Local Austin Artist Reji Thomas Makes Space for Creatives
Opening Up an Incubator
Words by Abby L. Johnson Photos by Eric Morales
When Reji Thomas opened her glass art studio in Austin in 1979, she didn’t expect to create an artist incubator. It was something the community needed, so it just evolved.
Reji runs on creativity. Her so-called ‘Reji-proof briefcase’ is a catch-all bag filled with her daily inputs and outputs. Old magazines for inspiration and a large drawing pad filled with the beginnings of ideas take up most of the space. She thinks in visuals, pulling her papers from the bag and sketching out the direction of her thoughts as she speaks with a pen, moving with assurance: a diagonal line as she talks about moving from California to Texas in the late 70s, a circle to emphasize the metaphors she so easily speaks. At some point, an oversized pair of eyeglasses crop up on the page underneath her hands. “I’d love to design glasses,” she smiles.
Reji has been interested in the arts since she was little. “I was very visual. I could see pictures when I read something. It was like watching TV,” she explains. But before forging her unique way through the creative world, she had a much more rigid career in the Air Force and National Guard, beginning at the young age of 17. “I met so many people, and it was amazing that in 1972 you could meet people who had never seen a Black person face-to-face, only on television,” she explains matter-of-factly. The reality of her experience of otherness comes across in much of her work, particularly her paintings of Black people, many of which are inspired by the work of artist Charles White. Of her subject matter, Reji states, “I’ve never been sort of a love and happiness butterfly kind of girl.” She depicts things as she sees them, and sometimes her work is not easy to digest, but it’s always beautiful and honest.
Reji has explored a diverse range of mediums. Sandblasting, acid etch glass work, screen printing, and oil painting are just the beginning of her long list of expressions. It’s easy to imagine that this woman could indeed create anything she set out to create from the practical eyewear of her dreams to things more ephemeral, like the community that sprung to life when she opened her studio space to the masses. Dubbed Pine Street Station for its historic status as a train station, Reji’s solo studio evolved into a home for what she describes as “80s gypsy artists.” At the time, there were no hostels or welcoming creative spaces for traveling young artists. Reji saw the need, and she decided to provide.
Pine Street Station blossomed into a hub for every medium. Literary groups, visual artists, and musicians found a place to belong and create, and it became quite the destination. Pine Street was critical in bringing SXSW showcases to the Eastside, pulling large acts like Kanye and helping to put East Austin on the map as an arts and culture hub that is still thriving and evolving to this day.
Although Pine Street Station has since closed, Reji’s creativity has not stopped. She continues to make, even serving a stint as Prizer Gallery’s Artist-in-Residence and continuing to sell her work. Reji has a practicality about her success. Her work can be found in a number of notable private collections and prestigious institutions (Queen Elizabeth and the State Capitol building being just a couple of examples). She shrugs casually, “All the little jobs teach you to do the big jobs.”
Contact:
rejithomasart.com
rejiglass@gmail.com
