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.
