Hearing His Own Voice: Tim Holmes, Sculptor

~Brian D'Ambrosio

Sculptor Tim Holmes’ overarching body of work can be interpreted as a testament to his passion. Art is so demanding, and can be so thankless, that the only people who do it for as long as Holmes has are those who cannot imagine feeling fulfilled any other way.

“The word artist feels like a misnomer to me because I’m really just a creative individual just like everyone else,” said Tim Holmes. “But sometimes I feel like a misfit to be honest. I’m introverted and spiritual in an extroverted and very materialistic culture, and I’m so removed from the pulse of mainstream culture. As a symptom of that I try to hear my own voice and create this new culture (through my art).”

Noted for his deft use of magical realism, Holmes the artist is inseparable from his personality: circumspect, tenderhearted, a man bursting at the buttons with emotion and empathy. Sculpture and mixed media and their emotionally-sourced creativity allow him to discover – and at times even recover – his mental footing by returning to what feels comfortable.

It was decades ago when Holmes, 62, made the choice to just do it, to take the kernel of an idea and to believe in it, and to embellish it into a surviving piece of art.

“Forty years ago I decided that I was going to do more than just making a living as an artist,” said Holmes. “Making a living? Yeah, that’s one thing. But I was making a life. Everyone needs to create a pursuit. But as an artist there is a pressure on you, and that’s a whole different kettle of fish.”

Holmes adjusted not just to the realities of business but to a new self-identity, all while under strong financial pressure. He didn’t give up.

Instead, he turned necessity into opportunity. He drew upon his self-determination, his creativity, and his fortitude in ways he never thought possible. Long since driven by necessity and opportunity, he learned to invent (and reinvent) himself through sculpture and mixed media.

“I do think of art as being alive, and not to have that would be to stop growing, and I don’t want to do that. Being alive – like art – is always uncomfortable and it always takes courage.”

Indeed, Holmes has lived such a courageous life. He was the first American artist invited to exhibit solo at the world's largest art museum, The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, where his sculptures remain on permanent exhibit. Holmes has honored transformational figures around the world, from South African president Nelson Mandela to the dissident students of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. He has been commissioned to create sculpture for several of the world's peacemaking organizations from the United Nations to the Physicians for Social Responsibility. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Jimmy Carter, President Vaclav Havel, and Coretta Scott King are among Holmes' most notable collectors.

Our ineluctable instinct is to hold on to the thing that we’re good at – unwilling to move on or to rediscover ourselves out of fear that we won’t replicate our original achievement. But to avoid this trap, Holmes has an advantage. His mind and hands operate beneath one widely unifying, unrestricted umbrella. His prevailing mission: to connect and make a commitment to something larger.

“Art to me is about a solidified relationship between artist and viewer,” said Holmes. “It’s something that’s visible to the viewer. Think about the cave paintings where you could see the sensibility and feel their being. Art bridges cultures and times. The sculptures I do can survive 5,000 years and it’s an honor to make something that’s important enough to last 5,000 years.”

His sculpture always feels believably natural, like bits and pieces from everyday life, and sometimes it cuts deep. Indeed, Holmes gives himself over to his work, realizing that the act of giving himself over to something outside of himself is valuable because if he served only himself, he would be limited in imagination and energy.

“I think of my work as a deep awareness and sensitivity to being alive – and of its being significant to others. It also works on universal terms and so the work is universal in character, not specific. It’s always more universal than specific. I’d rather do something that reflects on common experience rather than having someone listen to what happened to me this afternoon.”

The manner with which a sculptor forms and connects with an audience has changed significantly since Holmes embarked on his path.

“Many galleries are going under or going online and so much of the relational space of an artist is disappearing. I find that hard because I find great value in relationships.”

Yet, an even bigger challenge of the innovative is to narrate a full life through the intention of devotion.

“I think the biggest challenge is to remain and to be yourself regardless of what the standard is,” said Holmes. “You are the individual leaning against conformity and you need the courage to stand up for who you are. It is an interesting voice that declares its individuality. It comes down to this: you either follow what you believe in or just do what’s easy.”

