During the winter of 2005 Holly was on tour with Stuart Mclean and the Vinyl Cafe as they crossed Canada on their Christmas tour. In the spring of 2006 Stuart was bringing his tour east with Jill Barber and Dan Hill as his guests. Since Wolfville Nova Scotia is only a few kilometers from where Holly lives in Canning she insisted they all come for dinner. The question was, would Holly make it home in time for dinner. Have a listen here for Holly's harrowing story told by Stuart. during one of his 2007 broadcasts
Have a listen here. Published on December 03, 2013
Artist Holly Carr painted a silk banner as members of the Annapolis Valley Honour Choir performed at a Dec. 1 fundraiser for Campaign For Kids. Her angel-motif banner raised $1,200 for the children’s charity. - Nancy Kelly, www.kingscountynews.ca By Nancy Kelly nkelly@kingscountynews.ca KingsCountyNews.ca An afternoon of music, art and Christmas cheer raised over $3,000 for Campaign For Kids at the organization’s annual wreath auction, held Dec. 1 at the Acadia University’s K.C. Irving Centre. The third annual event featured a concert by members of the Annapolis Valley Honour Choir, complemented by the artistic talents of local artist Holly Carr, who painted an eight-foot banner during their performance. Carr, a resident of the Canning area, is well known for her unique style of silk painting and has participated in numerous group and solo shows, as well as designing for theatre productions and public instillations. In recent years, she has branched out in to performance art, where she paints large works live on stage. Carr’s colourful creation evolved around the choir’s angel-themed performance, Carr explained before it was auctioned off to benefit the charity. The proceeds of a silent auction of 18 donated wreaths, Carr’s banner and a freewill donation raised $3,265 for the charity. Funds collected by Campaign For Kids stay in Kings County to benefit disadvantaged youth through a variety of programming initiatives. During the program intermission, organization chairwoman Ann Marsters presented choir director Heather Fraser with a donation. “Campaign For Kids recognizes children flourish not only with the basic necessities of life, but also when they are afforded opportunities that enhance their creative development and feelings of self-worth and accomplishment. For this reason, we are pleased to donate $250 to the Annapolis Valley Honour Choir to sponsor a youth registration. We are confident the experience of sharing in the camaraderie and love of music that comes through participation in the choir will nurture the life of a deserving child,” said Marsters. Marsters also thanked the wreath donors. By ELISSA BARNARD Arts Reporter | At the Galleries
Published October 12, 2013 - 12:00am Last Updated October 12, 2013 - 7:02am Holly Carr took the images in her mind of a safe place and turned them into a real retreat for all to seek refuge in Light in the Forest.Her full-scale installation at Acadia University Art Gallery has a central, circular tent. Through billowing silk doors, the viewer enters into a meditative space with a green floor cushion.The silk walls are alive with plant and wildlife. The colours pop; there is nostalgic music on headphones.“It’s like a children’s storybook,” says Carr, who lives in Woodside near Canning.“Everything is alive and living. The fish are jumping. There’s lots of green, there are berries to eat, hidden mice, the bees are in the flowers.“I kept it simple, big, simple shapes, I wanted it to be like a kids’ colouring book.”But to get to the refuge, the viewer has to walk, like a hero in the underworld, through a forest of giant lit trees and past scary mythological male figures with animal heads. They belong to narratives representing negative psychological moments in Carr’s life. The tent’s outer shell is painted on transparent chiffon silk and depicts a frightening, fruitless world of wolves with bared teeth and thorny branches and a rabbit caught by hunters.The outer world broadcasts sombre classical music in a minor key, with singing by Paula Rockwell, an Acadia faculty member and Carr’s running partner. The music inside the tent is “light and beautiful, Pachelbel Canon and the Friendly Giant, and that nostalgic music that makes me feels happy and safe.”Light in the Forest explores myths, fears and safe places. It is rooted in Carr’s childhood experience.“I have these safe places I go to in my mind and they’re colourful and remind me of when I was happy and safe,” says the artist, whose long black dress is in stark contrast to her vibrant imagery.“It’s like my head is always like a picture book.”As a mother and a woman in her late 40s, Carr has a lot of worries, like most people. She also has family members who suffer from anxiety.“I started thinking of safe places. What if I created a literal space you could enter?“It wasn’t just for me. I thought of it as a public space. I’m trying to create a space where people can come in and feel comfortable.”The NSCAD University graduate grew up in Fall River surrounded by forests and fields.“That’s where I played and we foraged and ate and built forts. At night it was scary.”Bad things can happen in dark hidden spaces. Carr remembers when a little boy was lost in the woods and died “and that haunted me, that this place of enjoyment could be something so horrific.”This exhibit plays on the dichotomy of good and bad in one place.