What Was, What Is, What Will Be 2024, 75″ x 40″x 40″, Steel, Nylon
Created as a site-specific for the Rotunda Gallery at Montclair Art Museum. This work is delicate dance shawl fringe that encircles an 1896 marble figure by sculptor William Couper, “Crown for the Victor (Beauty’s Wreath for Valor’s Brow)” (1896), that had been in the gallery for the last 20 years. The shawl fringe is a way to layer my Delaware Lenape history and that of the sculpture showing both our histories together.
What Was What Is What Will Be
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Within We Are the Light
38”x28”x 28”, Clay, Blown Glass, Bronze, Sterling Silver, Steel, Wood
Within We Are the Light, is based on talking to my son about his excitement and his future, I recorded these thoughts while he was sleeping as I was drove him to his first year of college.
It is from within that we are the light it is from within that we are the future
His chest open, exposing the vulnerabilities and his hope.
Little shards of Clay fill his body, they are pieces of possibilities. Some are parts of his history and some are parts of his story yet untold. They surround and cradle the Blown glass held in the arms of the branch that grows from within him the branch giving a Scissor Tail Flycatcher rest on a limb. Their shared perseverance, endurance, and inner strength a piece of home.
Available
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Oct 5 – Dec 31, 2024)
Within We Are the LightWithin We Are the LightWithin We Are the Light
Bloodline, Keeper of the Seeds 2021, 30″ x 98″ x 18″ in, Unique cast bronze with patina, cedar, and steel
It is a matriarchal society that my family lineage comes from; the woman cared for the children and the stories of their family. They told the history and planted the seeds for the next generation. Their lives, my life, and that of my daughter are full of the twists and turns that women hold in our society.
The Cigar Figures come from a childhood Native American story that my mother told of the “Stick People.” The “Stick People” would run through the night and call your name; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. She never described the figures, and I was always drawn to the idea of what they looked like. The Cigar Figures are my reimagining of that story, now a story of family and my past—a complicated narrative of loss, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks, all cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors and family shaped from the idea of a cameo or silhouette painting to capture the faces of the families.
When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.
Sold
In the collection of the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State, University Park, Pennsylvania
Exhibition History
To Take Shape and Meaning, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina (March 2–July 28, 2024)
EXPO Chicago 2023, Center for Native Futures, Chicago Illinois (April 13-16, 2023)
Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )Bloodline Keeper of the Seed installed at Volland
Bloodline Keeper of the Seed Installed at The Volland Store
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Glass, Brass, and Feathers, 14” x 6” x 6”, 2022
I am more than the view that my people are frozen in time, lost to a romanticized ideal of who the Native Americans were, we are more, and we are still here. I am not this fluff; I am here; I am loud and larger than life.
In the collection of the Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Pennsylvania
Exhibition History
The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
Spectrums Within Under Our Skin is 144 girls made from Crayola Crayon. There are 12 different girls, each girl is made from the 12 colors I see when I look at the color spectrum that forms a beam of light. I wish we could see the light within us all and the variations that make each of us that light, passing through a prism showing the many spectrums within us all. We are more than classifications regarding a position between two extremes, we are all the colors and an untold number of possibilities. It takes all these colors to create the light.
Available
For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
11400 Riverview | Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
Native Futures, Center for Native Futures, Chicago, IL (September 16, 2023 – May 17, 2024)
Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Pl, Oklahoma City, OK 73111 (November 9th, 2018 – Aug 4, 2019)
Spectrum Within Under Our Skin-Holly Wilson
Exhibition History
“Native Futures”, Sept 16, 2023 – May 17, 2024, Center for Native Future, Chicago, IL
Oklahoma’s smArt Space Galleries Beautiful Minds – Dyslexia and the Creative Advantage, Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Pl, Oklahoma City, OK 73111 (November 9th, 2018 – Aug 4, 2019)
Installed view at theScience Museums Oklahoma’s smArt Space Galleries Beautiful Minds – Dyslexia and the Creative Advantage
Under Our Skin and Spectrums Within Under Our Skin
It started with looking at my children playing and making their other world, if they needed wings they would make them from paper and sticks tied together. Their masks were transforming and all-consuming for them they believed and they became the bird.
We use a mask as a facade to be the thing we sometimes can not be, to fill that spot or give us courage.
Sometimes it is the unknown that we fear so we do not step when it is the step into that unknown that we need to live and breath. The figure prepares to fly away on her paper wings. It is a leap of faith that her wings will hold. In that moment she must be fearless to take the leap.
Available
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
EXPO Chicago 2023, (April 13-16) Center for Native Futures, Chicago Illinois
The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
Holly Wilson: Talk Story, C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California-Davis (January 9-March 16, 2018)
Paper Wings Fearless-at CN Gorman Museum-Holly Wilson
They say that to grow a garden is to believe in hope; you must believe that the seeds you put into the earth will grow. The beauty of this simple act has captivated me since I watched my dad garden when I was very small. He would tie string so tight for the beans to climb that when the winds of Oklahoma would blow, the string would sing. It was as if the garden was a symphony in and of itself with the strings and the sound of the corn stalks rattling. The buzz of the bees as they made their way from flower-to-flower fat with the bright yellow pollen and the crackling hum of the cicadas in the late Oklahoma August months. I can close my eyes and am transported back.
“Renewal: The Belief in Hope”
Unique Cast Bronze with Patina and Birch Panel
40” x 30” x 8”
Sold
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Cedar and Steel, 20” x 84” x 10”, 2022
There is the family you are born into and then there is the family you make. They are the friends you made in school, the neighbor’s you live by and the colleagues at your work. You watch the children grow and tell the secret wishes you have for them. You have meals together; you share in the joy the ups and the down and you bring them love and kindness when they have lost a loved one. We build an extended family that grows year by year and that makes for a community that is full of rich diversity, compassion, and love.
My mother told me of the “Stick People,” a Delaware/Lenape story; they would run through the night calling your name, beckoning you to follow; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. I am reimagining that story, now a story of family and friends. My family’s history—a complicated narrative of loss, erasure, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks; I now call them “Cigar Figures.” Their faces are of the ancestors, family, and friends, echoing the form of a cameo or silhouette painting, capturing family images. They walk upon a cedar log from my land in Oklahoma; I have heard cedar called mother. She carries the people on her back, and we can see the paths made on her bark by the tiny animals that lived their lives below her skin. All these lives lived together as a community, listening to the secret dreams of our children whispered to the wind, growing year by year, full of life, compassion, and love, above, below, and here.
When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.
Available
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Exhibition History
Seen Unseen, Feb 21 – July 14, Duhesa Gallery Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
Bloodline: Building Community
Bloodline: Building CommunityBloodline: Building Community
