Beautiful birds

Local artist’s watercolors capture Rhode Island’s birds, large and small

By Christy Nadalin
Posted 5/21/18

With an artist mom and a dad who she describes as a “jack of all trades,” Holly Wach always identified with being an artist while growing up in Florida. She studied under the late Caesar …

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Beautiful birds

Local artist’s watercolors capture Rhode Island’s birds, large and small

Posted

With an artist mom and a dad who she describes as a “jack of all trades,” Holly Wach always identified with being an artist while growing up in Florida. She studied under the late Caesar Cirigliano, a renowned Brooklyn-born illustrator who convinced Wach to go to New York, the center of the art world, where she would eventually earn a degree from the New York Academy of Fine Art.

Wach would move to the East Side of Providence by way of California, and hang up her brushes for several years following the birth of her daughter in 2011. “I always thought of art as a side gig,” she said. “I really embraced that starving artist mindset.” She looked into teaching, but knew it wasn’t what she wanted to do.

Then one day, she picked up her brushes again.

“There was this mulberry tree outside my window,” she said. “And when it fruited, all these birds, with their personalities, would come to visit it. I became fascinated watching their behaviors, how they interacted.” And she started painting them, vividly and skillfully. Her exquisite drawings and paintings explore the many species of birds that live in Rhode Island and southeastern New England, bringing birds to life while connecting with the personalities and energy of these amazing creatures.

She began sharing her work commercially just last year, beginning with pop-up shops at the West Elm store in Providence. Soon she was selling her work at Providence Flea, several shows in Boston, and shops including Grasmere in Bristol and Strawberry Moon in Padanaram.

It all came together. And in July, it will have been two years since Wach began doing what she was always meant to do, full-time, with a studio in Pawtucket that serves as the epicenter for her art, her teaching, and a place for her daughter to spend time after school. She’s finally figuring out the business side of her vocation, and has found she can make a living — not starving — with her art.

“Realizing this is a viable way to make a living has been a real awakening,” she said.

The Audubon Society of Rhode Island Environmental Education Center will host “Rhode Island Birds: Large to Small,” an exhibit of Wach’s work, through June 30. The center is located at 1401 Hope St. in Bristol.

To see more of Wach’s work, check our her website at www.hollywach.com and follow her on instagram at www.instagram.com/hollywach.

Holly Wach

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