Archives for category: Uncategorized

Visual Art Number Twenty-Four

September 10, 2021 //

As I have mentioned before, I filled out a sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project, part of The Brooklyn Art Library. The category for this one is, Hollis Hildebrand-Mills 2021 – “Thoughts”. This particular page has nothing to do with anything except I bought one of those diffusers you fill up with a scent which billows out this fragrant steam all night. I like this one especially because you can turn out the lights that change every few seconds. Change them to no light at all, so it doesn’t annoy you when you sleep. I bought it for my allergies, thinking my bronchitis would clear up. The neat thing is, that my husband and the dog don’t snore anymore. Which is really a benefit I never considered. And it is a nice feature. Yes my bronchitis is better, even though my allergist tried to steer me away from the diffuser when I was shopping for one.

Also I had fun drawing this and I can’t say that about all the pages in this book.

Categories Uncategorized

Visual Art Twenty-Two

July 2, 2021 //

Having not written a post for a while, I feel like all is new. Actually all is new, because WordPress has changed their way of doing things. This may not post at all, because of this!

This is a page in my sketchbook; I did this at our community pool a few weeks ago. I am a part of The Sketchbook Project, which is an interesting thing in and of itself.

The company was created by a few artists who actually went to the same art school I did for my post graduate work. They send you a blank sketchbook, you draw in it, then you send it back to them. They digitize it, then it is kept in what they named The Brooklyn Art Library. They used to put all the sketchbooks that were sent back to them in a bus (28,000 at the time) and travelled around the country, setting up the library in major cities. Now the amount of sketchbooks has probably increased by such a huge amount that this is impossible.But, if you go to the Brooklyn Art Library in Brooklyn, NY, you can “check one out”!(#sketchbookproject).

Tags Sketchbook Project

Categories Uncategorized

Visual Art Number Twenty-One

March 13, 2021 //

During the pandemic, let’s say between the months of
April 2020 – present time (March 2021), like most people, I was stricken. No one knew how to cope. Each person had never been through anything like this. I was coping in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.

For the past year and a half, I had been planning a solo show in New York at Ceres Gallery. It was entitled BENEATH. It became obvious that the show scheduled for April 28-May 23, 2020 was not going to take place. That the city, truly, was “beneath”. Even my paintings, done on large canvases and framed collages on paper, had little spores surrounding skulls and a certain amount of gore. All this coming from The Universe, knowing before I did, what was to come. A topical body of work, but one that was to be seen virtually, otherwise held back, until the virus was finished crippling our lives.

The photo below was taken in my basement studio. My downtown studio was “locked down”. I have moved some of the work for this show to the downtown studio and some, like the above, “Echinacea” is in our home, in a studio I had created years ago, in case I couldn’t get to the one in the the city of Atlanta.

The show will take place, once again scheduled for New York, this time in 2022, in September. A year and a half from now. I will include this work, adding and subtracting pieces to fit the times as this work did for April of 2020.

Categories Uncategorized

Visual Art Number Nineteen

January 31, 2019 //

I have been invited to participate in Art Papers 20th Annual Art Auction. The collage above is what I have donated. It is made up of magazine pieces, paint, pencil and pen on board. Framed in a 2 and 1/2 ” deep floater frame. The piece was started and completed last week. (2019) It measures 5″ x 5″ and is titled “It took So Long To Bake It”

You can make a bid for it online if you go to http:www.artpapers.org/events

The live auction is on March 2, 2019, 7:30 PM at 200 Peachtree St. N.W.
Atlanta, GA

I hope you can join the fun! It is a very special art magazine and I am participating with a lot of very talented artists!

Tags art, art papers, Atlanta artist, collage, Painter

Categories Art, Atlanta artist, Ceres Gallery, Chelsea, New York City, collage, collage and paint, MoMA/NY curator Anne Umland chose Hollis Hildebrand-Mills' painting for NYC exhibition, studio life, Uncategorized

Visual Art Number Fourteen

May 26, 2017 //

Look at the nice looking couple above. They were our next door neighbors. They left last week to move into a new house. Over the nineteen years we’d lived next door to each other, we became friends. We knew each other’s family secrets. We were in and out of each other’s houses. The one time I actually passed out due to drinking too much, it was when Ed (names have been changed) mixed martinis going down like water. I was on my feet and then I wasn’t. We acted like we were twenty. Eating cookies and brownies with untold ingredients. Drinking wine and OTC Wild Indian Cherry Bark Cough Syrup into the night. Dancing in each other’s basements, (Linda was from Philly too) decorated with lava lamps and disco lights. Yes we will miss them.

