• MAIN
  • 50 SHELLS LIBERATED!
  • WOOD
  • ABSTRACT SMALL WORKS
  • Copyright statement
  • 3 Americas!
  • Simple Story of a Complicated Piece of Wood
  • SLIDE SHOWS
  • PROCESS DISCUSSION: "The World" in stages.
  • SPINOFFERY
  • FACES FACES FACES
  • COMMENTS
  • Susan Holland Artist's Statement
  • THANKS SO MUCH!
  • SANDBOX
  • COFFEE TABLE BOOKS
  • HAZARD LIST
  • LINKS OF INTEREST
  • ARCHIVED II (from one offs dot com)
SusanG.Holland Art Pursuits
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Y NO
WHY NOT TRUST MY ISOLATION, the oasis I seek, with its little patch of shade and muddy water, its dates and nuts and dried fruits? And when the sun bears down, the oasis is overcrowded or far to seek, my bedroll and tent and small cook pot can touch down anywhere, the mandolin sing its way in the dark by itself. ~ Paul Hunter
​

  • "The superior man understands what is right," said Confucius,
  •  "the inferior man understands what will sell."
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"I think of a painting as the place where painting took place,
 and the record of what happened" 

​~quoting poet,  Paul Hunter


​"How shall I know I am living a good life? Your shoes will fit.
 What should I do if my life is an unhappy one? Be happy about it. Change your cobbler" 
 -- used by permission of poet friend, Hop Shore
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​

WELCOME TO
​ SGHolland Art Studio!



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About Susan Holland


The art I make only comes in "original."


I claim my own marks, as I would also claim YOUR marks for you!

Mine are impressionistic, textural marks, usually... you will find in my designs that which  I find variously beautiful, odd, funny, playful, puzzling, eye-teasing, or just plain satisfying.  Wood, paint, metal, wire, leather, stones, papers, pigment, clay.  It's all for me to play with!  


If you have comments, I am pleased to hear from visitors to my site by  email-- artpursuits@protonmail.com
Please identify yourself in the subject line..thanks.



 BELOW ARE SOME ARCHIVED PROJECTS OF THE RECENT AND FAR PAST.  

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Art Group Critique
It grew to be a facebook page with great sharing.
One co-founder, Marc Turner has successfully launched a Painting School in Warrington UK.  
The other co-founder "foundered" and stepped away from this project but is still contributing

​


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MORE ABOUT MARC TURNER'S ART PROJECTS





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DOUBLE CLICK ON MY NEW BOOKS TO SEE INSIDE
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       "Art Informel was more about the absence of premeditated structure, conception or approach (sans cérémonie) than a mere casual, loosened or relaxed art procedure. "                Source: Wikipedia on Art Informel


Discovering this term for a genre of art was a relief to me.  I always wondered what my kind of art making
might be called.  


Courtesy of David Lisle of the LinkedIn Arts Forums

*   HAZARDS LIST! *

An important cautionary link to a list of dangers in artist and craft studios everywhere,  

 CLICK and STUDY !  F
eel well !  Stay healthy!





NEWEST UPDATES 
IN THESE LINKS  ======>>



PictureFLUTED VASE WITH BELFREY, 10" diameter x 14" 275 USD plus shipping and applicable tax.








I am  now working on a website on my own studio's domain! 
simply a gallery called
SGHolland Art Studio




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MAGIC CARPET ! (ask)




Notes from the Studio:
(..how spinoffs happen)

Took a photo from the top of my fluted vase in process.  Tinkered with the photo in several digital programs.  The resulting digitals are ordered as note cards.

Note Cards are available  as singles  at $ 3.00  or in sets of  8 similar or  assorted notes at $20.00 /set
plus shipping

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top view of fluted vase with holes
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DIGITAL SPINOFF of top view of fluted vase with holes.
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ANOTHER SPINOFF of fluted vase top view.
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FLUTE 2 as a note card coming soon
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FLUTE, as a note card






SEE MENU FOR MORE 
TWO-D
WORK
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From the Canyon Series
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Subway Doors, Oil

UPDATE!  My carved "SHELLS" are now called  TREEN!