These days Holmes may be found working and often teaching art classes at his richly atmospheric studio, a 1890s-era former dormitory for “wayward women,” located in Helena, Montana. Like anyone who sets out on their own, he’s still devoted to the road ahead.

“Years ago I made the choice of either taking the commercial route or of following my own heart. And still the possibilities are still open and the story is still being written. I still listen to my muse. I like to keep keen to that voice and be respectful of that inspiration.”

Epic Winter Trips

     ~VisitMt

There are places made for those with a winter soul. Places that speak to those with adventure in their heart and powder play on their mind. Places that exceed expectations, where at the end of the day when you settle in for the night, your heart is full and mind is dreaming about the epic adventures that await the next day. If you haven’t found that place, Montana is calling. From breathtaking mountain vistas to sweeping plains with charming small towns dotted in between, there are incredible experiences found around every corner. Combine endless adventure and spectacular views with winter in Montana, and you have a snow-covered paradise

Learn Much More Here...Epic Winter Trips

Placid State Park

   ~Montana State Parks

Located near Seeley Lake and Salmon Lake State Park, you’ll find Placid Lake State Park. 

Did you know?
Placid Lake State Park is actually named for New York’s Lake Placid!

Found on a tributary of the Clearwater River, Placid Lake State Park is an excellent choice for families and adventurers alike. Add to your itinerary today - click for park coordinates! 

✅ Enjoy a picnic by the lake. 

✅ Challenge your friends or family to a game of volleyball or horseshoes.

✅ Spend the day on the water boating or swimming.

✅ Take in a beautiful sunset over the lake. 

✅ Go on a hike around the lake. 

✅ Plus so much more!

Lake Placid State Park is a great option if you’re looking to camp! WIth 40 campsites and recently added showers and laundry facilities, this state park provides a taste of the great outdoors without having to stray too far from the comforts of home. 

Actor Dennis Quaid Goes ‘Out Of The Box’ On Debut LP

By Brian D’Ambrosio

Actor Dennis Quaid is sensitive to the uncertainty which surrounds the premise of a movie star releasing an album or even publicly picking up a guitar.  

“I’m battling that (skepticism) and I understand that it’s natural,” said Dennis Quaid. “I’ve always said, come see the movie star and stay for the music. It’s been 18 years (history of Dennis Quaid and the Sharks), and I let that speak for itself. I make it (the live show) a theatrical experience for everyone, and get people out and moving…I know just where it (the suspension of disbelief) is going to come, and it’s usually in the middle of the show when people forget, and about the time we do the Doors, and people see what we are about. It’s about me opening up and owning it.”

Quaid lived in Montana’s Paradise Valley, a 60-mile stretch of land between Livingston and Yel­lowstone National Park, for around 25 years; after several years of listing, his 7,800-square-foot, three-bedroom rock-and-log ranch house sold in 2014. The state also served him well professionally when he captured Montana’s scenic and lush grandeur in the 1989 film “Everything That Rises.” Quaid made his directorial debut with this TV movie, a contemporary western with Quaid also credited as executive producer. Son of an electrician and a real estate agent Quaid made his acting debut in television in 1975. Yet most of his fondest childhood memories are tied to music not film.

“I wanted to do this (release an LP) even before I was an actor,” said Quaid. “I’m a late bloomer (at age 64). My earliest memory of music was Hank Williams and my dad was eclectic when it came to music. He loved Bing Crosby and Elvis (Presley) and he turned me on to Buddy Holly, Hank, Elvis, Eddy Arnold and Jim Reeves and the country scene…there was a record store in the mall about three blocks away from where I grew up in a suburb of Houston. There was a listening booth where you could listen to it before you bought it. The Beatles changed everything generationally and personally, and the single most influential album for me would be Waylon Jenning’s "Dreaming  My Dreams"…another memory that stands out is being in the car in the backseat and hearing on KILT-FM radio that Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. He was 22-years-old and it spawned me listening to his music. It was the amount of songs and the sophistication of his songwriting and he was just starting to bloom in his life. Holly’s melody and lyrics defined what art was and lasted for another generation, and there was nothing similar before it.” 

