Introduction to "FAITH OF AN ARTISTT" (this website)
(Nov, 2020) LINKS to the My Life in Art pages on This Website
NEW: Music Videos of songs from my CD, LOVE'S RIVER
New! Video of Music/Poetry Concert at Meher Baba Circle of Friends in Myrtle Beach, Aug. 24, 2019
Children's Songs of Mr. Max" (Max Reif) Also, "Mr. Max's Neighborhood", a new CD of songs!!
Lyrics of Mr. Max's Children's Songs
A Spiritual Autobiography Written As "Narrative Fiction" (stories from The Mindful Word)
"The Ballad of a Warm Cafe," a fable about Love
Essays
Poems
Reviews by Max
Humor
Meher Baba Writings
Blog Archive
Links
The Valley of the Saints: a poem in 4 parts. [Written near Khuldabad, India in August, 2016]
Art in My (Kali Yuga) American Childhood
HOW ART SAVED MY LIFE! (Paintings from the Late '80s and Early /mid '90s)
Meher Baba paintings from the '80s and '90s
Recent Baba Paintings (2016-19)
Paintings, 2016-19 (continued)
Most Recent Baba paintings (2019-20)
My Friendship with Baba's Painter, Lyn Ott
Other Influences
text of THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN
Travel Photos, 2018: Oaxaca, Mexico
A painting I saw at MALBA
Aricle by Jamie Newell on Baba and Jung
A fanciful take on THE ORIGINAL WHIM
Pandemic Ghazal (written April 1, 2020)
"After the Flood" by Francis Brabazon
"Hymn To God The Man" by Francis Brabazon
BOOKS, CDs, ART: MAX'S STORE
Reviews of Max's work by others
New Meher Baba Poem Aug 22 2020
Lines Based Upon Baba's "Umbrella Simile" (short poem)
"God Seeks" and "The Boxing Match": two short poems, words by Max, pictures by Simon Imagin
His Healing Touch (New Poem-Poster)
New Poem-Poster: "FEET, " made from a favorite painting and poem
A recent painting I'd titled "Flow", and a brief meditation on Art
"Father Please" 2013 painting w new graphic frame
The Old Man Played His Drum (a new short story/graphic)
Kabir/Bly poem: "What you call "Salvation" belongs to the time BEFORE death!"
"Dreass My Soul In BABA" (poem and illustration)
Wrestling with God in the Desert of the Mind
New page
Divine Time-Release (poem and picture)
Some Game You Play! (poem/painting) Sept 28, 2020
Morning Prayer, Oct. 3, 2020 (w picture)
Polarities of Love (and a special painting)
Photo of the 5 AM sky, and some lines it inspired!
A Baba-Doodle inspired by the art of Paul Klee
"ALTERNATING CURRENT" - a short story about a series of ECT (electric shock treatments) I had around 1980. How they helped things, AND how they also hurt things! And how the merciful SURPRISE HEALING came for that hurt, too!
"Continuum" (poem and painting)
"Creative Thoughts" (poem and painting)
THIS Burden, Now!
This life: Substructure for the Next (and a painting!)
AND IF SUDDENLY IN A FLAH (poem w/painting)
New Painting: "I Saw a Pink Cloud Come Out of Baba's Picture and Go into My New Friend Ian, Whom I Had Recently Told About Baba."
BABA Mealtime-Yoga Self-Talk (a poem and a picture)
Helplessness (poem w photo)
Christmas Day Poem, AD 2020
"Framing" (poem with picture)
To Robbie (Robbie Basho)--a little poem begun during the movie about Robbie's life, a poem which ended in Silence and this little graphic
"Testament on the Last Day of 2020 (poem with picture)
"Letter from Prison" (Poem with fun picture!)
A dream-figure's Hymn to the Dreamer (and picture)
"The SS Hopeless and Helpless" (poem and cool photo!)