August 2014  A friendly Brit admired my "treen", and introduced me to a very apt new word!!!   Pardon my English, but now we're talkin' Treen!

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   Click on images at left to see slide shows of 
                              50 Shells (Treen)




                  some of these fifty or
               so dishes are still available.
                  To inquire, ask for it
                       by title.  Email




BELOW:

Recently turned up  in the storage unit,  one of my favorites from the Issaquah years.
 I'd love to find this model again..such a fresh face!
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Detail of a pastel painting: Shawn A favorite model. Pastel on paper. ©SGHolland 2000

Sue Favinger Smith's fine art blog for aspiring artists, including education, art business tips, creative inspiration and encouragement.



Old Project:   a favorite that hangs on a great kitchen wall!

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Canning Like Crazy, oil on canvas copyright SG Holland 2011 collection J Jackson, Seattle






           


http://about.me/susangholland.artstudio



 BELOW:  A Little Documentary About Leaving Hoodsport in 2012


,The beauty of why I loved it there, and the truth about why I thought I had better leave.


(older history)
The Season as it Came To the Olympic National Forest Area in 2011

Today, silently, winter snuck in between the house and the workshop.



MORE THAN TWICE RESCUED!
The spalted bowl that just didn't appeal.

The Rescue:

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SOLD
This upright bowl came from a piece of root wood that was speckled in the most unfortunate way by spalting.  (This clearly was why we found it in the discard pile where I get my raw materials.)

When wood grows in moist soil it can accumulate plant fungus spores from the earth that produce green or brownish stains in the growing wood.  Often people seek out spalted bole-wood, but this particular piece looked less beautiful than one would wish...actually the green streaks made it look dirty!  Not what you would wish for in a bowl.  No one did wish for this poor bowl.  It was set out at various venues with our Silk Purse Products, and though it was perfectly sound and a great shape, no one liked it enough to buy it. 

So this week I grabbed it out of my collection and made a special project of making it into something really interesting. Hopefully others will find it as keepable as I do.

At the right you will see what I call the Land Trees Stars Seas Bowl.. not quite done, so I'm daring to put ti up before I know it will keep its current state. But even if it doesn't, once neatened up and with a hard varnish finish to preserve it,  it is lovely to look at just for the fun of how it was made.

The search for the right colors to keep this earthy in nature, but also enjoy the remarkable natural wonders of stars, sea, earth and trees, took me to natural pigment aqueous suspensions from Rubelev.  I augmented the blues and red tones with undersea green and some yellow tones.  I mixed metallic elements in for shine.



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Dremel grooves and wood burnt accents give the bowl texture and a design. The Minnesota pipestone color (earth) is perfect for the bottom-most facets of the carved shape.
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Waxed with beeswax, the grooves were deepened with a carving tool, and a gritted bit used to make "millions" of stars in the inner "sky". The "sea" was in the wood...the beautiful grain asked to be ocean.
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The trees whose trunks march around this bowl come into leaf on one side. This will be worked on some more with detail-- it is nice, but still not finished. Once I have made it "sing" I will put a good coat of varnish on this piece and a good price as well.

Some nice features of the Shelton Farmer's Market
Memories of the Shelton Years

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It's always fun when the four-goat team comes to the market pulling a wagon for kids to ride in.  These gentle creatures are happy to do their many rounds for their able owner and handler. 

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The Color!  The Yumminess!

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ORGANIC CARROTS!
Harvest Festival happened on September 1st this year.  We enjoyed a day full of special events including the goat rides,  a raffle every half hour and the wonderful Celtic/Aradian dulcimer and fiddle music I love so well.

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Tom and Jesse of the Pedestrian Interference Band




What to do with a graceful Camphor wood board with curved edges?

