taught us how to live and how to die." How they resonate with me now. My mom showed us how to live with her kind, supportive and loving nature, her dedication to her craft and her appreciation for other artists. And she showed us how to die, uncomplainingly with dignity, accepting God's plan with the same grace that characterized her life.

My perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.

-Jack

Drawings

November days like we had a few days ago on the 3rd are a gift. Deep down we know that even if it's not "winter coat time" we're getting away with something not having our knitwear on or at least handy. So 75°  felt pretty good to us as Mom and I drove to her studio with the windows wide open. We took photos of many drawings she had done in the early nineties as well as some in the mid 2000s. The bulk of them were done using conté crayons but there were a few done with graphite and even one in ink. Some of the drawings are done on colored paper. The use of red in "Grief I" is particularly interesting to me as it fits the emotion of the piece so well. 

Many of these pieces were hung (a few from the rafters!) for last months open house for Syrian Migrant Relief at the Brookletts building in Easton, MD. Here are a few images from that event:

Nancy in her studio.

One of Nancy's drawings.

Brookletts building open house for Syrian Migrant Relief raised $3,640 to help families displaced by conflict.

- Jack

Spawn Note

Hello,

My mother Nancy South Reybold has been making art for over 50 years. Many of her paintings hang in my house and in the homes of our family members.  Over the last few years I had been thinking there was a need to start looking at her work from an archivist's perspective. When I learned that Main Street Gallery in Cambridge, MD had asked her to provide a website I thought maybe I could help her organize her paintings  and build out the site. I was also interested in seeing her work presented collectively which would provide a better perspective on her career and allow her to share her art more broadly.

The website is a work in progress. Mom's artistic talent has enabled her to sell many paintings over the years but the transactions were often not recorded and unfortunately many of those paintings were not photographed. She also has many paintings and drawings that still need to be photographed and added to the site. We did have 60 or so slides of her work so we started from there and had them scanned. These scans make up the bulk of the website at this time but we will be adding paintings and drawings as they are located and photographed.  We will be continuing that process so that eventually we might have as complete as possible record of her paintings on this site.

If you own one of my mother's paintings it would be a great help if you would reach out using the contact link on this website so that we can include it here.

Thank you,

Jack Reybold