""The Girl at the Cafe' Rendezvous" w/picture
"Ghazal While Making Breakfast" and a painting, "Tunnel of Love"
I DO MY BEST! (short poem and picture!)
"In Media Res", short poem w a whimsical picture! 3/15/2021
"The Empty Restaurant" (illustrated story)
My "Pilgrimage to Meher Baba" in His Lovers and Others in Latin America, Summer of 2018
City of God (poem with painting)
:THE SOUL IN DARKNESS IS VERY CLOSE TO LIGHT" (painting, 1989)
"CARAVAN" (poster-poem)
"Free the Swans!" poem and painting
What You Wanted Me To REMEMBER! (poem and digital painting)
"Ascension of Mehera" (painting, done 5/21/1989)
A Great Story from Lyn Ott's Book
When I Look Into Your Eyes (ghazal with painting)
YOUR BOOK ghazal with picture
BABA photocollage
Pre-Silence Day POETRY ZOOM July 8 (info graphic)
Three New Paintings posted July 2021
Lyn Ott's Book To Be Read on BabaZoom. Promo Graphic Here!
BABAZOOM Reading of Lyn Ott's Book Starts Tomorrow (Thurs, July 29)!
BABAZOOM reading of Lyn Ott's Book IN QUEST OF THE FACE OF GOD continues tomorrow, August 12
(poem) CONFESSIONS OF AN INMATE OF LIFE’S REHAB WARD with FUN illustration!
POEM: An Artist's Meditation on the Dialogue with COLOR (with illustration)
A new Mandala Painting Featuring Meher Baba's Face, and the Stages of Its Creation
"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" from TOWARD AN INTERIOR SUN
ALL-PERVADING portrait of Meher Baba and poem, October 8, 2021
Douglas Stalker's Review of LOVE'S RIVER, a CD by Max Reif, produced by Cliff Hackford
Dec, 2021: Latest paintings: a triptych (3-panel series) called "DOMESTIQUES" (formerly known as the HEAVEN WORLD series (There's a STORY here, too, folks!)
"When You Make Something Beautiful" (POEM)
Ode To a Marriage (Poem and Painting)
"FULL IMMERSION" (new painting and poem)
BERLIN, NOVEMBER, 1989 (Poem and painting)
"The Ballad of a Warm Cafe" (story and illustration)
"WAR, a villanelle" (poem) and Painting: "Archangel Michael and President Zelenskyy at the Great Gate of Kiev"
Meher Baba Center of Northern California Spring Poetry Zoom!
Jim Meyer's Lyrics to his song, "LOVE IS A TWO-EDGED SWORD".
"DARK CLOUD" (4/22/22)
MBCNC Poetry Zoom Wed April 27 at 7 pm PDT (California time)
"Time's Precious" (a villanelle) lovely illustration too!
New Painting: "The Two in the One"; "Devotion"' "Lover and Beloved" (??)
"GIFT FROM THE SOURCE" a new painting June 27, 2022
new painting BABA/"Ourobouros" Mandala, Aug. 29, 2022
"I AM A PART OF THE INFINITE" (new painting, Sept 5, 2022)
"Scheming" (new poem, a "Brabazonian ghazal",) and a fun illustration!
Life-Celebration for DIck Anthony, a powerful outpouring of His LOVE!
