Works-In-Progress

Here are a few of my works-in-progress from the 'Beauty' workshop (playshop?) series currently underway. It has been creative bliss for me to work alongside such incredible women; muses. My mother. My aunt. My dancing friends. I peer across the table at the beauty that unfolds before them, created by their hands from images embedded in their souls. They paint. From their hands emerge stories delivered directly from their hearts. Stories they may never put words to. But the colors speak. The shapes and forms and skin tones whisper secrets to me. I comprehend this language. I am dazzled, honored, humbled. I offer little more than canvas, paint, a few brushes, some water. We paint. An alchemy descends upon us, transforming the space. We are safe. We laugh. We cry. We share. We hold some words in, maybe just a little longer. Sometimes we say too much. We continue to look toward our inner beauty and finds ways to allow that essence to make itself seen. Paint becomes a fluid, like blood that delivers our true nature to the surface. Together, we witness the beauty.

Baja Inspirations

The more time that separates me from this amazing family journey, the more distinct and golden the memories become. I put this slide show together to catalog the artwork that I created this winter. As I gathered images, I stumbled upon photos that Woods took that carried similar themes. The images from our daily life, the sun, the mountains, the ocean, bright colors, flowers, people, trees. I like to see the subtle differences and similarities in how we see beauty and express it.

Revival: A Collective Clothing Experiment

Revive your spirit. Revive an old dress. Revive your skills. Revive friendships. Revive your creativity. Revival.

Studio 524

524 Church

Tuesdays 3:30-5:30

Our focus this spring: Dance & Festival Costumes

April 7 Flowy Dance Sleeves

April 14 Tutu Skirts

April 21 Thigh-High Leg-Warmers

April 28 Flamenco Pants

May 5 Flamenco Pants

May 12 Flapper Dance Dress
*This will be the costume for our summer performances

May 19 Flapper Dance Dress

Fridays from 1:00-4:00 Open Lab for finish work

$10.00 per class
*Trading is welcome. Items and services I will trade for include: dance or exercise classes, childcare, massage, housecleaning, energy work, food, jewelry, art, tickets, sewing & craft supplies.

Supplies: The goal of Revival is to transform old clothing and fabric into functional, unique garments. You are encouraged to dig around for fabrics that can be reused. We will have a ‘free fibers’ bin at the studio for you to donate to and glean from as inspiration strikes. You will also need a sewing machine. I encourage you to bring in your aunt Jane’s funky old machine. The idea is to become acquainted with the tools that you already have.

I can’t wait to see you there!

Beauty Is Everywhere...

Multi-Media Art Workshop Series presented by Holly Walker
In Conjunction with Brietta Leader’s current dance series on ‘Beauty’

Studio 524

Wednesdays 3:30-5:30

March 25 Archetypes of Beauty
This playful painting project is designed to get you to start thinking about the way beauty has been an ongoing theme throughout history. You are encouraged to research a beautiful goddess, queen, or diva to be your subject. Choose a woman that has qualities you find powerful, beautiful, or inspiring. Bring one or more pictures to use for inspiration.

inspirational slide show

April 8 Exploring Our Hang-Ups
To fully embrace our beauty, we must explore our beauty hang-ups. We will look into what beauty means to us and identify our fears and doubts through journaling. Using a combination of words and found images, you will create a small box collage to represent being ‘boxed in’ by enemies and stereotypes of our beauty.


April 15 …It Runs in the Family
Our heritage can give us many clues to our perceptions of beauty both externally and internally. This shadowbox project will explore the legacy of beauty in your family. Bring a copy of a photograph from a pivotal woman in your family tree for this mixed-media project.

April 21 Queen for a Day
In this mixed media collage project, we will explore and celebrate the areas of our lives in which we reign (or wish to reign). We will use symbolic images from found photographs and objects to represent the unleashing of our divine natures.

April 29 Barbie Doll Body-Painting
The Barbie Doll represents a mixed-message about beauty that we have received since childhood. During this session you will have the opportunity to reinvent your image of the Barbie Doll using acrylic paint and embellishments. Your studio portrait will also be taken during this class to be used in the next session.

May 6 The Beauty of Self-Expression
Using our self-portraits from the previous session, we will create a final collage that combines all of the skills and lessons in this series.

May 13 Beauty is Everywhere…
As a culmination of this class, we will have a celebration at Studio 524 featuring the display of our artwork and a small reception.


“Let the beauty we love
Be the beauty we do”
-Rumi



$10.00 per session
Supply fees vary
*I welcome trades for childcare, dance classes, workouts, housecleaning, food, tickets, jewelry, and artwork. I trade dollar for dollar based on your hourly. Supplies can be negotiated separately.