When we first moved into the neighborhood, I was skeptical. Both my husband and I had lived in “Intown Atlanta” for so long, I had the prejudice that those who live in Intown Atlanta have, that somehow Intown is a so much more diverse, culturally aware place to live. That the suburbs are boring and very “white male”. Our neighborhood may not be typical of the suburbs, but diversity here means more than having a lesbian living across the street.

In addition to gay couples owning several of the homes here, you practically need a passport to enter. Not that there is a gate at the entrance. There isn’t. People who live here are from all over the world. Our dog smells the incense from the Indian woman walking far down the sidewalk before I even see her in her sari. Three generations of Chinese people live in the house a few down from ours. Iraqi males still live across the way. Nigerian, Israeli, Colombian, Russian neighbors. I think Doug and I, along with our boogying friends next door were the only English speaking people living in this area. I am exaggerating, but you get the idea.

Anyway, we bonded with Linda and Ed. Ed even helped me put up sheetrock walls at the former location of Eyedrum Gallery when I built the projection room for my video, “Bread In The Sky.” The small gallery was hard to split into two spaces, but Ed made it happen. Linda accompanied me to New York City once when business demanded I go on short notice. She and I go to lunch frequently, which I hope will continue even though they don’t live here anymore. Their friendship means a lot to Doug and me. They will never be replaced. It was one of those times, when, we knew what we had when we had it. And not until after it was gone.

Tags blogs, ideas, video

Categories fun, good friends, musings, neighbors, Uncategorized

Visual Art Number Eleven

March 30, 2017 //

My husband and I have gained some weight recently, and in spite our daughter’s pleas, ”Accept that you’re fat. Don’t buy a new scale,” we bought a new scale. A digital one to replace the one with the numbers on it. The old scale had this red needle that waved back and forth with uncertainty. We both felt confident we would know our true weight with the new scale. And surely it would tell us that losing weight would be easy.

It is a Weight Watchers scale. Well, having had a career in marketing before getting into the “art world,” there had to be some sort of catch. You know, “fish while the fish are biting.” Make people sign up when they know they’re getting fat.

Doug got on first. He had no idea he was that heavy. My weight, too, was way more than the old scale told me it was. Okay, we accepted it. Didn’t join Weight Watchers, but tried not to eat the fries.

The next day, Doug came down the stairs, exclaiming he had lost ten pounds! Oh, I guess Weight Watchers figured we would join after the first weigh-in. Then it would throw us a bone of encouragement the next day-hey this weight loss thing is a piece of cake! (so to speak)

My weight continued to drop one pound a day. Even though, on a routine trip to the doctor, the scale had me demoralized again. One day, our new digital scale read me the original first day weight again, and I yelled at it, saying, “What??? I thought I was losing weight?” And then, when I got on again, the scale read the lesser weight it had registered the day before.

Artificial intelligence is making its way into our lives. We are all nervous about it. We fear the power that computers may have over us. But none of us figured on it being easily conned. Like when I yelled at the scale, it was easily bullied. How about that?

Tags fun

Categories Art, Atlanta artist, fun, MoMA/NY curator Anne Umland chose Hollis Hildebrand-Mills' painting for NYC exhibition, painter, Uncategorized

“Back To Work” Number Seven

September 12, 2015 //

I recently ordered these three “on sale” half gallons of acrylic paint from the art supply store at an amazingly inexpensive price. They are not the colors I would choose in a tube, because there is a certain amount of white in them and I like paints that are a purer hue. But since I am working on big canvases, I thought I would give it a try. Plus, each half gallon was only $7.00!!!

The blue has potential, as it is the most true to the Cerulean Blue you find in a tube.

I realize this is not interesting to someone who does not paint. But I probably lost that person a few minutes ago anyway.

My large canvas ( speaking to the folks still with me ,) is starting to collect collage pieces. Amazing huh? I figure my life’s work has been devoted to some form of collage, whether it be in video form or mixing it with paint. So yes, I started cutting out pieces from magazines ( old fashion magazines ) lying around the studio and all of a sudden, my heart started beating a little faster. Yes painting needs collage! I have spoken!

Categories Uncategorized

“Back To Work” Number One

February 25, 2015 //

Wrestling. The distillation of good and evil. There is a good guy and a bad guy.