"REPEATED SINCERE PRAYER" new painting based on a Baba quote
Max's "REAL SELFIE"
A BIT OF PICTORIAL HISTORY: 3 Graphic Invitations to the New Life Poetry Zoom Oct 12, 2022
"GOD HELP OUR WORLD", poem-prayer with illustration
"STILL POINT OF THE TURNING WORLD" (20"x20" acrylic on canvas)
"And they shall be lost in ME" a poem by Michael Mathias
new painting: "AT THE JUNCTURE" (of Heaven/Earth, Spirit/Matter, Illusion/Reality" (24"x24" acrylic on canvas
"MY CITY OF LIONS", a reminiscence about growing up in University City, Missouri (written in 1984)
MARRIAGE TRIPTYCH (2020-21)
PALACE OF FIND ARTS, SAN FRANCISCO BAY, MARIN COUNTY
COLLAGE AND ARTICLE based on Craig San Roque's chapter in the new Don Stevens Biography by Laurent Weichberger and Companions
"THE DANCE" (painting, 2022)
JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER (excerpt from Darwin Shaw's book AS ONLY GOD CAN LOVE
THIS WAY TO REALITY graphic
A GAME OF CHESS (rhymed ghazal and illustration)
"House With Wings" (poem & picture)
8,400,000 Lives? (poem of humor and wonder)
"DON'T WORRY--BE HAPPY" POSTER (poem)
KHATUM prayer by Hazrat Inayat Khan
(poem) THE MAP AND THE THING ITSELF
INNER EFFORT (short poem)
BABA"S FETUS (2021 painting) AND a 2024 poem for His Birthday titled "DID NOT BELIEVE I COULD WRITE YOU A BIRTHDAY POEM THIS YEAR"
"PERSPECTIVE": a poem written on Meher Baba's 130th Birthday, and a painting.
"THE KISS" (poem and painting)
"Prevailing Winds" (poem and painting, March 4, 2024)
"Questions Looking Back" a poem about high school in the mid-'60s
"THAT FEELING" (poem and painting)
"A @UESTION" (poem) and a Painting "THE ONLY SAFE AND UNFAILING GUIDE"
THE PILGRIM: a fable written June 29, 2024
SO, IF WE KEEP THIS UP (POEM W PAINTING)
"At Peace with My 85 Years" by Romeo Bouchard
PUNE: THE CITY OF GOD by Australian poet Paul Smith
ON GOD AND THE INDIVIDUALITY OF THE HUMAN ARTIST
THREE SWEET TALES OF LIFE IN THE WORLD THIS WEEK "WITH MEHER BABA"
"Curriculum": a new poem, inspired by an amazing painting by a Colombian artist
THE GREAT DARSHAN GOES ON" a poem and photo commemorating a reunion at a restaurant with a longtime Baba friend after 40 years
WHITE HORSES IN AN EMPTY LOT! (POEM AND GRAPHIC)
IN THE MELODRAMA OF MY LIFE, YOU HAVE ALWAYS DELIVERED ME! BABA, am I doing my best? I’m trying to monitor and follow the truth of my own perception, whiwh You say Is the only road to wholeness but I feel as lost in the forest of brambles as was the suitor of Snow White. Ah, but he did find her! Ah, those fairy tales with their trails of bread crumbs, the help given by forest animals whom the hero had once helped! BABA, those helpers are all YOU! You are God AND You have shown me that conclusively much more than once or twice! You have shown me in the period after being broken and lost when You carried me each evening down the well of myself in a bucket to the place where my world was NOT broken but whole and Shining, and You let me bring up that Beauty every night and make it visible in color on a canvas until it flooded my world and brought me back to life again! You have NEVER abandoned me! Another time You got me out of a literal walled prison when my spirit had been all but snuffed out and restored me yet again to FEEL and LOVE You. and still nother time one of Your closest Mandali closed his eyes and sought Your Guidance after I came to him in despair, then opened them, smiled, and said, “Do not worry. You will get a better job” and though I had not thought my jobwas the problem, in short order I got laid off when the company was sold, and not long after, a friend came by and said, “Let’s get a taxi to drive, one of us can work days, the other nights” and I was off on one of the greatest adventures of my life. Why would You abandon me now? Let me not despair! GUIDE me, O Lord MEHER, to acc
IN THE MELODRAMA OF MY LIFE, YOU HAVE ALWAYS DELIVERED ME! (new poem with illustration)
AN UNUSUAL KIND OF THANKSGIVING POEM, AND A SOOTHING POSTER
"SOURCE" (short poem and photo)
Faith of an Artist: the website of Max Reif
Introduction to "FAITH OF AN ARTISTT" (this website)
(Nov, 2020) LINKS to the My Life in Art pages on This Website
NEW: Music Videos of songs from my CD, LOVE'S RIVER
New! Video of Music/Poetry Concert at Meher Baba Circle of Friends in Myrtle Beach, Aug. 24, 2019
Children's Songs of Mr. Max" (Max Reif) Also, "Mr. Max's Neighborhood", a new CD of songs!!