To sign up, contact me at hollylu72@yahoo.com or leave me a message on Facebook .

My Tribe

In many ways, this trip transports me through time and space when travel had more to do with survival than luxury and luck. Modern day survival for a white middle class mother from the States is another thing altogether. It has more to do with survival of one’s spirit, family, relationship, dreams, and senses, than food. It’s a soul-survival fueled by the sun and driven by an instinct that yearns to see the stars from a new angle. Of course, food will always be the medium that brings everyone together in the end!

I am teetering at the crossroads of a desolate desert landscape as it merges into the vastness of the Pacific; a place that echoes my insides and reminds me who I am with a thousand metaphors. I’ve been here for two months, slowly arriving as a push-pull of layers let go of their stronghold. I witness old habits dissolving while new ones emerge attempting to fill vacant spaces.

Across the arroyo is another mama like me. Her two little ones are crawling around in the sand, discovering bugs like mine. She found herself here too. Away from the comforts of home, from the discomforts of winter, to this strange land that calls us. As I begin to look around, they are everywhere. My tribe. To arrive at this particular spot on planet Earth takes intention, forethought, endurance, patience, strength, creativity. It takes other people like me!

Later, that same mama might stop by with her brood. The kids will form a band of gypsies searching for iguanas, or practice hitting the whiffle-ball hung from the palapa for young Jedi knights-in-training. Sunset will come, miraculous ice cold beers will be mined from the cooler, spontaneous dinner will somehow emerge, happy bellies will giggle.


At home another tribe awaits our return. With gratitude we cherish all.

La Buena Vida

I’ve settled into something of a routine. Mornings find me on the edge of the desert greeting the sun as it creeps up over the Sierra de la Laguna’s. To the west sparkles the Pacific, patiently waiting for me to finish my coffee. Sleepy children with crusty matted hair emerge from their sandy beds to snuggle in our laps. Woods and I spend the rest of the morning trading off with the kids for surfing, running, yoga, or sometimes just ‘alone time’.

Each day consists of roughly one trip to town. Never more. Rarely less. The road is dusty, long, and jarring; best described as ‘Extreme Washboard’. I have a North Idaho advantage in the washboard category, so I have a higher tolerance than most. As a child brought up at the end of a long dirt road, I’ve come to relish a certain cleansing quality that comes when your brain gets rattled continuously. I’m thinking it could be the next big therapeutic trend…Something like ‘Mind Clearing Washboard Therapy’.

A trip to town can take half the day because distractions abound. The internet café is where all in one stop you can get an expensive organic smoothie, check your e-mail, let your kids do some social networking for you at the playground, load up on homegrown produce, and then post a quick blog all about it. Ha!

The return from town usually means it’s finally time to chill. We’ll spend the rest of the day at the beach in one variation or another. I’ve become resident den mom to any and all children of the beach. I relish this highly respected position in the surfing community. I take in urchins so their parents can grab a quick wave. I make sure they don’t wander off into the sea and in exchange they offer my kids a unique social life. One of these days I’ll be one of those moms in the water. But this break is a little more than a starter wave.

Everything depends on the surf. Everything. If the surf is big, the whole schedule seamlessly shifts to accommodate optimal time in the water with regard to winds and tides. When the surf’s up it’s like a big snow dump. It’s what everyone eats and breathes and lives for. Adrenalin is in the air. The vibe is good. They emerge from the water with blissed-out glows on their faces. When it’s not big, only the long boarders are still in the water. The rest wait.

There are plenty of things to do during the downtime. We are living here, after all. There is still laundry to do. Endless sand to eradicate from floors, beds, butts. Dishes. Meals to prepare, shop for, clean up after. Rats to untangle. Babies to nap. When enough work is done, there’s the hammock…We each do our daily dose of suspension therapy.

Evenings are easy. It’s beer, bathing, sunsets, and food. Not a whole lot more!

Don Pancho's

I have found myself at the end of the road. Well, I guess it’s not exactly the end of the road. In fact, the road does keep going. I notice several trucks a day loaded with locals or surfers going past this place. It’s hard to imagine where it must continue, and I keep promising myself that one of these days I will go see. But for now, it’s the end of the road. This is as far out as I am going to get on this journey. At least, physically.

I am settling in to a routine of sorts. Mornings come early. I watch the light come through my bedroom window from my pillow. Usually a child or two has found their way into my nest, and together we watch in awe as the colors of the new day emerge. Woods will have been up already, coffee brewed, meditation in progress. But me, I must witness the unfolding of at least two, maybe three false crescendos before I tear myself away from the snugglefest to step outside and watch the rising sun at it’s peak. This moment can be elusive, hardly scientific. Earthy? Yes. Orgasmic? Almost…