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I have a stack of these in my newest group of finds at the
Silk Purse supply source.

Camphor has a distinct s sweet fragrance that keeps giving and giving.  I am not excited about this for food prep, but it is a nice  sort of fragrance to get wafts of from a closet.  Like a toy closet or toy chest, maybe?
There's a birthday coming up.  I applied my scroll saw to one of these boards and made a not very easy (i.e., adults will be challenged and the birthday honoree is not a kid any more) jigsaw puzzle!  The puzzle is made difficult by lack of straight edges, lack of square corners, and I have purpsely mis- matched the finishes on each piece...on both sides!

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SOLD 2 sided cypress puzzle © Susan G Holland 2011 Collection of CE Moore, Kirkland, WA
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SOLD Yew and Copper handled fir bowl with incising. © Susan G Holland 2011

TRIBUTES TO SPECIAL PEOPLE

Jo, my patient and smart assistant as Silk Purse made its first ventures in 2010  into the public eye, is a true stand-by friend and a wonderful driving force for this business.  Jo has moved on to her first love, gardening and landscape, and now lives in Whidbey Island (that lucky community!)  May the sun shine and the rains fall in just the right order for this wonderful woman! 

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Jo, my willing and able Sales Rep in the Shelton, WA area for my first year of business. Dear to my heart and such an asset to Silk Purse Products

A brief History

art began at age five and never stopped, and hollandART Studio has followed me wherever I go, including here to Shelton, WA.  Economic downturns in the US spawned Silk Purse Products, to bring some employment opportunities.  SGHolland Art Studio is for sharing of wealth learned in a lifetime of art making.


HIGH POINTS:

GEORGE SCHOOL, Newtown PA (1956)
............. it changed my life enormously!

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, Philadelphia PA (1959)
Stella Elkins Tyler School of Fine Arts, Elkins Park Campus - Walter Annenburg Competitive full tuition four year scholarship!
....the beginning of the rest of my art life, and still very much a part of who I am today.

VALLEY FORGE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY (now part of Newtown Square Christian Academy), PA, where I headed up the art department and taught for five years.  ... I learned that children are the most wonderful artists there are!

 CELEBRATION, designed just for
the  3 AMERICAS! EXHIBIT

Events and Links
of Note


3 AMERICAS! EXHIBIT, Lincoln Ctr., NYC, NY 2001 .... I organized and curated this exhibit of artists, famous and unknown, from all latitudes of the Western Hemisphere.  What a privilege!


PACIFIC NORTHWEST ARTS AND CRAFTS FAIR , Bellevue WA,(now called Bellevue Festival of the Arts) ...AWARDS AND COVETED BOOTH SPACE AT A  PRESTIGIOUS EVENT.  .... such a turning point!

hollandART STUDIO, Issaquah, WA, 1979-2001, out of which came AFAP (www.artfaces.com) and 3 Americas! (prospectus link from 2000), as well as many many workshops for active artists, teaching sessions, and exhibits.

AFAP (Artfaces|Artplaces) out of hollandART Studio ... a very early venture into web art gallery creation...that still is going strong today!! See history on link above.

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artist, truthteller, seeker, teacher, student, grandmother, friend, mom, and sharer of a big life full of wonderful schools, jobs, and amazing experiences.

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Credit: Photo by Den Patera, Issaquah, WA

my all time favorite POEM

I think this poem gives more information about me than I could write, simply because I have chosen it as my all time favorite.  It is a gem by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS.
~.~

Pied Beauty
   GLORY be to God for dappled things--
  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;     For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and  plough;           And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.   All things counter, original, spare, strange;

  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)     With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:                 Praise him.



All artwork images on these pages are copyright S.G.Holland, all rights reserved  unless otherwise credited. Silk Purse logo design by Tim Sheppard , purchased and used by permission.  3 Americas design by Ansgard Thomson, used by permission.
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