Holly Wiggin - Painter

Holly Wiggin

Name:  Holly A.D. Wiggin

City/State: Minneapolis, MN

Email: hollilloh@gmail.com

MNartist.org profile:  www.mnartists.org/holly_wiggin

Bio

Holly A.D. Wiggin earned her BA in Studio Art at Hope College with a painting concentration.  Having lived all over the U.S. and abroad, Wiggin now lives and works in the Twin Cities.  She has exhibited her work in Michigan and in Minneapolis. As she continues to develop her art practice, she also works at the Walker Art Center and volunteers at the Soap Factory.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

Lately I have been working on abstract paintings that are colorful and fantastical with an element of the sublime, or of this feeling of the calm before the storm, or being on the brink of something powerful and phenomenal.  I really enjoy the challenge of painting somewhat ambiguous spaces and forms that can be read in a number of ways.  These are informed by the characteristics of fabric, landscapes, and sometimes maybe flesh or hair.  I was trained in representational painting and figure drawing, and eventually realized a year or two ago that all my work until that point had a figure in it, and my later work was becoming less and less about the figure and more about everything else.  The figures had become a sort of crutch, so I decided to get out of my comfort zone and abandon them for awhile.  Things went abstract pretty quickly, and working this way is still quite new to me.  The interesting thing to me is now seeing how my newer work is still relevant to or informed by the human figure, and how we as viewers interact with the work and contribute to that narrative.

How did you decide to become an artist?

My mom is an artist/craftsman with an MFA in Ceramics (www.kathleendustin.com), so I’ve grown up watching her work from home, grow, flourish, make a name for herself, and help support our family in a big way.  She always encouraged me and my sister in art, sometimes giving us little art lessons, and I ended up taking art class in school every year.  I think I started out wanting to make art for the wrong reasons—I majored in it in college because I just couldn’t imagine not continuing with art, mostly because it was one thing I felt I had some talent and skill in, and it felt good to be good at something not everyone is.  Then I left college, got a “real” job at a desk for three years, but had no creative outlet and I really missed having that identification as an artist.  When I got married, my husband encouraged me to try to pursue art again, which is what I’ve been doing the past three years.  To be honest, it has been a very difficult struggle to keep at it when affirmation isn’t as easy to come by in the real world as it was for me growing up, and when I’ve had to develop a more mature reason than that for making art. However, the process of coming up with puzzles for myself to solve, imaginary things to engineer, then successfully executing them, is incredibly satisfying. So I keep on trying to become an artist.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?

I love Chuck Close’s quote: “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.”  This is advice I’m constantly working to remember—just making something when you don’t feel it is more than half the battle!  One thing I have discovered is that for me the value of making art is not in demonstrating talent or communicating some agenda, but instead it’s really in learning and growing through the process of making it.  As I create something I learn all kinds of things, from techniques, to what “works,” to what is important to me about the subject and what significance there is in that particular painting.

Many artists struggle to find ways to sell their art.  How do you sell your work?  How do you market yourself?

To be honest, I have not figured out these aspects yet.  I am still trying to create a discipline of regularly making art, and am only just now starting to make pieces I feel could be worth hanging on someone else’s wall. (And the time draws near to market and sell, because my own walls are becoming pretty congested with this stuff!)  I think my next step will be to look at showing/selling smaller pieces in local commercial retail spaces like restaurants and coffee shops, as well as online (the likes of fineartamerica.com, etsy.com) and take it from there.

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

Caroline Kent (http://www.carolinekent.com)

Farida Hughes (http://www.faridahughes.com)

Elisa Berry Fonseca (http://ebfonseca.com)

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

I love to bring all my visitors to the Soap Factory (soapfactory.org) to check out more experimental and site-specific artwork by emerging artists, followed by the Walker Art Center (walkerart.org) and Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (garden.walkerart.org).  I also cherish the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (artsmia.org)—seeing more traditional art and especially the Impressionist paintings is always really inspiring to me and brings me back to the joy of painting when I need that.

In addition to www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com, where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

The Walker site has become an excellent source of art news (walkerart.org).  I also really enjoy exploring MNartists.org, and if I just need some eye-candy from art to product design to architecture, I like to check out Design Milk (design-milk.com).

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?

