News!
Summer 2021
I’m exhibiting artwork with Kim Keats in an exhibition entitled Forest Fete at the Sea Islands Center Gallery, the University of South Carolina Beaufort, in Beaufort, SC, from May 2021 - August 2021.
About the Exhibtion
Ann Holderfield and Kim Keats are both inspired by and create artwork informed by their experiences in nature. Nature walks are significant aesthetic and research experiences, where both artists gather, either literally or figuratively, the resources used to create their work.
Kim Keats’ forest walks are focused on the harvesting of local materials. She incorporates the bark of trees, branches, and small limbs into her sculptural pieces, sewing them together in stitches or weaving pieces together with grass or thread.
The objects that I make are intended to honor or memorialize the origin of the materials from which they are made. I primarily use bark and twigs from a variety of highland trees along with driftwood and palmetto root from coastal habitats. Harvesting bark and palmetto root is a considerable part of the overall process and is seasonable and laborious. The bark is manipulated while wet and sewn together with waxed linen thread. Combined interlacing techniques are employed to weave the palmetto root and waxed linen thread onto the bark or driftwood structures. Materials such as twigs, bones, and stones are added to create contrast. Objects are also constructed and incorporated to create areas of interest that support the visual concepts. The tree has become a personal icon and my work reflects the influences of a number of indigenous cultures that have a tradition of using natural materials. Sharing in this celebration of materials, techniques and imagery has made me feel as though I am part of a universal heritage.
Ann Holderfield’s paintings reflect a yearning for forest, an ode to the sensory experience of forest and nature, and a nod to the complexities of forest ecosystems. Ann Holderfield’s creative process is directly linked to her nature experiences, which include forest walks and, during covid, walks and meditations in her backyard and Pigeon Point neighborhood. She creates gesturally abstract and non-objective works in the vein of Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, and Joan Snyder, while also referencing calligraphic marks of Mark Toby and the exuberant love of color and pattern seen in the work of Yayoi Kusami. The meditative experience of art, the divine in nature, and the micro/macro nature of systems are all themes in Ann Holderfield’s work.
January 2021
My article, Librarian As Curator: Teaching Research through the Artist Bibliography Book Display in an Art Department Gallery, was just published in Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America!
Here is the abstract:
The author shares how the weaving of multiple professional roles culminated in the creation of the Artist Bibliography Book Display, a display that features the research of artists exhibiting in the art department gallery that the art librarian co-directs. The article describes the development of the Artist Bibliography Book Display, discusses the artwork and bibliographies of select artists who exhibit in the space, analyzes the book display as a pedagogical tool in the teaching of research to art students through the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education, and discusses teaching with and the curating of books.