Holly Connors

Holly’s Story

I grew up in the projects on the poor side of a city in RI.  We were dirt poor, and there were five kids in our house.  I was the baby.  There was little money for food and clothes much less toys and extras.  My stuffed dog Clem and my imagination were all I had, but they were all I needed.

And despite all the poverty and all the want, I don’t recall a single bad memory.

In fact I credit the lack of manufactured play things with forcing the development of my creative mind.  I found joy in simple things then, just as I do now.  Fireflies.   Buttercups.  The smell of sheets that were fresh off the clothes line.  I was inspired by nature, by lightning storms, by my father’s woodworking creations and by stories of my great-grandmother’s Native American heritage.

I recall that my first true artistic creation came when I was just nine years old.  The circumstances that surrounded it, I believe, were to be my ‘crystallizing experience’.  I remember it vividly.  I had drawn an antique car and shown it to my older brother.  He snatched it from my hand and tore it up while insisting snidely that I hadn’t drawn it.  I couldn’t have.  It was too good–too perfect. Plus I was a girl.  What did I know about cars?

I should have been angry that he destroyed the picture, but I wasn’t.  I was elated.  He didn’t believe that I was the one who had drawn it.  But I had.  And I could do it again.  And I knew it.

That was the precise moment in time when I became aware that I had a special gift.  I understood what I was to do.  Time passed and by high school I had art works displayed in local businesses and had already won some local awards.

Then life happened.  Children came.  It was time, I was told, that I grew up and got a real job.  So I did.  Made lots of money too, but I was always miserable.  Something was always missing.  Everything I did was void of life.

I continued to explore various forms of artistic expression when I could–in the few instances that time would allow a working mother of three young children–all the while growing more and more weary with my  increasingly stagnant life.  Then in 1993 I was given a set of acrylic paints and some brushes for Mother’s Day.  By the end of the day I had painted my first landscape.  My husband was in awe.  He didn’t believe I had painted it.  But I had.  And I could do it again.  And I knew it.

I changed careers once again, became a foster care provider which allowed me to stay home with my kids and help a few more.  For the next weeks and months while the kids were in school, I practically lived in the small utility room where I was confined to do all my painting–emerging only to get more coffee.  At times then, and still now, even I was in awe of what came out of the end of that paint brush.  I was in love.  I’d found my purpose again.  I’d found my joy.

Today I continue to find that same intense joy in, and I try to project that joy into, each piece I create.  The painting “the Dance” (shown on the home page of this site), inspired by my Penobscot great-grandmother Clara Martel, depicts an attitude of unstoppable joy toward this extraordinary world and its inhabitants–no matter what happens, good or bad.  There is always reason to dance!

We are all in this great big dance together.  And when we work together harmoniously, it’s a beautiful thing.   To find that harmony, however, each person must find and be true to his or her own joy.

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