An Artist by Design

by Jill Duff-Hoppes

A speeding ticket is something every driver wants to avoid, but getting one turned out to be a good thing for  Orit Reuben.

In 2009, Orit contested a speeding citation and was permitted to perform community service work instead of paying a fine. To fulfill her required hours, she volunteered as a receptionist at Crealdé School of Art in Winter Park, where volunteers receive free art classes in exchange for hours worked. It wasn’t long before Orit was learning in the classroom in addition to manning the reception desk.

Born in Israel, Orit had shown great artistic promise as a youngster. She had often visited the art studio of her maternal grandfather, who was a horticulturist and an Impressionist landscape painter. And, she had painted alongside her mother, who is also an artist.

“But somewhere along the way I took the more practical route,” says Orit, who has been a licensed interior designer for more than 20 years. “Back then, I didn’t know that you could make a living in art. I was told that you couldn’t, and now I see that people do.”

Her introduction to Crealdé, where she was mentored by several of the school’s instructors, reopened the fine-art floodgates for Orit.

“That’s how it all started – I became completely hooked after that,” says Orit, now an award-winning pastel artist known for her landscape and figurative paintings.

Orit, who resides in Orlando’s Baldwin Park neighborhood, holds dual citizenship in Israel and the United States. She lived in Israel until her early teens when her father’s career brought the family to a suburb of Minneapolis. Orit ping-ponged between the United States and her native country for a few years in her late teens and 20s, fulfilling her mandatory military service in Israel and graduating from the University of Minnesota with a degree in interior design.

Her eventual goal is to segue from being an interior designer to a full-time, professional fine artist. Although Orit greatly admires oil painters such as her late grandfather,  she prefers to work with soft pastels and is a member of several pastel art groups.

“With pastels, it feels more like a combination between drawing and painting,” says Orit, who often paints en plein air (a French term for painting outdoors). “Having that direct contact between the medium and my hand feels good to me; it feels better than holding a brush.”

As an artist, Orit is inspired by light and shadow effects, and she especially enjoys painting locations that combine nature and architecture. Her varied subject matter includes Impressionistic landscapes, the female figure, atmospheric interiors of coffee shops and cafés, and commissioned house portraits. Her work is regularly featured in solo and group shows at galleries throughout Central Florida, and she participates in outdoor painting events such as the Wekiva Paint Out and the Winter Park Paint Out. This year’s Wekiva Paint Out in Longwood took place right before the COVID-19 shutdown, but the Winter Park Paint Out was postponed indefinitely, with a virtual event being held instead.

Orit has taken a step back from interior design work during the pandemic and has instead been concentrating on her pastel artwork.

“I see this as a gift, as time to focus on my art career and paint, paint, paint,” Orit says.           “It’s important to me to focus my time in order to get better.”

Orit has racked up many awards over the past decade, and she added to that list this summer. The artist won third place in a quick-draw art competition at Nehrling Gardens in Gotha and second place in the Pastel Society of Central Florida’s annual show, which was held virtually at the Casselberry Art House.

Also, one of Orit’s paintings was recently juried into the American Impressionist Society’s 21st annual national show, a highly competitive exhibit that will be showcased this fall at a gallery in St. George, Utah. Locally, her work can be seen in person at Passport Pop-Up Gallery and the Be On Park Fine Jewelry store, both in Winter Park.

People often say that everything happens for a reason. For Orit, it feels like that speeding ticket from years ago was meant to be.

“It was one of those life moments when I was led to a certain place,” the artist says. “It was a destiny kind of moment.”