Lyrics of Mr. Max's Children's Songs
A Spiritual Autobiography Written As "Narrative Fiction" (stories from The Mindful Word)
"The Ballad of a Warm Cafe," a fable about Love
Essays
Poems
Reviews by Max
Humor
Meher Baba Writings
Blog Archive
Links
The Valley of the Saints: a poem in 4 parts. [Written near Khuldabad, India in August, 2016]
Art in My (Kali Yuga) American Childhood
HOW ART SAVED MY LIFE! (Paintings from the Late '80s and Early /mid '90s)
Meher Baba paintings from the '80s and '90s
Recent Baba Paintings (2016-19)
Paintings, 2016-19 (continued)
Most Recent Baba paintings (2019-20)
My Friendship with Baba's Painter, Lyn Ott
Other Influences
text of THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN
Travel Photos, 2018: Oaxaca, Mexico
A painting I saw at MALBA
Aricle by Jamie Newell on Baba and Jung
A fanciful take on THE ORIGINAL WHIM
Pandemic Ghazal (written April 1, 2020)
"After the Flood" by Francis Brabazon
"Hymn To God The Man" by Francis Brabazon
BOOKS, CDs, ART: MAX'S STORE
Reviews of Max's work by others
New Meher Baba Poem Aug 22 2020
Lines Based Upon Baba's "Umbrella Simile" (short poem)
"God Seeks" and "The Boxing Match": two short poems, words by Max, pictures by Simon Imagin
His Healing Touch (New Poem-Poster)
New Poem-Poster: "FEET, " made from a favorite painting and poem
A recent painting I'd titled "Flow", and a brief meditation on Art
"Father Please" 2013 painting w new graphic frame
The Old Man Played His Drum (a new short story/graphic)
Kabir/Bly poem: "What you call "Salvation" belongs to the time BEFORE death!"
"Dreass My Soul In BABA" (poem and illustration)
Wrestling with God in the Desert of the Mind
New page
Divine Time-Release (poem and picture)
Some Game You Play! (poem/painting) Sept 28, 2020
Morning Prayer, Oct. 3, 2020 (w picture)
Polarities of Love (and a special painting)
Photo of the 5 AM sky, and some lines it inspired!
A Baba-Doodle inspired by the art of Paul Klee
"ALTERNATING CURRENT" - a short story about a series of ECT (electric shock treatments) I had around 1980. How they helped things, AND how they also hurt things! And how the merciful SURPRISE HEALING came for that hurt, too!
"Continuum" (poem and painting)
"Creative Thoughts" (poem and painting)
THIS Burden, Now!
This life: Substructure for the Next (and a painting!)
AND IF SUDDENLY IN A FLAH (poem w/painting)
New Painting: "I Saw a Pink Cloud Come Out of Baba's Picture and Go into My New Friend Ian, Whom I Had Recently Told About Baba."
BABA Mealtime-Yoga Self-Talk (a poem and a picture)
Helplessness (poem w photo)
Christmas Day Poem, AD 2020
"Framing" (poem with picture)
To Robbie (Robbie Basho)--a little poem begun during the movie about Robbie's life, a poem which ended in Silence and this little graphic
"Testament on the Last Day of 2020 (poem with picture)
"Letter from Prison" (Poem with fun picture!)
A dream-figure's Hymn to the Dreamer (and picture)
"The SS Hopeless and Helpless" (poem and cool photo!)