I’m excited to be showing a piece at Altered Esthetics in the upcoming exhibit “Straight Trippin’.”  The show opens February 28 and will be on-view through March 28, 2013.  The theme of the exhibit is questioning reality with distorted perspectives and it should feature a really interesting variety of work.  (http://www.alteredesthetics.org/gallery-events/exhibitions/straight-trippin)

Holly Wiggin

Altered Esthetics Featured Artist

Gallery Profile

Image List:

1. “EmBedded,” acrylic on canvas & fiberfill, 8" x 8" x 2.5" (2010)

2. “I make all things New," paper, cellophane, vinyl, cardboard, lights, 12’ x 9’ x 4’ (November 2010)

3. "Is this a Place for me to rest," acrylic on canvas, 16"x20" (2012)

4. “Bunched,”oil on canvas, 12"x12" (2011)

5. “Over All,” oil on canvas, 30" x 40" (2012)

6. “Aerial,” oil on canvas board, 11 x 14” (2012)

7. Image of artist – Holly Wiggin

Laura Brown - Printmaker / Book Artist

Laura Brown

SpotArt Gallery Featured Interview

~Laura Brown is exhibiting at SpotArt from 11/19/10 - 12/15/10~

Laura Brown

www.laurabrownart.com

laurabrownart@gmail.com

Bio~
Laura Brown is a printmaker and book artist in Northeast Minneapolis. Interested in the relationships between space, place, and the people in them, she has created a visual language of landscape and architecture to address her questions of place, culture and environment.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
I just finished a residency at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, where I made my first artist’s book. It was much more intense than making prints, and it sort of took over my life for several months. Since then, I’ve had some more ideas that I have wanted to get out a little more quickly, so my newest little set of prints are some monoprints printed from woodblocks. They are a lot more simple than most of my work, but I wanted to get back to the things I like about making prints: the ink, the grain of the wood, the colors, the forms. It has been good to experiment with that a little more, and to put out ideas that might not be complete or perfect, but are out in the world.

Why did you become an artist?
I have never wanted to do anything else, really. Art was always my favorite subject in school, and when I went to college, my mom strongly encouraged me to pursue it. I have never regretted it.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
In one of my first days of drawing classes at college, my professor, Ken Steinbach said, “everything I’ve gotten in my art career, I’ve gotten from working hard.” Of course, as a little, very nervous college freshman, this was the best news. I was probably doubting my talent at that moment, but I knew I could work hard, so I thought, “that’s what I’ll do then.” It’s been true.

Recently (or not so recently? Maybe last winter?), someone on twitter was referring to criticism with the reaction of “put your head down, get back to work.” That phrase has been really helpful to me as I have been applying to all kinds of opportunities in the last year. I think if you are going to succeed as an artist, you have to have a really thick skin, and you can’t let rejection get to you—because you will get rejected a LOT. But eventually, you’ll start getting accepted for things and build momentum. So, that wasn’t particularly advice, maybe just a phrase I co-opted to apply to my situation. But it helps!

Tell me about your working space and your creative process?
I share a studio with two other artists, Devon Driscoll , who is a jeweler, and Mel Benkert, a sculptor. We share a space in what is probably the smallest and least assuming building in Northeast. It’s a pretty raw space, but it is big and has a lot of light, which make me happy.

My process is pretty internal, I would say. I don’t plan or sketch a lot, although I feel like I am supposed to. I let things simmer in my mind for a long time, and I take a lot of photos with my little digital camera when I see something inspiring, and then when I have a pretty good idea of what I want to make, I just go for it with the printmaking materials. To get my compositions and forms down, I will cut shapes out of newsprint or brown paper, trace them onto my wood blocks or metal plates, and then let the process take over. Printmaking is a long process and each printmaker exerts a varying amount of control over the medium. I like to let the process surprise me a lot, and my prints often turn out different than I think they will, but it’s usually a really good thing—they are usually better or more interesting than I could have planned.

Which Minnesota artists do you enjoy?
Josie Lewis and

Caroline Kent are two friends whose work I really admire.

I love Nadine Gross’ polaroids and

Laura Hallen’s plexiboxes

If I were to follow you around on an “art day” in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?
We would probably hit the usual spots—the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, if we go tomorrow, we would go see the Alec Soth show at the Walker Art Center, we might stop in at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, I might take you to see Bridget and Amanda at Cave Paper. I always like a good trip to the Franconia Sculpture Park. We might also just ride the light rail, or maybe the North Star train to see some interesting industrial parts of town or some fields and farms. Getting out of my rut and routine doesn’t happen very often, but it’s always good to see something new.

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?
I have been hiding from the internet lately, working toward some deadlines, and I feel like arty Facebook events are always popping up in my inbox. www.mplsart.com has a great calendar of events, I usually find something good on there. I like to keep an eye on what’s going on at Umber Studios, and I Like You.

Do you have any exhibits or any interesting things going on in your life or coming up in the near future? (November 2010)
My work will be on display at SpotArt for the next month, and the book I made this summer was just purchased by the Hennepin County Library’s Special Collections, which is pretty exciting. I hesitate to verbalize my plans for applying to grad school, but that’s my main focus right now. Once those deadlines are past, I’m working on getting some non-printmakers to collaborate with me for some projects, and I’m thinking about how to get more young artists connected to people who are interested in collecting work and supporting local artists.