The Hermit

"Before launching the project The Defense of Colored Pencils, my husband and I lived like hermits in a woodland cabin. We moved there after our time in Prague came to an end. Living without running water or modern conveniences was challenging—especially in the winter—but no amount of external success or material wealth could ever replicate that sense of pure happiness and fulfillment. I already knew that then, at just twenty-three years old." – Marie Brožová

Rekindling her joy for drawing after the discouraging experience of art school was no easy feat for Marie. What helped her most was returning to the very place where she had spent her happiest childhood days. In 1998, she and her future husband, Martin, moved into the cabin in the woods. Living in harmony with nature, foraging, gathering firewood for the winter, tending to a pack of cats, and embracing the rarest gift of all—free time—sparked the creation of her first major artworks. Pieces like Music, Night is Watching, and Memory of Autumn are still proudly exhibited today.

Her first major project was ignited by her meeting with American poet Willie Watson, who had written verses for all 78 Tarot cards and was searching for an artist to bring them to life. Upon their first meeting, Marie drew a card from his deck: The Hermit. It was a perfect mirror of her life at that moment. Symbolically, The Hermit guided her toward her lifelong project, In Defense of the Colored Pencil, the opening of her own Gallery Pastelka in the heart of Prague, and the publication of Tarot Poems, the book that inspired her to found her own publishing house.

With the demands of running the gallery and managing the project, the couple could only afford their "hermit vacations" at the cabin during Christmas. True liberation came with the pandemic in 2020. Finally, there was time to pause, take in the beauty of the world, realign with her natural rhythm, and finish book projects that had been set aside for years. It became clear that she had drawn enough large-scale pieces in public, and it was time to return to her "inner hermit". Following a retrospective exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of her project at Prague's Carolinum in June 2024, Marie stepped back into private life, and now makes only rare public appearances.

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