The Arts

Story by Connye Griffin | Photography by Al Griffin

“Seek the artist within,” says artist and mentor Irene Holt. She has found her inner artist, and it has made all the difference in her life. She’s learned how to seek her own dreams, see the world more clearly, and support the dreams of others.

Life’s lessons in art

Painting Parties

Irene Holt supplies canvas and easel, paints and brushes, apron and answers to questions painters may have. She brings it all to sites around the Lake within a 100-mile radius for an average cost of $25 per person. If the group is small and the distance long, there may also be a trip-charge. Participants choose their own subject from an array of finished canvasses, or they can request a subject that Irene will paint ahead of time. She then coaxes and coaches painters from first brush stroke to last. Groups that have enjoyed paint parties include wedding parties, family members gathered for a reunion, fun girls-nights-out, kids’ parties, birthday parties, and workplace celebrations.

seeking

Artist Irene Holt seeks opportunities and seizes them. For example, a Lake-area radio station asked if she would host a painting party so she added paint-party hostess to her extensive résumé that includes commissioned art pieces, on-site photography, poetry, and art instruction. She now takes the party to client homes or community centers. Some of them are sip and paint, too.

Through parties, clients are privy to Irene’s life lessons. She believes “we all have an artistic part … and if we look for it and are willing to develop it, we can.” That philosophy describes Irene’s own journey to artistic expression. She cultivated her own interest by buying books about art and teaching herself. She also learned to tell her “inner critic” to be quiet while she used oil on canvas or poured acrylics and even splashed paint through a turkey baster to create flowers in bloom. She’s found oil is her favorite medium, and most of her personal fine art is in oil.

seeing

Irene thinks she found what she sought on the day she noticed “the composition of colors, shapes, [and] lines” while driving. A field of grasses was no longer monochromatic, but an array of hues, some in shadow and some in full sun. She recognized she was seeing with the eyes of an artist, and she has never again seen “things the same.”

What Holt sees and paints are the hearts of her subjects. A cardinal is watchful; a wolf alert while camouflaged in Autumn’s woods. A pet dog looks ready to respond to the next command, and a muscular horse gallops into dreams.

Three of Holt’s oils are of ships at sea, and each is part of a vast landscape, bright with light, strong enough to penetrate heavy clouds or paint a path upon the water. In two of these, the seas roil, surely challenging the best sailors. All prove the artist’s eyes at work, seeing a continuum of color and shape communicating energy and story.

One of Irene’s first oils is of her daughter. Now an upper-class college student, the portrait captures her as a baby. It also shows why Irene’s holiday commissioned work included seven portraits of seven couples.

supporting

Irene says she’s “always been blessed with family and friends who have supported … and encouraged” her. She pays that blessing forward through her blended family of five children, eight grandchildren, friends, and paintparty clients. By her actions and contributions, she hopes to be someone in a “circle of someones” who help others become their own “biggest fans.”

To become part of Irene Holt’s circle of positive attitudes and artistic vision, call 660-227-0353, email generationsatthelake@gmail.com or go to www. generationsartstudio.com.