Holly Collins

I have been painting for as long as I can remember. I must be making things, pottery, mosaics, weaving, gardening, landscaping. Really I have tried my hand at them all and many of these creative activities demand my attention still.

In large part my focus has been painting. As a nature lover, the great outdoors has been my inspiration for many landscapes, seascapes, and garden paintings.

I grew up in Colorado, studied in New Hampshire, enjoyed the heady days of rock and roll in Mendocino County California. There I also continued weaving, spinning and dying my own wool for tapestries. I had the good fortune of living on a 2000 acre ranch in Malibu for seven years, where my then partner and I gardened and had our son .The coastal canyons of Southern California are a wealth of inspiration still. While there I studied interior and environmental design at UCLA and fabric design for good measure. The Brentwood Art Center had wonderful teachers and I tried my hand at figure painting.

Then I moved up to the misty Northwest. On Bainbridge Island where we renovated a hundred year old farm house and garden. My husband and young sons have roots there now too.

Our travels then brought us to British Columbia Canada. Needless to say, it is such a beautiful place to continue my painting . As a balance we now spend part of our year in Santa Fe New Mexico, where we can enjoy the sun and yet more spectacular landscapes for inspiration.

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