Living Her Dream Life in Art

By Ellen Samsell Salas

Painter, bookbinder, and art teacher/administrator, Harmony Reid lives in the world of art. Inspired by her father, who was a woodcarver, and her mother, who is a “genius” at crochet, Reid has always been “crafty and willing to dabble.” 

Since she was 13 and took summer workshops at Woodstock Arts, the center has been part of her dedication to art. Now, as visual arts education and outreach manager, she teaches and works with other artists. “It’s my dream job,” she enthused. “It’s a perfect balance of being with people, being creative, and doing administrative work.

It was a movie that included a character who was a bookbinder that inspired Reid to create handmade books. So, she found an old couch, repurposed some of its leather, and made her first book. While working in a library, she salvaged discarded books by removing their pages and using their covers to create journals. Now, she crafts her journals from leather she finds at thrift shops or from old coats friends give her. 

With their leather covers and hand-sewn, deckled pages, Reid’s journals feature her illustrations of animals or flowers, which she executes with leather pens and alcohol ink. On some covers, she embroiders a design, adds a piece of her mother’s crochet, or creates a face complete with resin eyeballs and teeth. 

“Book art is great for me — I like to dabble, I like to craft, and it is handmade,” she said. “I really like the idea that I can make something that didn’t exist before,” she said. “Someone can have a book that I made. It’s like magic. It makes me happy.”

While Reid sells her journals, she also fills journals with her art. Sketching and painting, she creates cartoons, seasonal images, and portraits of animals, friends, and other people. 

“People are the most fun. They show emotion in their faces,” she said. “With friends, you know you are capturing them. You see what isn’t quite right.”

Using hemi-gouache because it dries quickly, Reid can finish a portrait in an hour. She begins by sketching her layout in pencil before covering the sketch with a mid-tone then working up the highlights and adding the shadows that create dimension.

To add emotion, she selects colors that might not be realistic, often enhancing the color around the eyes to convey personality. Reid credits the foundational classes she took as an arts education major at Kennesaw State University as well as years of studying other artists for her ability to “translate what the brain is seeing to what the object actually is.”

With an “embarrassing abundance” of brushes and journals always handy, Reid can turn to sketching and painting whenever the mood strikes.  

“It’s sometimes a struggle to get started, but once I’m going, I get into a zen-type thing. I just keep going,” Reid said.

To see more of Reid’s work, visit Facebook.com/harmony.reid, or see her accounts on Instagram @l.harmonyreidart and @FindsAndBinds.