“Some of my happiest moments were in the forest and some of my most frightening.”She searched her childhood memories for what “shaped my fears and how I react as an adult and even as a parent.”Carr dreams big. To create Light in the Forest she used “close to 200 yards of silk.”An accompanying exhibit reveals her process of making drawings as preliminary sketched ideas.Carr paints freehand out of her imagination.“I want to feel free the way I work. I just jump in with paint.”The trees are “131/2 feet tall,” she says, and lit from within.“You know when you’re in a forest and the light shines though the trees? I love trees.”This work builds on The Terrarium, her 2003 interactive installation celebrating plant and insect life at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax.Poles were visible between panels in The Terrarium. For this show she worked with her husband, painter Alan Bateman, to design a structure to hide the poles.“There is a continuous loop of the world constructed with lots of help from my husband. I can create that continuous world so it swirls around you.”Laurie Dalton, the Acadia gallery’s director-curator, asked Carr to do a large-scale installation.“A lot of people have seen her paintings and performances,” she says. “I wanted to show her work in a new way to people in the Annapolis Valley.“I was also interested in creating an opportunity to celebrate good, exciting work happening in Nova Scotia and to push the envelope by pushing the boundaries of scale.”“I was thrilled,” says Carr.“We hope to get it in some other venues because it is such an amazing body of work,” says Dalton. “It’s important to celebrate Nova Scotia artists.”If Light In the Forest travels, Carr is already thinking of adding a moon, a ceiling piece, more trees.“I have another idea of building a whole other piece. I can see it, even if I don’t get to do it, just dreaming it is fun.“I want to build bigger. I want to build a silk building. I want to get inside and paint it from the inside out. My husband calls it magic beans.”Carr has upcoming live painting performances with the Hamilton Symphony and a new Christmas show she is premiering in Fall River on Nov. 30 at the LWF Community Hall.In the short term, she, her son and her daughter are going to give her husband space. Bateman is having his first exhibit in Halifax in 15 years at Secord Gallery.“Until Nov. 1 we won’t bug him so he can just paint the whole time.”Carr gives an artist’s talk on Oct. 18, 2 p.m., and a hands-on artists’ workshop on Nov. 3. School and community groups may book tours and workshops, facilitated by Dalton, by emailing artgallery@acadiau.ca. The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.
Acclaimed silk painter mesmerizes audience By: Holly Harris
16/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 1 It's not every day the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra plays second fiddle at its own concert but that's what happened Friday night. The WSO's second offering of its Musically Speaking multi-media series, The Artist's Life set out to explore the daily struggles and financial woes that have plagued the creative class for generations, with a lively narration by hosts James Manishen and Ron Robinson providing historical context. Even brilliant musical geniuses like 18th century composer Mozart died penniless, with the harsh realities of eking out a living as an artist continuing to this day. It's not exactly rocket science, but the message always bears repeating. However, in the end, art trumped all discourse, as acclaimed Canadian guest silk painter Holly Carr's mesmerizing live painting, inspired by Mozart's Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K. 543 brought the wondrous act of creation home. After a brief introduction, the Nova Scotia-based artist assumed her position behind a backlit, eight-by-eight silk canvas where her imaginative, whimsical painting of swans and dragonflies magically emerged before our eyes as the WSO band played on. This type of artistic collaboration has been seen before at the WSO New Music Festival, but it's always inspiring to see music spontaneously re-interpreted in another medium, as you might see a dancer respond with movement. The artist did become a dancer of sorts, with her silhouetted figure acting as visual counterpoint to her unfolding images. Guest violinist Kerry DuWors also performed Mozart's Rondo for Violin and Orchestra in B-flat major, K. 269. The poised Brandon University music professor's quick-fingered technique easily handled the challenges of the buoyant work, lending a grace note of lightness to the evening. Montreal-based maestro Jean-Marie Zeitouni led the orchestra with gusto, energizing the players with every gesture communicative. His conducting without a baton created an even greater immediacy with the musicians, from Waltz King Johann Strauss' lilting Artist's Life to Mendelssohn's The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave). It seemed ironic that a program focused on the artist's life would not allow an opportunity for its actual practitioners to speak. With two microphones available onstage, it was puzzling why we didn't have a chance to hear from either Zeitouni or Carr, who so quickly disappeared behind her canvas for the rest of the show. Giving them voice -- and hearing stories from their own artists' lives -- would have shed more light on what they do, and what drives them to create their not-so-random acts of beauty. holly.harris@shaw.ca CONCERT REVIEW WSO Musically Speaking Friday, November 13 Centennial Concert Hall Attendance: 940 (three and a half stars out of five) |
Categories
|