Marcia Reed created a Destination for Artful Living in her Milford Gallery 37
Written by Kristen Hampshire | Photography by Pamela Aquilani
The plumes of vibrant color that dance across Marcia Reed’s painted pieces are far beyond brushstrokes. They mark artistic choreography, both moody and vibrant, awash with emotion. The content steps outside the convention of seascapes and tidal dunes.
Marcia’s process is grounded in nature, storytelling, and trusting her intuition to convey works that depict wrestling with and navigating life’s challenges.
“Inspiration definitely comes from nature,” she says, relating how she translates shapes and images from the outdoors into abstract-expressionistic works.
“As a painter, for me it is more about the process than the outcome,” continues Marcia, who after retiring from a 35-year career teaching studio art at a New England boarding school opened Gallery 37 on South Walnut Street in Milford, DE.
“My gallery is composed of contemporary landscapes, figurative work, and mixed media collage, and it has a different edge to it.”
Marcia says, “I may start with the structure and shapes I see, then the painting leads me in a totally different direction, and I go with it. Whatever happens in one’s personal life, maybe the color will influence a piece or a mood, and it just keeps flowing from there.”
The home she shares with her husband along the Mispillion River dividing Kent and Sussex Counties encourages a flow of ideas. It’s a returning narrative in her paintings, as are the swaths of natural playground along her home, decidedly off the beaten path from bustling tourism.
Her business, Gallery 37, has become a destination for art collectors and curious visitors from across the region and beyond. Marcia’s plant life art and naturescapes are featured along with up to 50 other local and nationally acclaimed artisans, sculptors, fiber artists, ceramists, furniture marquetry craftsmen and jewelry makers. Marcia opened Gallery 37 in 2012, and its inventory of works has evolved as artists across the country and close to home find out about her reach.
“My gallery is composed of contemporary landscapes, figurative work and mixed media collage, and it has a different edge to it,” she says.
She points to “Garden of Time,” a large-scale piece that expresses scenery from her backyard. Speaking about a recent Easton show, “Nature’s Cycle: A Visual Narrative,” Marcia shares how seasonal shifts in the outdoors—“rebirth, the vow of spring, the decay in fall”—and ever-present life resulted in the piece she painted al fresco. “‘Garden of Time’ captures when all of that new growth was happening,” she says.
Her painted pieces are included in Rehoboth Beach’s Gallery 50, and Marcia’s repertoire has earned wide exposure across the East Coast and beyond.
Viewers connect with her work.
“It has a determined motion—I’m attracted to a life force in painting,” says Marcia, who paints every night. “I hope to depict the energy, color, and complex layering like nature itself.” CS
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