The state of Texas has produced enough diversity of music to be considered a law and a rank and a genre unto itself. As a high-school kid and college student, Quaid soaked up its rich history, discovering a steady stream of exciting venues and offbeat holes in the wall. Quaid said that in these exchanges that he experienced something he’d been seeking his whole life: freedom. It’s fomented an independence he’s embraced to this day.  

”When I was at the University of Houston (’74), I’d go check out the black blues crowd and remember seeing B.B. King and other old blues artists who would come through, like Lightnin’ Hopkins… when I was 12 in Bandera, Texas, my dad took me to see Willie Nelson. He had short hair and big sideburns and in 1966 I got to see what started to happen in Austin. Joe Ely, Big Joe Walker, and Michael Martin Murphey. That got me to start writing and playing since I was 12.”

In 2000, the actor began singing and playing guitar and piano with his band, The Sharks, in between acting gigs. The realist in Quaid understands that the concept of creating something riveting or fresh in any artistic field is a brutal endeavor, so he’s waited almost two decades to release his debut LP. On “Outside the Box,” he explores new musical territory alongside the familiar.

“All art, whether its screenplays or music, or even Shakespeare struggled with the same problem, having influences. I hope it’s like osmosis, where it trickles down and you have to come out as you. Hopefully, you can write your own story. There is a personal element to songwriting and writing from your own experience, and it’s hard to get away from that. There is fictional truth, but it’s still personal, and hopefully the personal can be related to as universal through the sound and the lyrics.”

Quaid said that the immediacy and the affecting feedback of live music are what separate it from his previous work in television and film.

“It’s about trying to be in the moment and when you are on-stage you have that silent conversation with you and the other musicians, and the energy from the audience flows through and flows back to them.”

Quaid, who has achieved top-tier success as an actor in a variety of dramatic and comedic roles, said that he is humbled by the process of songwriting.

“I carry my guitar with me wherever I go and I’m never without it now,” said Quaid. “I’d like to learn how to make a craft of it and I can’t help but do it. I’ve got these musical phrases rolling around in my head – it could be that I hear or say something, like a title. It starts with a musical phrase and becomes a song, and the music and lyric feels the same to stimulate a feeling. Songs are personal. I try to hide them with a little bit of fiction, and I try to get the best out of the personal experience and also what’s most relatable to people.”

There is a precious and unique openness to songwriting that Quaid equates with humility.

“In the end as a songwriter, you want to relate to people and sometime it’s kind of embarrassing, yet necessary to make yourself vulnerable.”

The oldest song on the album, “Good Man, Bad Boy” was written around the time that Quaid portrayed rocker Jerry Lee Lewis in the 1989 film Great Balls of Fire!

“The majority of the (13) songs are mine and were written in the last couple of years, and I went on a tear. I had a lot to say and a lot to write about and I opened myself up to writing more personally, and not caring, and getting it out there. I wanted to make a record and do it for real, not just dabble in it. We are going to be the oldest guys to make it in music and we feel like teenagers with this first record, and we’ve got fire in our belly about it.”

Recorded at the Village Studios in Los Angeles, the album is filled with original songs by Quaid alongside covers of the Doors, Van Morrison, and Larry Williams. Quaid said that he had no anxiety about sharing and surrendering control of the album’s production.  

“It is its own metamorphism. To take part in actually arranging them, and to hear them in my head in the beginning, and then on the road, and then to the audiences’ reaction. It’s Americana and a lot of rock n’ roll, blues, country, and lounge music. Genres don’t mean that much anymore since it (music) is not as regional as it used to be. The personal became collaborative and it (collaboration) grows the song, the overdubbing, and the editing, and the honing it into its real finality and locking it in…all records are of a particular time and moment, and that’s the way it is. Not having been listening to it for a few months, it closes a little distance and brings back the initial perspective, and it’ll be great to hear what other people think of it.”

