We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Holly Wood a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Holly, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I am an artist. I don’t run a company. My mission, such as it is, is to put out into the world my visions of life on this planet as I see it, and as I would like to see it. I believe that art can influence the viewpoints of individuals and social movements.

My subject matter, inspired by daily life, news stories, history, politics and my own vivid dreams, features a mix of humans with other animal characters playing parts of equal importance and often switching roles. I want to put the observer in a place where they are made to consider things that may never have occurred to them.
Stylistic influences have been Medieval narrative art, and the cartoon-like storytelling styles of ancient India, Egypt and Mughal art. The depictions of everyday life by Japanese masters like Hokusai have also been an influence. Like them, and like the illustrators and cartoonists of the Golden Age, I want to tell my stories with the most economical and expressive use of line, color and texture.
I work according to an underlying concept of Primal Laughter. For me, consciousness pervades everything, and in the back of my mind I’m always hearing a mighty voice shouting with laughter (or maybe that’s just Tinnitus).

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have always been an artist. A creative is all I am. I do not have the mind of a CEO, or an entrepeneur. A little more financial success and wider exposure would be nice, but I measure success by constantly improving my technique and the way I get my ideas across.

I produce art because I am compelled to translate the visions I see in my mind into a form that hopefully will delight, surprise and inform people about the social, historical, environmental and psychological issues that are important to me, and that I feel should be important to everyone (without being pompous, didactic or too boringly literal).

To that end, I cloak my messages in surrealism and fantasy. Although it looks quirky and amusing, there is a serious reason why I portray human and other animals interacting on an equal level; living and working together as fellow citizens of this Planet. Communication is key. I’ve always believed that once humans finally can decipher the language of other animals, so much will be made clear, so many questions will be answered. Our survival depends on it. Scientists are even now working on learning the language of Whales, and I hope they achieve it in my lifetime.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Many non-creatives don’t understand the difference between art created for its own sake and art created as product. Art created for its own sake, as a personal journey by the artist, may deal with deeper ideas and more experimental techniques than work created by an artist for a mass market. This is not to denigrate art that has a wide appeal to a great many people. Good for those artists whose images and products catch on and provide them with a good living! I should be so lucky.

I have had some success with putting my images on products and selling them, but I don’t create my images to be “product”. But if I sell some of those, it’s a little bit of gravy. But mainly I’m on the journey for the journey’s sake. Trying to figure out how to market my art causes me anxiety and distracts me from thinking about the art. The people who buy my originals buy them not because I’m famous or a good investment, but because it speaks to them. In this age of people desperate to smear themselves all over the internet for stupid reasons, and make lots of money fast, this may be hard to understand. But this is the way I am. I’m happy if I have influenced some people and made them think about some things and gave them enjoyment. I’ve fantasized about bigger fame and fortune, but I don’t think I’d like it.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

In the late 90s and early 2000s, I was designing drawer knobs and door pulls and having them carved in Mexico out of ironwood and ebony. I must have been like many Americans doing business in Mexico, going down there expecting things to go according to my expectations and timeline. I soon learned to relax, de-stress, and let the process flow according to the way they did things down there, because their work was beautiful and it all got done when it had to be. What I learned was that the harder you pushed, the more obstacles got in your way. And if obstacles kept cropping up, it wasn’t something you were meant to do. It was like beating on a door to make it open, when all you had to do was turn a little sideways, and you slipped right through a crack.

Contact Info:

• Website: holly-wood.fineartamerica.com
• Instagram: @hollylowbrowart
• Facebook: holly wood the artist