""The Girl at the Cafe' Rendezvous" w/picture
"Ghazal While Making Breakfast" and a painting, "Tunnel of Love"
I DO MY BEST! (short poem and picture!)
"In Media Res", short poem w a whimsical picture! 3/15/2021
"The Empty Restaurant" (illustrated story)
My "Pilgrimage to Meher Baba" in His Lovers and Others in Latin America, Summer of 2018
City of God (poem with painting)
:THE SOUL IN DARKNESS IS VERY CLOSE TO LIGHT" (painting, 1989)
"CARAVAN" (poster-poem)
"Free the Swans!" poem and painting
What You Wanted Me To REMEMBER! (poem and digital painting)
"Ascension of Mehera" (painting, done 5/21/1989)
A Great Story from Lyn Ott's Book
When I Look Into Your Eyes (ghazal with painting)
YOUR BOOK ghazal with picture
BABA photocollage
Pre-Silence Day POETRY ZOOM July 8 (info graphic)
Three New Paintings posted July 2021
Lyn Ott's Book To Be Read on BabaZoom. Promo Graphic Here!
BABAZOOM Reading of Lyn Ott's Book Starts Tomorrow (Thurs, July 29)!
BABAZOOM reading of Lyn Ott's Book IN QUEST OF THE FACE OF GOD continues tomorrow, August 12
(poem) CONFESSIONS OF AN INMATE OF LIFE’S REHAB WARD with FUN illustration!
POEM: An Artist's Meditation on the Dialogue with COLOR (with illustration)
A new Mandala Painting Featuring Meher Baba's Face, and the Stages of Its Creation
"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" from TOWARD AN INTERIOR SUN
ALL-PERVADING portrait of Meher Baba and poem, October 8, 2021
Douglas Stalker's Review of LOVE'S RIVER, a CD by Max Reif, produced by Cliff Hackford
Dec, 2021: Latest paintings: a triptych (3-panel series) called "DOMESTIQUES" (formerly known as the HEAVEN WORLD series (There's a STORY here, too, folks!)
"When You Make Something Beautiful" (POEM)
Ode To a Marriage (Poem and Painting)
"FULL IMMERSION" (new painting and poem)
BERLIN, NOVEMBER, 1989 (Poem and painting)
"The Ballad of a Warm Cafe" (story and illustration)
"WAR, a villanelle" (poem) and Painting: "Archangel Michael and President Zelenskyy at the Great Gate of Kiev"
Meher Baba Center of Northern California Spring Poetry Zoom!
Jim Meyer's Lyrics to his song, "LOVE IS A TWO-EDGED SWORD".
"DARK CLOUD" (4/22/22)
MBCNC Poetry Zoom Wed April 27 at 7 pm PDT (California time)
"Time's Precious" (a villanelle) lovely illustration too!
New Painting: "The Two in the One"; "Devotion"' "Lover and Beloved" (??)
"GIFT FROM THE SOURCE" a new painting June 27, 2022
new painting BABA/"Ourobouros" Mandala, Aug. 29, 2022
"I AM A PART OF THE INFINITE" (new painting, Sept 5, 2022)
"Scheming" (new poem, a "Brabazonian ghazal",) and a fun illustration!
Life-Celebration for DIck Anthony, a powerful outpouring of His LOVE!
