Artists Co-op Gallery

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As well as a sought-after ASA instructor, Vi Holland is also an excellent painter, working mainly in acrylics these days.  But Vi will tell you that the medium itself doesn’t matter as much as emphasizing the lights and darks in a painting to create contrast, and using harmonious colors. 

 

    Vi enjoys painting landscapes, seascapes, and animals; these are subjects she knows well and can relate to.   Vi prefers these subjects to still-lifes and abstracts.  “My life hasn’t been ‘abstract’ at all,” she said.  “It’s been so ‘real’ it isn’t funny.”  Vi explained that she came from a family of nine kids and was born after the Great Depression.  She “had to accept reality and go on from there.”  Vi finds great beauty in that reality and fills her canvases with it.  She has had the advantage of living for years in a house located on a 100-foot bluff above the ocean at Camp Meriwether where she could constantly hear the action of the water below.  She was also treated to spectacular sunsets looking out from her deck.  Even now, Vi and her husband, Ken, take advantage of living at the coast and get away for picnics on the beach.  Vi takes her camera along but most importantly, she studies the view – the ocean’s foam patterns and how the waves develop.   It is the intensive feeling from this kind of reality that Vi captures in her artwork.

 

    Vi has two children – a daughter living in Scappoose and a son living in Kingston, Washington.  Vi and Ken have been married for 32 years, and they both know they’re lucky.  Vi doesn’t pay that much attention to her wedding anniversary, since every day is another good day with Ken.  He’s always sweet and by her side giving her all the accolades anyone could need to keep going.  He’s even built a 300-sq.ft. room she can use for her studio.  Vi is clearly devoted to her art, as well as to Ken.