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  www.firetender.org                                          www.thestoryofthis.net
 www.artforhealers.com                            www.mauihealingartist.com

Art For Healers:
Galleries
(a firetender's relationship to his art...)
 
(Most images you see on this website can be found in larger format  in the Galleries or Slide Shows. If you'd like one or more for your own, e-mail me.)
HOME
Acknowledging MAUI
Some Background
          firetender?
          There's Something Here for You...
          Expand Your Vision of Healing
          This Started in an Ambulance
          Biography
What This Site's About
Articles on the Healing Arts
A Most Unusual Rejection Letter
  ****************************


Art  For  Healers  Galleries - intro

      thestoryofthis...
      Images for Healing
        Dalai Lama Comes A-Callin'! (slideshow)
        Galleries/Slideshows on MySpace
Music and Videos

The heART of the Healer Workshop
Counseling and Creative Services
a firetender's blog
Links 

Contact

Copyright Information


GATEWAY TO THESE GALLERIES:
thestoryofthis.net
Images for Healing
Dalai Lama Comes A-Callin'!
Galleries/Slideshows on MySpace
SAATCHI ONLINE GALLERY


"You have developed a brand new kind of art, one that is reflective of the healing work that you've been called upon to do."
Hana Coast Gallery, Maui, HI

Thanks for coming!

Pull up a chair and sit a minute. I want to share something with you. Can I get you something to drink, or...? Great...let's just chat for a minute then...

This whole photography thing has turned my life upside down!

I've been a photographer since my mid-twenties; a personal pleasure and joy sorta thing, some press exposure. Was official still photographer for my movie, Healer   Had a color darkroom for a while. Loved the process!

When I moved to Maui, I was focused on communicating about and teaching healing arts. On Oahu, I refined my book about my experiences as a paramedic, and then I moved to Maui specifically with the intent of setting up a spiritual counseling  practice and my workshop, The heART of the Healer .

That was not to be quite yet because, as you can see, my photography took a bounce into the Twilight  Zone! For a while there, I thought I was an Artiste! WHEW! that was a close call!

I got "shown" in galleries around Maui, which many say is one of the top 5 Art Marketplaces in the world! When it came to going out there and selling my images, however, I was a total failure! I could not represent myself as an artist. I gave a lot of my work away; a gift to honor the Spirits that allowed me to capture them.

Patrick Robinson, the Curator/Director of Hawaii's most prestigious art gallery sent me an e-mail  which articulated clearly my dilemma. It praised my work and rejected it at the same time!


I really had to ask myself, "What are you doing with your art? What is it's purpose?" Somehow, I had to integrate whatever came through me into the larger picture of my work in the healing arts.  This website is the result.

After two years of showings I pulled my work out of the galleries, built at13 collector agent art heal image photo dealer gallery/studio/treatment room in my home for "invitation only" viewing and then began using Giclées from thestoryofthis... almost exclusively for counseling sessions. I would only sell the art from that series to people I knew or had worked with, and to whom they were personally meaningful for use as icons of healing. That's how I want to keep doing it.

What had happened was, through mechanical glitches in my computer and printer, a new way of altering key elements of my photography without the use of PhotoShop or any other program revealed itself to me. The printer became more than something that executes the delivery of an image. By manipulating the physical function of the printer, it became my creative paintbrush; actually turning Giclee into a valid art form!

I originally took the "shots" that comprise thestoryofthis... with no idea they would come out the way they did. Thus, they were "pure" and minimally influenced by conscious decisions on my part to choose or frame a shot in anticipation of a desired effect. The images that came out of the printer were a complete surprise to me.
From the start, I knew they were not decoration; they were healers in their own right!

In working with them as counseling tools, I am clear the images fulfill their role: to be metaphoric mirrors of what is living inside of the viewer in the moment. I did not create that role, I only recognized what was happening in myself and others. Now, this first series (via thestoryofthis... website) is available to anyone who wishes to use it as a tool to help them explore their inner territory -- without me or anyone else getting in the way!
 These images know what they're doing!
(Primarily because YOU know what you're doing!)

In the process of learning (by reverse-engineering) what happened to achieve the effects that came out in that series, I became aware of the techniques necessary to compose, light and shoot images that best would take advantage of the effects I could achieve.  I learned to produce images that conveyed a "here/not here" quality.

I then learned how to sharpen "all" my eyes to recognize the right moments art heal premium image medic counselto photograph and began building another series, now called Images for Healing

That series is evocative  too, but because I knew better what I was doing, I won't present them as the clear channel that I recognize thestoryofthis... to be. In this very moment, I'm going to tag another descriptor onto the Images for Healing; they are Inspirational as well, and that may very well be an expression of my own more conscious orientation as a healer!

Obviously, my artistic/healing expressions have not stopped with these two series.  In fact, I will be consistently adding new images to this web site, many in slide show form for ease of viewing. Each image will be identified by name or number. A great showcase for an overview of my art is on the Saatchi Online Gallery site. I am open to selling selected images as certified "One-of-a-kind".

Remember, each is infused with my primary tool as a healer -- the Intent that everything coming through me acts as a vehicle for healing. If an image on this site looks useful, pick what you want (right click on the image to get its i.d.)  e-mail me, and we'll work on getting it or them to you in the size and on the material of your choice. In the process, I'd like to learn a bit about who you are and your vision for its use.  Perhaps some day I'll want to get rich and go for mass sales, but for today I prefer to really use this site as a vehicle for personal connection.
I have no doubt that these images will work
as hard for you and the people with whom you connect
as they do for me and mine!
Just watch your clients coming from your waiting room,
and into your treatment room.

 They'll bring in curiosities or insights to you just as if they had engaged in
stimulating conversation with other people waiting with them.
And you'll chuckle to yourself because you know
the waiting room was empty -- except for them!

(Chicken skin!!)
(The preceeding was a blatant Sales Pitch to avoid accusations of not trying at all!)

For all of us, in support of health and happiness,

Mitakuye Oyasin!

Russ Reina,
a firetender
 

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