by Shawn Rossiter

Holly Mae Pendergast has always been one to follow her bliss. A bliss which has led her from her childhood home in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina to her current home in the hills above Utah’s Rockport Reservoir.

In her stripped-down A-frame cabin she has little social interaction and, at least for now, rarely leaves the home. She can do little else but paint, and even that has become increasingly difficult for her, as the materials she uses threaten to destroy her health.

This is the personal bliss for an extremely courteous and friendly person who has an obvious concern for people and wants nothing else than to be able to paint what is inside of her. “If I’m going to be known for something,” she says, “I want it to be what I feel.”

As a teenager, Holly Mae remembers a book her mother gave her. It was entitled “How to Marry a Rich Person.” The book gave advice along the lines of: if you can’t afford a membership at a country club, see if they will provide a partial membership, such as a pool pass, that will still allow you to interact with the rich single men. But how-to books were not to be the compass for Holly Mae’s life, especially not one that would lead her to a superficial life of vapid comfort.

Holly Mae’s compass is interior, and though it may have taken her years to peel off the layers of outside encumbrances around that compass, she feels that she is finally getting a better understanding of what her true north is.

Her bliss first took her to the Columbus College of Art and Design where she received a BFA in 1992. After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles, where she worked as a freelance conceptual designer, while painting on the side. It was also here that she met her husband, Mike Reid, who was doing animatronics and robotics in the Special FX and film industry at the time.

After living in LA for five years, Mike and Holly jumped at an opportunity to move to Park City to become ski bums. And it was here in Utah that Holly’s desire to paint full time began to take over her life.

Holly’s time in Utah has been a revealing process, one that has slowly allowed her to see what she wants out of her life and her art. Over the past four years she seems to have found what it is that is inside her, willing itself to come out on to her canvas. She has found what she wants to create, not what she wants to produce.

Holly has been best known for her colorful, painterly landscapes – particularly aspen trees -- which have sold well in Park City and other areas of the west. But despite the temptation of success, she has continued to search for new avenues of expression, and has changed both her style and her subject matter. Her husband, Mike, points out that the aspens were something she truly felt at the time, not simply a concession to the market in the west. But the pursuit of her art has developed into a new direction. The impasto aspens have given way to scrubbed-on surfaces and bare-bones figurative work.

Holly Mae sees the shift in her work as a dramatic change towards finding a figurative medium (and not simply portraiture) that can realize the interior vision she wants to bare to the world. This shift has been intricately wound up in the health condition she has developed and which has dramatically affected her life. One that seems to have both liberated her as an artist but also jeopardize her very capability to continue as one.

Exhibition Review: St. George
Redrock, Badlands & Sage: The Desert of Royden Card
by Jodi Adair

Royden Card, though born in Canada, was raised in Utah from age three. He was eight when he was first introduced to the desert at "Dead Horse Point State Park" and "Arches" (then called "National Monument"). This would be the first of many regular family trips to Utah’s deserts. His family resided in Orem, but Card’s father owned a real estate office in Moab, Utah. Summer for Card and his brothers entailed weekly trips to Moab to mow and weed property for a day or two, after which they were given their freedom to roam around the desert hunting arrowheads and exploring the nooks and crannies of the Canyonlands and the red rock desert of southern Utah.

Salt Lake City Gallery Association's monthly gallery stroll has become a staple of the city's cultural life. The third Friday of every month sees the city's galleries open late for receptions, exhibition openings and to allow the public a chance to see what's new in the city's visual arts.

Though the Salt Lake City gallery stroll is by far the most well known effort to direct attention to the visual arts on specific evenings, other communities along the Wasatch Front are also investing in the cultural life of their areas by supporting gallery strolls.  

Provo City hosts the First Fridays Downtown, evenings that combine a series of concerts with art gallery openings in the city's downtown area.

Ogden also hosts a gallery stroll on the first Friday of the month, concentrating on developing the arts community in the historic 25th street area of Ogden. The city has recently strengthened its efforts to support the visual arts with the creation of ARTSTOP:OGDEN (see article below), an effort to allow artists to utilize and transform vacant downtown spaces.

Park City has also stepped into the arena of cities with a gallery stroll. After an introductory experimental period, the City Council has approved the continuation of Arts and Eats, where local galleries team up with local restaurants for gallery openings on the last Friday of the month. see page 4


Art Happenings -- Ogden
ARTSTOP-OGDEN:
Boyer Company & Utah Power Open Doors for the Arts in Ogden

Thanks to the unprecedented contribution of vacant office space from Utah Power and Boyer Company, on February 7th Ogden City Arts opened the doors on a whole new look for community arts development in Weber County.

Virtually taking over the ground floor of the granite and smoke glass City Center building on the corner of 25th Street and Washington Blvd (formerly Ogden City’s Municipal offices) -- ARTSTOP:OGDEN functions as a multi-use visitors' center for the arts which includes a working studio space for up to six artists, a community gallery, meeting & theater space, and the working office for Ogden City Arts Coordinator, Robin Macnofsky.

“After receiving the Ogden City Arts contract last November, Downtown Ogden, Inc. realized that office space for the arts presented an opportunity to increase public access to—and awareness of—local arts events, performances, and galleries,” explains Dan Musgrave, Executive Director for Downtown Ogden, Inc. “ARTSTOP provides information on local arts organizations, granting opportunities, public art installations, and hosts artists’ studio spaces.”

ARTSTOP’s featured artists must live or work in Weber County, and since February’s open house have included painters Gabriel Stockton, Glenda Smith, Glen Larsen, Nancy Clark and Cara Coolmees, ceramists Diana Lea, Ed Hymas, Suzanne Storer and Darnel Haney, printmaker Joe Dixon, textile wovens from Christina May, metals artist John Little, wood worker David Wolfgram, and mosaic artsist Christina Graham.  Local artists who live in Weber County are encouraged to apply for display or studio space.