Christine Reichow

Artist:   Christine Reichow

Genre:  Realist

Motifs:  Florals, Wildlife, Portrait

Medium:  Watercolor

Her Art:

Christine Reichow is known both nationally and abroad for floral and wildlife compositions that convey her intimate and deeply-felt love for the delicacy and serenity of the natural world that surrounds her. Reichow credits her father with inspiring her Zen-like respect for nature. Her dad taught her from an early age to quietly observe nesting birds and to listen to the way they communicate with each other through melodic warbling. Her lexicon growing up became the names of the trees, plants and flowers that she and her dad encountered as they roamed the Michigan countryside. That vocabulary informs the motifs she selects for her work today.

Mom was a major influence as well. A lifelong artist, Christine’s mother inspired her to study art and design. Christine majored in textiles and clothing at Michigan State, where she began creating hand-dyed and hand-woven pieces using natural fabrics. Following graduation, she began painting on silk to make wearable art that was ultimately displayed in prestigious galleries from Detroit to New York. But it wasn’t until she moved to Florida that she took up painting in watercolors. It is a medium that uniquely enables her to create leaves, petals and anthers that are as luminous as they are transparent.

“Art is funny,” says Christine, waxing philosophic. “I can spend weeks on a painting and never feel it was quite what I had in mind. Then another painting just flows easily and quickly.”

Both her floral and naturalist paintings have appeared on the cover of Watercolor Magic, Sunshine Artist Magazine, Florida Women’s Digest and Natural Awakenings and been featured in The Artists Magazine, Wildlife Art Magazine and Bonita Living. Her prints and original watercolors are showcased in collections at Shadow Wood Preserve Clubhouse in Fort Myers, Florida Bear’s Paw Clubhouse in Naples, Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, and Monarch Beach Hotel in Santa Monica, California.

Christine is a member of the American Watercolor Society, Florida Watercolor Society, Watercolor West, and Transparent Watercolor Society, as well as a signature member of the National Watercolor Society. Locally, she exhibits her work in more than a dozen outdoor art fairs and festivals each year, including the Downtown Naples New Year’s Art Festival, Naples Invitational, ArtFest Fort Myers. Coconut Point Art Festival, Naples National Art Festival and the Mercato Fine Art Festival. Her work is a perennial favorite at Abuse Counseling & Treatment, Inc.’s annual fundraiser, the Art for ACT Fine Art Auction. In fact, one of Reichow’s florals was chosen as the poster art for Art for ACT’s 2012 fine art auction and gala. (Abuse Counseling & Treatment, Inc. (ACT) provides safe shelter and counseling services to victims of domestic violence (and their children), survivors of sexual assault (and their families) and the new and temporarily homeless.)

Portrait of Berne Davis for Fort Myers Founding Females Portrait Exhibition

None of the thousands who’ve seen and collected Reichow’s floral and wildlife paintings have ever laid eyes on a Christine Reichow portrait. That’s because portraiture is a departure for Christine. But inspired by the exhibition’s goal to draw attention to the women who contributed to the development of the City of Fort Myers and its visual and performing arts culture and the correlative need to provide positive female role models for area youth, Reichow rendered a portrait of the First Lady of Fort Myers, Berne Davis, for the Fort Myers Founding Females Portrait Exhibition.

Bernese Barfield Davis is not a “founding female” herself. But she serves as a shining example of the ways in which lessons taught by Fort Myers Founding Females continue to exert an influence on the people living in and visiting our community today. In fact, Berne Davis’ nonagenarian philanthropy extends the legacy of women like Billie Jewett, Mina Edison and Barbara Mann by fostering new generations of landscapers, horticulturalists, urban planners, artists, musicians, teachers and civic leaders who will impact our and other communities for decades to come.

“I found her to be an easy person to paint and enjoyed doing it very much,” relates watercolor artist Christine Reichow, who fell under Berne’s spell during one of the first events ever held in the newly-restored Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center.

