Journaling space-

As a photographer, educator and artist, I find inspiration in the places that allow pause and reflection. This journal explores a narrative yearning for open space, places we are both close and those we are open to. To those we are still discovering, allowing an expression of being humbled in the moment.

On the Island, I feel struck by the beauty of ‘returning to nature’- in the forests, by the wallowing streams, winding rivers feeding oceans, and the magnificent waters surrounding all Island life. It seems a quiet simplicity resides close by, that I can but observe without end. In the architecture of this episode, time stands still, historic bones, the presence of old homesteads and the bold structure, luminous against a transient sky or ocean, and of light, indeed the gloaming and the created, the lighthouses... While exploring the unfurling that gathers in-between time and space, whether natural, rural, constructed or where the two meet, manmade and nature hold a symbiosis, a balance. I observe the mundane, an old trail, a pile of rocks, or a tree that has its place. There in silent observation perhaps, each seems to hold a quiet presence, in respect for the terrain it bestows ever deeper.

‘Like a reflective mind ‘witnessing space’ the places often find me’

-Rei

“ In the Islands historic homes, while walking the old red dirt (earth) roads, or on the old barely inhabited farms and homesteads, the barns once alive with clatter, or creatures, grow silent in this age. While eager eyes look out over the Northumberland Strait to an endless horizon and to Nova Scotia, an expanse of ocean remains between us, a great glistening sea. Late Summer fields roll into pasture and salt marsh, the sky varied and often blue where clouds bloom on Summer days, translucent and heavy with rain— I reside in this place at a slower pace, pause and breathe the good sea air, as the artist, the writer, the pulse is listening, a cicada chirps, and silence ensues. The quiet heat and lull. While the synapse form connection with a creative eye, mainly stillness speaks to what lies in between”.

Rei Visual Arts, 2025