"REPEATED SINCERE PRAYER" new painting based on a Baba quote
Max's "REAL SELFIE"
A BIT OF PICTORIAL HISTORY: 3 Graphic Invitations to the New Life Poetry Zoom Oct 12, 2022
"GOD HELP OUR WORLD", poem-prayer with illustration
"STILL POINT OF THE TURNING WORLD" (20"x20" acrylic on canvas)
"And they shall be lost in ME" a poem by Michael Mathias
new painting: "AT THE JUNCTURE" (of Heaven/Earth, Spirit/Matter, Illusion/Reality" (24"x24" acrylic on canvas
"MY CITY OF LIONS", a reminiscence about growing up in University City, Missouri (written in 1984)
MARRIAGE TRIPTYCH (2020-21)
PALACE OF FIND ARTS, SAN FRANCISCO BAY, MARIN COUNTY
COLLAGE AND ARTICLE based on Craig San Roque's chapter in the new Don Stevens Biography by Laurent Weichberger and Companions
"THE DANCE" (painting, 2022)
JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER (excerpt from Darwin Shaw's book AS ONLY GOD CAN LOVE
THIS WAY TO REALITY graphic
A GAME OF CHESS (rhymed ghazal and illustration)
"House With Wings" (poem & picture)
8,400,000 Lives? (poem of humor and wonder)
"DON'T WORRY--BE HAPPY" POSTER (poem)
KHATUM prayer by Hazrat Inayat Khan
(poem) THE MAP AND THE THING ITSELF
INNER EFFORT (short poem)
BABA"S FETUS (2021 painting) AND a 2024 poem for His Birthday titled "DID NOT BELIEVE I COULD WRITE YOU A BIRTHDAY POEM THIS YEAR"
"PERSPECTIVE": a poem written on Meher Baba's 130th Birthday, and a painting.
"THE KISS" (poem and painting)
"Prevailing Winds" (poem and painting, March 4, 2024)
"Questions Looking Back" a poem about high school in the mid-'60s
"THAT FEELING" (poem and painting)
"A @UESTION" (poem) and a Painting "THE ONLY SAFE AND UNFAILING GUIDE"
THE PILGRIM: a fable written June 29, 2024
SO, IF WE KEEP THIS UP (POEM W PAINTING)
"At Peace with My 85 Years" by Romeo Bouchard
PUNE: THE CITY OF GOD by Australian poet Paul Smith
ON GOD AND THE INDIVIDUALITY OF THE HUMAN ARTIST
THREE SWEET TALES OF LIFE IN THE WORLD THIS WEEK "WITH MEHER BABA"
"Curriculum": a new poem, inspired by an amazing painting by a Colombian artist
THE GREAT DARSHAN GOES ON" a poem and photo commemorating a reunion at a restaurant with a longtime Baba friend after 40 years
WHITE HORSES IN AN EMPTY LOT! (POEM AND GRAPHIC)
IN THE MELODRAMA OF MY LIFE, YOU HAVE ALWAYS DELIVERED ME! BABA, am I doing my best? I’m trying to monitor and follow the truth of my own perception, whiwh You say Is the only road to wholeness but I feel as lost in the forest of brambles as was the suitor of Snow White. Ah, but he did find her! Ah, those fairy tales with their trails of bread crumbs, the help given by forest animals whom the hero had once helped! BABA, those helpers are all YOU! You are God AND You have shown me that conclusively much more than once or twice! You have shown me in the period after being broken and lost when You carried me each evening down the well of myself in a bucket to the place where my world was NOT broken but whole and Shining, and You let me bring up that Beauty every night and make it visible in color on a canvas until it flooded my world and brought me back to life again! You have NEVER abandoned me! Another time You got me out of a literal walled prison when my spirit had been all but snuffed out and restored me yet again to FEEL and LOVE You. and still nother time one of Your closest Mandali closed his eyes and sought Your Guidance after I came to him in despair, then opened them, smiled, and said, “Do not worry. You will get a better job” and though I had not thought my jobwas the problem, in short order I got laid off when the company was sold, and not long after, a friend came by and said, “Let’s get a taxi to drive, one of us can work days, the other nights” and I was off on one of the greatest adventures of my life. Why would You abandon me now? Let me not despair! GUIDE me, O Lord MEHER, to acc
IN THE MELODRAMA OF MY LIFE, YOU HAVE ALWAYS DELIVERED ME! (new poem with illustration)
AN UNUSUAL KIND OF THANKSGIVING POEM, AND A SOOTHING POSTER
"SOURCE" (short poem and photo)
A POEM FROM
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