As we circle around to our fall season, we arrive at Indigenous People’s Day on October 11th. I have learned so much from our native Chumash Bands. They have opened my heart and mind to learning more about all Indigenous populations and they continue to inspire my work.

To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language."
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom

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California On My Mind

A show of vintage and contemporary paintings, drawings, and prints that celebrate the history and the mythology of the Golden State.

Sullivan Goss

October 1- November 22, 2021

RECEPTION: 1ST THURSDAY, OCT 7TH | 5-8pm

Before They Came is from my Califia Series and is now on view at Sullivan Goss.

Before They Came, 48x48 oil and cold wax on wood panel rimmed with copper. By Holli Harmon

The bright bold colors invite you into a lush forest scene. The figures hidden within remind you that our State’s native population and Grizzly bears were devastated by the influx of Europeans and the Gold Rush of 1848.

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The Lone Woman

aka Juana Maria or Karana in The Island of the Blue Dolphins

I think she is one of the most significant women in our nation’s history. She lived for over 18 years by herself on San Nicolas Island. When she left the island, she only lived for 7 weeks in Santa Barbara before she died. Her story is a significant portal into our California Indiginous Peoples history starting in public schools 4th grade curriculum, where they read The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. Read more here…

This painting was created for the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum using descriptions of people who had seen The Lone Woman first hand in 1853. You can see it at the Chumash Hall at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. The larger mural was just finished for the new Chrisman California Island Center in Carpinteria, CA. You can see the canvas in my studio and then installed into the new space in Carpinteria. The diorama isn’t complete yet. They hope to open sometime soon in 2022.

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Portraits of the Central Coast

Our regional Chumash continue to inspire and inform my work. I did these paintings for my Portraits of the Central Coast project. I have included links so that you can hear and read their stories first hand and learn about what inspired their portraits. Just click on their image or name.

Ernestine DeSoto Kathleen Marshall Mike Lopez

Thanks to

LUM Art Magazine

and Jake Einsiedl for the lovely article.

 The Nature of Clouds: Holli Harmon at Wildling Museum

By Jake Einsiedl, LUM x UCSB arts writing intern 

At Wildling Museum of Art and Nature’s new Tower Gallery, Holli Harmon: The Nature of Clouds, a site-specific installation, examines the water cycle in an organized milieu of suspended foliage, a heavenly mural, mirrored tree stumps and dangling crystals.

Holli Harmon’s immersive work centers around a Norfolk Island Pine tree and three Eucalyptus stumps. Mirrors rest on the surfaces of each stump and reflect back the Earthly hues below and cumulus clouds above. Coleus, spider plants and various succulents root inside kokedama moss balls, inspired by the Japanese floral art form of kokedama string gardens. As installation pieces twirl, color is cast into constant movement, referencing the circularity and transpiration of the water cycle.

“It’s exploring that whole circle as its own biosphere in an artistic way that's beautiful, and it's a bit like a snow globe,” Harmon said. 

Image by George Rose

But instead of looking through a snow globe, The Nature of Clouds calls us to peer through the lens of a glass tower. Between the roar of cars at an intersection just steps from the museum and their reflections that occasionally obscure the view inside, the human footprint is an essential aspect of the installation.

Electrical outlets interrupt the cumulus tones splashing the tower’s inner walls and plants breathe beneath artificial clouds. The exhibit is as natural as it is artificial, and the space in which the work resides acts as a part of the installation itself.

Harmon responds to the Central Coast’s recent history fraught with self-isolation and natural disaster and seeks to reflect our collective desire to connect with and control nature.

“I am invested in and inspired by the cultures that shape our community and how the land shapes our culture,” Harmon said. “I look at global warming and our history with wildfire and floods, and I think about how the world is changing relatively quickly and how important plants are in our atmosphere.”

Blending science and art, Harmon’s inspiration ranges from 19th century British meteorologist Luke Howard’s cloud classification system to cloud poetry by writer Johann Goethe and contemporary poet Mark Strand. 

“I have a science background, so I explore things both artistically and from a science understanding,” said Harmon.

The Nature of Clouds also offers a mystical experience. As crystals emulate rainfall and mirrors reflect symbiosis, the installation captures the magic of the water cycle and magnifies a process that takes place both at a distance and all around us simultaneously.

At once familiar and mystic, organic and artificial, The Nature of Clouds asks us to reconsider our relationship with nature.

“If you think about something that is magical, it stretches the boundaries of what you already know,” Harmon said. “We can find that in science and it's still magical.”

Holli Harmon: The Nature of Clouds is on view January to Fall 2021 at the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature in Solvang.