In the studio with Rebecca Haseltine -

As you step into Rebecca Haseltine’s waterfront studio you are immediately bathed in light. Her translucent, multi-colored pieces hang in front of bright windows and current projects lay on the ground atop brown butcher paper, wet puddles of ink still drying. She likens the studio to a ship with prow pointing towards the ocean and it’s a fitting comparison for an artist who describes herself as “obsessed with water.”

Her studio that is filled with light and surrounded by water representative of the artist and the work she creates. Watch the video below to get an inside look at Rebecca Haseltine’s San Francisco studio and her artmaking process. Shop Rebecca’s VIDA collection to take a piece home.

Artist Biography

Rebecca Haseltine was dancing, drawing, swimming, singing and running through childhood. She created a special major in college combining dance, art, science and education. This is still the broad area of interest that underlies her work. After performing professionally as a dancer for many years, she got a tiny art studio and began developing movement-based drawing. Over the years she deepened this practice through studies in Body-Mind Centering®, a profound training in physiological awareness. Studies in Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Yoga and Bagua all influenced her perception of the body as more (or less) than physiology. Rebecca teaches classes in Body-Mind Centering® and Body Learning; her private practice in Body Learning includes bodywork and somatic movement therapy. She taught art and movement integration at the Bridge School from 1995 to 2006; the Bridge School is for children with severe physical and language impairment. Rebecca has a profound curiosity about language and communication for which drawing has been a means of investigation and experimentation. She has taught her Somatic Drawing classes and workshops in the Bay Area, Ireland, England, Holland, Germany, and Denmark. Rebecca continues to develop somatically-based art-making simultaneously with developing her somatic practice with children and adults. The body is a creative project in itself.

Rebecca Haseltine’s Collection

Artist Statement

Rebecca Haseltine’s artwork is an inquiry into the nature of being, from the perspective of the living body. These somatically based images are layered, non-literal, with open meaning. Haseltine draws with both hands, creating marks that are alive, in motion, and evocative. She creates ‘pourings’ – poured ink and water – that reveal flow patterns conjuring images from the natural environment. Rebecca invites awareness not only within the body, but also of the relationship between inner and outer nature.

Rebecca discovered and named the process of ‘pouring’ in the late 90’s as she brought processes she witnessed in nature into the studio. She created a series of multi-sensory installations inspired by estuaries. In the studio Rebecca experimented with water, salt, mud, and sand to explore flow patterns, saturation, evaporation and sedimentation. Thus began years of pouring experiments. The pourings rely on water as a primary art material. Rebecca influences the process, but never controls it. The work is a practice in partnering with gravity, time, and a kind of elusiveness.

Rebecca is driven by a sense of urgency about the health of our natural environment and the whole health of our bodies. Both are impacted by the modern world; we are losing species and ancient wisdom, and we are losing track of the interconnectedness of all things. How is it that we know so little about either the inner or the outer world? What is the perceptual shift that is needed to understand holistically who we are and what we are a part of?