Wednesday, December 10, 2014 • Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber
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Art is a family affair at the Reimnitz gallery
Page 13
Three artists will show their work during the studio tour By JULI GOETZ MORSER Staff Writer
In their large, sunny adjoining studios, Hartmut and Ilse Reimnitz are gearing up for the second weekend of the Holiday Art Studio Tour. The tour is a lot of work for the artists who twice yearly open their studios to swarms of visitors, but members of the Reimnitz family are pros. They’ve been on the tour since it began in the early 1980s. “We used to have a guest artist join us in our studio,” Ilse said, “and we may again in the future, but now we have our son Gunter and his sculptures. It’s one family’s art.” It may be one family, but clearly they are three separate artists, each working in a distinct medium. Ilse creates monotype prints using the big printer in her studio and paints watercolors. She also teaches workshops in both mediums. Hartmut began painting with oils 11 years ago, after he stopped working as a commercial fisherman. His paintings capture the landscapes of the Northwest and Alaska, where the couple lived before moving to Vashon. Clearly art runs in this family. Ilse and Gunter have four children, all of whom the couple says are artistic, but their son Gunter, who graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute, earns his living as a metal artist. Crows have become a signature subject for Gunter, but the objects for his art commissions can be anything. Ilse laughs thinking about his latest assignment, a life-sized sculpture of the horse on the Ferrai automobile emblem. “It will be a gift for the husband of the woman who
Courtesy Photo
Artwork at the Reimnitz family studio includes Hartmut’s oil painting (left), Ilse’s monotype (right) and Gunter’s owl sculputure (middle). commissioned the piece. He has five Ferraris in his garage. The horse sculpture is life size, and it will spin,” he said. Hartmut is quick to add that their son also created a 40-foot-long fence out of metal branches for the same family. “He shapes a pipe to look like a tree, with branches,” he said. “It is beautiful.” Ilse and Hartmut, who grew up in Hamburg, Germany, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary two years ago.
As a married couple, they say they also help inspire and critique each other’s work. “Sometimes it is quiet all day long,” Hartmut said. “But then you come to a bad spot and ask the other what to do.” The artistic duo — who tend a large garden and always make time for their big family — say they try to spend as much time as they can in the studio, especially before the holiday and spring tours. “We sell a lot on the tours,” Ilse said. “It is always good.”
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