Athena Sophia (Bonnie J. Warren & Carrie S. Reinking ) 2016 project, “I Am Water” was born when the artists began studying the physical motions of Wing Chun, Kung Fu, Artists and Bruce Lee’s desire to move more like water. They decided to explore his idea in painting while expanding the idea further from being more like water, to actually being the water, “I am water”.
What does it mean to be water? Water can be soft or hard, calm or violent, it nourishes life and destroys life, changing into many forms, solid, gas and liquid. It is everything and nothing. Danielle Egnew writes about water and weaves it into a 2017 challenge for our USA. She says we can choose to be a stone or water. Those that choose to be more like water “are a river of the collective language of love, the most effective language of all human design. A river flows around obstacles, and keeps flowing. It doesn’t stop and argue with every stone, paranoid that its own rocky bed is intentionally attempting to change its direction....the water views the stones as part of the flow. The stones view the water as that which shapes them”.
The Blue People in the “I am water” series and other works of Athena Sophia, not only represent the transformation of the physical body and mind to water, but allows all Earthlings to relate to the subjects and hopefully be inspired themselves to explore and contemplate the meaning that we are all water. Water, the Universal Solvent.
The first paintings of the Athena Sophia Collective were born in the Summer of 2013, when the artists were plein air painting in the gardens. After hours of painting in the sweet scent of flowers and herbs, they began to see another element in the garden, fairies. Blue fairies, joyfully emerging behind the flowers and dancing. Their new vision brought the artists such joy that they continue to be inspired and hang out with the fairies often.
Prior to creating the Collective, Bonnie and Carrie created installation art in display windows for a local natural products store. What was so thrilling about this installation artwork was they received so many positive praising words from their audience and their audience really understood the story. They were also thrilled that they were having so much fun working together, while being artistically challenged to create temporary artwork out of retail products. All the fun and positive feed back added up to being commissioned to create over 25 installations.
Bonnie J. Warren, Art Biography
Artist, Bonnie J. Warren has explored many types of art, even accounting (yes, Accounting is an Art). Not wanting to be a starving artist, she earned a business degree with high honors in Accounting, and worked as a CPA for an international accounting firm and the banking industry for many years. Although earning a decent salary and not starving, it wasn’t enough and by 2000 she decided to dedicate her time exploring Art. Bonnie also studies and teaches yoga and martial arts, gardening and growing organic food. Besides her own artwork, she also designed and created functional art furniture with her father, Elton Warren from 2000 through September 2016 when he passed to the other side.
Carrie S. Reinking, Art Biography
Artist, Carrie S. Reinking began life as an artist, (yes, she came out of the womb painting). She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Cum Laude. She has created commissioned artwork since 1969. Although Carrie’s journey to obtain her degree was a long one, she found art in every job she did along the way and also found that through the art developed a stronger intuition and has become a Reiki healer. She believes that art is both intuitive and healing. She continues to supplement her art income with various jobs, always carving out time to teach and work on commissioned art. Currently teaching at The Art Rooms, in Havre de Grace, Maryland and continues to work on The Athena Sophia Collective.