I have a good friend who is a wrestler. I went to one of his matches the other night and I was totally engrossed. Rolls of unravelling toilet paper and crepe paper tossed into the ring. Neon mohawks, tattoos, boos and hisses. Large blubbery thumps and noisy crashes. Flips and other acrobatics. Primitive, you say? It was wonderful.

Good and bad. Not so in real life? My new discovery is, that, even as the managers in the wrestling company do not enter the ring without knowing how to take a fall, the same is true with life. After years of seeing the character flaws in people and sorting through the many nuances, I have come to this conclusion: You are either good or bad.

Take a look at what I consider good. My doctor changes out of his Halloween costume during a crazy party and even though it is in the middle of the night, he makes an emergency house call. Good. The friend next door listens to my woes, hearing me tell the same story again and again. Good. The fellow artist shares her own techniques, gallery contacts and juried show opportunities. Good. The person at the grocery store when my green bean bag breaks. This good person hurries away to the produce section at the back of the store and selects new green beans, clumps at a time. For me! Good.

Ok, you say, where is the bad? And, by the way, I am the one in the ring here, I am only talking about myself and my experiences. I take the falls. I fall against the ropes. These people could be doing nice things for others. But I doubt it. Here we go: The person says good things to me, bad things about me to someone else. Bad. The person lies to me. Bad. One enters my studio, goes through my things, snoops around without my permission. Oh and steals my Booker T. and the MGs disc from my CD player! Bad. You are getting it. One more. A person cheats me in a business deal. Bad. Oh, I used to say, the person is from that type of culture. (Could be this culture.)… That is part of the game. Nope. Not anymore. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Back to wrestling. I go around now, doing the things that cause me to occasionally interact with people and I think of wrestling. No one is passing out rolls of toilet paper for me to stream at the good people.Thank God. And I don’t get the urge to throw a pie in a person’s face here and there. Thank God, again. But, good and bad. It keeps things simple.

Tags art, Artist, Atlanta artist, Cargill Wilson and Acree, Chelsea Art Gallery, Musings, New York

Categories Uncategorized

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Twenty-Nine

February 8, 2015 //

This “Pie O Logy” post was one of my most liked among the readers. I thought I would reblog it. And include the newest entry: Blueberry!

Hollis Hildebrand-Mills

People like different kinds of pies. And everyone has a favorite. My husband can assess your personality by what kind of pie you like. This method, he came up with in Junior High School and he calls it “Pie o logy.” I’ll start with Apple: You are a fairly basic, conservative person. However, if you are specific about the type of apples you like in your Apple Pie, such as Granny Smith or Macintosh, in any way specific, you have a secret side to you. Like you have a crush on Matt Lauer. Whose favorite pie, I am sure, is Apple. Cherry: You are a Liberal sort of person. You like National Public Radio. And you follow the party line. If you prefer a deep crust on your Cherry Pie, you are not as Liberal as you think you are. LIke you might secretly have voted for John McCain, but…

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Categories Uncategorized

“Piece Of My Heart” Number Thirty-One

October 2, 2014 //

We as a family were bumming around New York as we usually do, going to bookstores and thrift stores, stopping here and there, soaking in all the wonderfulness of Manhattan. I cannot remember the year, but our daughter was probably between six and ten at the time. Not quite up to my shoulder.

We were in SoHo, and happened upon a lovely neighborhood, as they all are in SoHo. We walked up the stairs to a consignment store. Or used clothing store, more aptly.

I picked out a particular shirt to try on. It was only $16.95. As I was in the dressing room, I tried on the simple gray plaid shirt. I honestly did not like the way it looked on me, nor did I have anything to go with it. I decided to put it back. As I was taking it off, regretting that I had to actually reject something to wear, (God forbid) I looked at the price tag. It was $1695.00!!! I silently said, “Yikes!”

I opened the curtain and the entire staff working in the store surrounded me. I merely said, “I didn’t have anything to go with it!”

We descended the stairs, walked down the block and I told my husband and daughter what happened. We wondered about the origins of such a shirt, (a celebrity owned it?Perhaps Madonna?) It looked rather worn. But in any event, (as my mother would say), we were aware that the workers in the store wanted to see who was behind the curtain trying on this plaid shirt!

Copyright Hollis Hildebrand-Mills 2014 All Rights Reserved

Categories Art, Atlanta artist, fun, musings, painter, Uncategorized