“Shortly after the art center opened, I was invited to participate in a juried art exhibition. At that time, the building had a long way to go to feel finished. The art had to be hug on wires that had been strung around the room,” Reichow recalls. “At the opening reception, my husband and I were seated two rows behind Barbara Mann and Berne Davis. I was thrilled to be so close to two women that I held in such high regard. When the time was right and people began to move about, I went up to Barbara and Berne. They were both so gracious and interested in knowing about me and my art. I was struck by how beautifully these two ladies had aged. Berne had twinkling eyes, a pretty smile and was truly a beauty. I admire her greatly, would love to meet her again, and hope that one day I can find a way to help others in this community through my art. I hope as well that my watercolor portrait conveys the love and respect that I feel for her. I am touched by her generous spirit and the difference she has made for our community.”

And Berne has indeed made a difference in our community through her generous spirit. Emulating Billie Jewett, who established the wing at Lee Memorial Hospital that housed the Wellness Center until 2005 when it was demolished to make way for the 7-story south tower that houses emergency services and the hospital’s operating rooms, Berne established a healing garden at the Regional Cancer Center that opened in 2008.

Influenced by Mina Edison’s civic leadership, love of landscaping and involvement in garden clubs like the Periwinkle, Berne not only restored Mina’s moonlight garden and helped establish the garden at the Fort Myers Lee County Garden Council on Virginia Street, she served on the board of Edison State College, the Edison College Foundation, and the Clinic for Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel; initiated sweeping landscaping improvements at the Fort Myers Country Club during her tenure as the first president of the Fort Myers Women’s Golf Association; and gave Florida Gulf Coast University $620,159 in 2006 (that was augmented by $434,411 from the State of Florida Major Gifts Fund) to create an endowed chair for landscape design and horticultural education and research.

And following in Barbara Mann’s footsteps, Berne stepped in with a $1 million donation to save the Whitehurst Federal Building and help Jim Griffith and Florida Arts create a visual and performing arts center that benefits tens of thousands of residents and visitors each year while giving voice to scores of new artists, musicians, dancers and performers now and for generations to come. “Having no children, Sidney thought I should do something constructive,” Berne demurs. “The art center is constructive.”

So significant and prodigious were her accomplishments between 2006 and 2008 that the Southwest Florida Museum of History Foundation made Berne in 2009 the first recipient of their History Maker of the Year Award, prompting former mayor Jim Humphrey to say at the time, “I consider Berne to be the First Lady of Fort Myers.”

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RELATED ARTICLES AND LINKS.

Artist Christine Reichow juried into 49th Watercolor West International Juried Exhibit (07-21-17)

This just in. Christine Reichow just received the news that her painting, Luminosity, has been accepted into the 49th Watercolor West International Juried Exhibition in Brea, California.

Watercolor West promotes the worldwide appreciation for and the use of purely transparent watercolor in fine art. One of the way in which Watercolor West accomplishes this lofty objective is by sponsoring an international open juried exhibition for transparent watercolor paintings each year. Other initiatives in this regard include offering educational workshops and organizing demonstrations on the use of transparent watercolors by leading artists, sponsoring scholarships that will promote the appreciation for the beauty and relevance of transparent watercolors, and keeping both its membership and the public informed through an interactive website which includes a quarterly newsletter and all pertinent information about the exhibits, the demonstrations, the workshops and current events.

Reichow is known both nationally and abroad for floral and wildlife compositions that convey her intimate and deeply-felt love for the delicacy and serenity of the natural world that surrounds her. Both her floral and naturalist paintings have appeared on the cover of Watercolor Magic, Sunshine Artist Magazine, Florida Women’s Digest and Natural Awakenings and been featured in The Artists Magazine, Wildlife Art Magazine and Bonita Living. Her prints and original watercolors are showcased in collections at Shadow Wood Preserve Clubhouse in Fort Myers, Florida Bear’s Paw Clubhouse in Naples, Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, and Monarch Beach Hotel in Santa Monica, California.

Christine is a member of the American Watercolor Society, Florida Watercolor Society, Watercolor West, and Transparent Watercolor Society, as well as a signature member of the National Watercolor Society.

“This will be the year that I will become a Signature Member,” states Christine. “Thanks go to juror John Salminen for recognizing my work. California here I come!