(Image: "Friend With Bag Hat" by Holly Meade)

Artist Holly Meade attended the Rhode Island School of Design and earned her BFA in Painting. Since then, she has explored other mediums including drawing, printmaking, basket making, and fabric design. In addition to her work as a visual artist, she has illustrated nearly 30 children's books, and for the past ten years, woodblock printing has been Holly's artistic focus. Interest in printing from woodblocks developed following a workshop she took with Printmaker Hester Stinnett at the Haystack Mountain School on Deer Isle in 2002. Holly has shown her work in various art galleries throughout Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

When did you first realize that you were going to be an artist and when did you first start making art?
I've always made pictures from earliest childhood.

Who or what inspires you?
My life experience inspires me, work and play, observation of the natural world, contemplating what's beneath it all. The work of other artists, those around me and those of the past.

Is (was) anyone else in your family in the arts?
My mother was a watercolor painter, primarily landscapes.

(Image: "Ram" by Holly Meade)

Are you self-trained or did you go to art school?
I attended the Rhode Island School of Design in painting.

Is the process of creating your art long or short?
Most often long. Woodblock prints require multiple steps. The inspiration, the drawing, transferring the drawing to the block, the carving, the inking up, and the printing. If there are multiple colors, all these steps are repeated for each color.

Tell us something about your work.
It's frustrating for me to "tell about" the work, especially in general. The work is the work. It's there to see. People bring different thoughts and feelings to it. I like that. The medium I can speak to—wood block image making is pretty exciting. The way the wood participates in the image, the surface tension and the pattern it encourages, the energy in the marks, the play of negative and positive shapes, are aspects of the medium that I find particularly engaging. There is an elegant raw honesty that can emerge through this process.

What makes you stay with a particular subject matter? Why are you drawn to it?
A subject's beauty, it's dynamics, it's story.

(Image: "Against the Tide" by Holly Meade)

How do you stay motivated?
That hasn't been a problem.

What have you been working on lately? Are you experimenting with anything new?
Recently I worked on a print about inner change, perhaps forgiveness or healing--I'm not sure.

Has your medium changed from when you first became an artist?
I've enjoyed other mediums, drawing, oil painting, silkscreen printing, textiles. I've been making woodblock prints for a bout 9 years now. I took a class at Haystack with print maker Hester Stinnet that captured my interest.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?
Follow your heart, listen to your inner urgings. I know, not very practical, but then, maybe it is, and the only real way to get through this life honestly.

(Image: "Throwing" by Holly Meade)

What kind of comment pleases you the most when overheard at one of your openings?
I don't think I've ever overheard any comments, but it would have to be honest ones, positive or negative.

How have you handled the business side of being an artist?
I've managed. It doesn't come naturally to me, but I can do it. I wish it didn't take me out of the studio as much as it does.

Do you have any outside interests other than art?
My family, friends, yoga, reading, kayaking.

Are you disciplined about your creative process (in other words, do you treat the process like a job, where you keep particular hours in the studio), or are you more spontaneous?
I work a lot, but I don't look at the clock.

(Image: "Saw-Whet Valentine" by Holly Meade)

How would your life change if you were no longer allowed to create art?
How would it not change?

What is the best part of being a full time, working artist?
Doing what it feels I'm meant to be doing, having the freedom to create the shape of my days.

What is the worst part of being a full time, working artist?
Meeting the bills has sometimes been difficult.

Where can we find your work?
On my website, www.reachroadgallery.com. I also have work at the Courthouse Gallery in Ellsworth, the Jonathan Frost Gallery in Rockland, the Tarratine Gallery in Castine, the McGowan Gallery in Concord, NH.

- Brenda Bonneville, editor

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