Today we’d like to introduce you to Bill Holmberg.
Bill, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Early influences formed my interest in creating objects. This interest continued with my engineering education and migration from an engineering job to fine arts education. While receiving my BFA, I became captivated by printmaking, a highly process orientated medium. In pursuing my MFA, I focused on printmaking studying under Ken Kerslake and Todd Walker, internationally known printmakers. At Pensacola Junior College I taught photography and participated in several group and one solo exhibit. The reality of economics and the lure of manned space flight pushed me to take a job at the NASA Johnson Space Flight Center. In Space Shuttle Mission Control, I planned the activities of the astronauts. I continued this interest while working in management for a small aerospace company. During off hours, I began creating folk art like sculpture. Eventually I starting a small business with my wife, Theresa. For fifteen years we focused our consulting business on helping large defense contractors win government contracts.
As a consultant, I had more free time to continue my over 40 year interest in building sculpture. The work become more abstract, the medium changing from hardwoods to steel. Now retired I create abstract, welded steel sculptures as part of a series of more than 30 works. The size has increased with the “Big LV” and “Circular Logic” series building on the fundamentals of the “La Vista” series. Another series, “Lyric,” investigates small works incorporating curves and polished steel.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
My sculpture is abstract; as Frank Stella said, “What you see is what you see.” The concept is to achieve the right combination of forms and spaces between the shapes for a coherent statement that is interesting and unique. If I achieve the right combination of line, shape and negative space, the object will be “alive,” interesting to look at from any aspect and different with every viewing.
The stereotype of a starving artist scares away many potentially talented artists from pursuing art – any advice or thoughts about how to deal with the financial concerns an aspiring artist might be concerned about?
The honest answer is that it is almost impossible to support yourself creating art. An artist must be as creative in dealing with financial concerns as with creating art. It is a touch truth.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I have been exhibiting in the Mary Tomás Gallery on dragon street in Dallas for the last two years and will be in a group show in May, 2018. I also exhibit in regional juried exhibits including the 2017 “Hecho en Dallas” at the Latino Cultural Center. The work is also for sale via my website, www.holmbergart.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: holmbergart.com
- Email: handhdallas@att.net
- Instagram: billholmberg
Image Credit:
Bill Holmberg
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