Pages

Tuesday, 8 October 2013

1st Featured Blog Post - Holly V Maslen

I was recently asked by the lovely Holly V Maslen if I would do featured blog posts and after seeing her lovely work progressing at the Isle of Wight zoo I instantly said yes! So here are a few random questions I emailed her and her great responses!


Who are you?
Hello Wighthour, my name is Holly V Maslen, I live in Bembridge on the Eastern tip of the Isle of Wight with my two teenage sons.

What do you do?
I'm a full time artist working in black and white exclusively.  I absolutely love colour but in my work I like to exclude colour in order to put emphasis on the balance between occupied spaces and the spaces in-between.  When I started out with this line of work I had intended to focus on designing products, such as greeting cards, fabrics, stationary etc but I've been asked twice this year to paint murals and have also designed a few tattoos for people, which has been a pleasant surprise and now, even though I am still working on making various products, I would also really like to expand my mural portfolio.

Where can people visit you/see your work?
I am always available to meet up with a client to discuss a commission (see below for contact details), preferably somewhere which serves good coffee!  My work can be seen at what I call my "outdoor gallery" which is at the Isle of Wight Zoo on Sandown Seafront where I have been working on a series of very large murals.  I have completed 6 so far and have another 8 left to paint.  The murals are painted in the archways of the Napoleonic fort which houses the zoo.  Earlier in the year I painted a wall inside the pop up shop of fashion designer Charlotte Taylor in Sloane Square, but I haven't got round to finding out if the mural is still there or if the new owners of the shop painted over it.

Do you have a website?
Yes, I do indeed.  I thought that it was vitally important to get this in place before I started developing my work further as it's such a brilliant tool to use in showing people what you do.  I really enjoy writing the blog for the website too as it's a record for me personally to keep track of how I'm progressing and it indulges my other passion which is writing.  The IOW Computer Geek built the site for me and they have been fantastic at helping me to keep it up to date as I'm not great with technical stuff. I also use facebook and twitter which is fun for talking to people directly and instantly.

Have you always lived on the Island?
No I haven't always lived here, I grew up in South London but came to school on the Island when I was 16 for a couple of years and, after I had my children, I decided that the Island would be a great place to bring them up.

If you could have one wish what would you choose?
This is probably a rather boring answer but I guess I'd wish to live for a very long time so that I'd get the chance to create all the things I will probably never have time to create in a normal lifetime.  I would like to have more time to write, to learn an instrument and time to live in different countries and experience them properly.

Stuck on a desert Island what 3 items would you choose to have with you?
Well I'd like to have my sons with me, but they aren't items, and they probably wouldn't be very happy being stuck on a desert island with their Mum, so I'd like to have a piano, a big supply of pens and paper and a phone so I could call my friends and tell them where I was and organise a big party on the desert island!

If one of your three items had to be music what album or artist would you choose?
I can't resist answering this, even though I didn't choose music (you couldn't call my piano playing music!)....I would have all the Led Zeppelin albums as I never get sick of hearing any of them and have been listening to them since I was a teenager.

Is there anything you would like to see introduced on #wighthour?
Hmm, that's an interesting question.  What about #wighthourphotos?  You could designate a theme and people would have to post a photo based around that theme with their tweets.  It could be something quite wacky/funny....I'll leave that thought with you and see what you come up with! (Great idea! Watch this space - wighthour)

If you could choose the next person to be featured on the #wighthour blog who would you choose?

I think I would choose @vintagehelen.  I'm not going to say more than that otherwise I'll spoil the sense of intrigue for your readers as they await the next blog post.












No comments:

Post a Comment