Crow with Spots 2025

One of the things I teach when I do mixed media workshops is how to do transfers--meaning taking  something from one place--a photo, paint, graphite, marker, text, magazine images--and transferring it to another surface.  Over the years, mostly serendipitously,  I've learned many ways to do these transfers. When I first started doing transfers it was possible to take an inkjet transparency, print it out in your ink jet printer, apply a little polymer medium, smack it down on your substrate, and viola--it transferred. However, in this time of rapidly changing everything, it stopped working.  The formula changed, and we had to go to laser printers to do our very difficult, fingerprint removing process of doing a transfer.  Things changed again, other ways to do transfers developed, and as soon as I would teach one class a transfer process, the materials would disappear or nothing would work quite right.  Mostly recently I discovered, by accident, that Hammermill made a lovely double sided glossy paper for laser printers, and these prints transferred like a house afire.  It was quite wonderful, but short lived. When I went to Amazon to order the paper, it turned out that now you could only order 2400 sheets at a time if you wanted that specific paper. I ended up ordering a strange Koala Pearl glossy paper, and that's what I did Crow with Spots with.

Angry Rabbit 2025

 ”Angry Rabbit” is a “clean up” painting.  My studio, after several weeks of working, was pretty much a wreck.  Once you really start working, it’s just hard to stop to put things away.  Opened boxes of photo paper, the floored littered with scraps of paper, images that had been cut up and discarded, painted panels, folders of photos, stacks of painted paper and on and on. Finally, with all the chaos, it was time to clean up. But that never happens.  For the next week I found myself making image after image, almost effortlessly—anything to keep from cleaning up. 

Girl with Wolf 2010

Earlier this summer, two of our closest friends decided to move from Santa Fe to be closer to their family(see Cubana Conversation ).  I inherited a number of my paintings from their collection, and this was one of them, always a favorite of mine.  Of course, this is Little Red Riding Hood, being tricked not by a wolf, but by my blue heeler, Plez.  I love the painting for its wild colors, the innocence of Red Riding Hood, and Plez's leering canine face. Their bodies were made from paint peels-dried acrylic paint poured out, dried, then peeled back up and applied. The little girl's almost beating heart, and the wolf's large red mass that could be his intestines or a very large heart, both paint peels on top of paint peels. Her little black Mary Janes and his slipper like footwear finish these fairytale portraits.
 

Painted Horse

 In 2022 I was notified that two of my pieces, “Painted Horse” and “Horse with Storm” had been selected to be installed at the new UNM Hospital tower, here in Albuquerque, NM.  When a piece has been selected for a public art installation it has to be framed and hung in very specific ways—plexiglass covering the surface and special anti theft hangers so it can go on the wall and not be removed.  I think this piece has been hung in a patient’s room on the third floor, but I’m not sure since I didn’t do the hanging myself and the grand opening will be in October.  I like to think that whoever has this piece in their room will enjoy sharing their space with this friendly, colorful guy, and perhaps, in some subtle way, help that person heal.

Cubana Conversation 1979 or before

Most recently, good friends of mine are moving to be closer to their family and are down sizing.  They have been friends for over 40 years and had collected more than 25 of my images, some of them going back to my first years as an artist, in my early 20's.  They decided to keep 11 of those 25, and then asked me if I would take the rest.  I agreed, and drove home with a car full-o-art.  Once I got home, I began to try and figure out what to do, hoping that I could donate most to NM museums.  In the process I found myself frustrated with young Holly, who didn't see things like writing down dates or titles being particularly important. I kept all in my head at that time, and didn't see the need, since it was all right there. As well, I documented all my work using slides, and often the quality was not very good(I was learning).  But what was most interesting in looking through and cataloging the work, was seeing this time capsule of my life and progress as an artist.  "Cubana Conversation" was done when I worked at Tamarind Institute in the early 70s.  Printed in an edition of 17, I printed it myself on Tamarind presses after hours.  And lastly, to visibly see and appreciate the the support of these friends, who over the 40 years of our friendship, consistently believed in me and my vision.

Headed South 2005

For the past day, I've been looking for an image in my photo archives and haven't been able to find it.  However, looking through my images, as I've gone back through the years (from 2005-2009),  I've  been filled with wonder and delight. In some years I did up to 75 images, other years I seemed to average around 60. Most of the images have to do with something going wrong, or wrongish. Relationships, angels, birds, snakes, figures smoking cigarettes, all made from photographic bits and pieces of other things, all telling a story of some kind or another.  There is a spiritual sense to much of this work, a kind of witnessing of of the "other", whatever that other is. In looking at the images, I feel about the them now as I did when I made them. I know that the me that sits here now is not the me that made the images, but some other mysterious personage that shows up when I start to work, forcing "me" to give up control, pulling all the strings, and making all the decisions. 

Doe 2025

According to Hypnoticgate.com when a deer crosses your path it's not just coincidence, but a profound moment filled with symbolism and meaning. Who knew?