The true method of knowledge and self-advancement is experimentation, and Quaid’s endeavor to spread and send out his long-standing love may be viewed independently as its own satisfying reward of experience.

“Music has always been the true girlfriend or mistress in my life,” said Quaid. “The guitar is something that I can talk to at anytime and it’s always been there for me. I can’t help but do it. Music is the universal language. It’s mathematical and the language of the spirit, and it don’t matter if you know the language or not.”

Quaid – who intends to return to the studio soon to cut another batch of songs, as well as stopover once again in Montana to present the recent bunch – said that he is not scared about standing exposed in a new medium. In fact he is making a commanding effort not to internalize any of the blunt skepticism that regularly accompanies the leaping of artistic avenues. 

“I guess that I’m more tolerant of people these days, especially of myself,” said Quaid. “I don’t pay attention anymore to that little voice that says, ‘you are shit,’ or ‘you are not good enough.’ I watch what it says. But I try not to involve myself in it. By not listening to those judgments – my own and others’ – it leads me to not be so judgmental of the rest of the world.”

The Solitude of Winter Fishing

     by Sean Jansen

Shoveling snow out of your drive way and scraping ice from the windshield of your car while it has been warming up with the defroster on full blast and max heat is hardly the way most days fly fishing start. But that is simply the beauty of it. A fresh dumping of snow meaning the rivers are devoid of humans while the mountains with which the rivers drain from are a different story.

Winter is the older meaner brother of its counterpart summer. The days of early morning bliss and afternoon post work delight of dry fly hatches are now the literal no-fly-zone for the episode of winter. Temperature has now become your new best friend and not your worst nightmare. The trees and riverbanks are blanketed with snow sans a single footprint from anglers past. You’re the angler of present.

Now the angler of present is there for a single reason, solitude. The summer droves of humans that have littered the pullouts next to the river are now empty lots of asphalt and dirt missing the treads of your tires or the footsteps of felt and sandal. Your boots are now covering the multi-layering system of your choosing as the daytime high is of that of freezing while the river is hovering slightly above that. Steam now emotes from the river rather than that of your coffee and the trout sit and wait in the deep slow pools to ambush whatever decides to drift directly in front of it.

Like your movements on the river, layered to the core like a bear hug from a loved one, the trout have little to no desire to move the same. Conserving energy while maximizing moments at the heat of the day, don’t expect a giant brown to crush a mouse pattern on the top of the water. Instead gaze at the color indicator of your choosing and watch intently for whichever flicker it shows. The take will be subtle.

But any angler that fish winter will say it isn’t about numbers this time of year, but simply about being there. Its quiet, un-hurried attitude reflects that of the trout you’re chasing. The only things an angler likely hears are the ebb and flow of the water careening around your legs while you wade to your comfort zone. The sound of the line zipping through your guides while water begins to turn to ice and collects, slowing the release from your cast. The snowflakes fall on your hood and shoulders, mimicking rain without the moisture. And the notice of all other species that frolic the river practice their daily routines indifferent to what the season is showing. You look both up and down river to notice one thing, solitude.

Your guides are frozen solid, inhibiting the ability to cast. But the chapstick in your pocket has now become the lube for your trout desires. Chapstick, vaseline, and gink all work as epic lubrication for your line to flow freely through your guides even during the coldest of days. And as the line flies from your reel, out your rod, and mends beautifully into that deep pool, the indicator dances like the latest twerk from a pop music video.

The set of the hook coincides with the flow of the river, and a gentle lift in the rod is all it takes to connect with the trout gorging on that midge or mayfly dropper. The fight is similar to the extremes of those that fish in warm summer water. A slow and quick fight rather than a marathon, dragging you into your backing. My experience of course has never led to me to that, but the quality of the fish isn’t hindered by the strength they possess in their fight.

The colors of the fish mimic that of the surrounding environment, masking the explosion of colors they achieve in the months to come. The chrome feel of the trout mime that of Atlantic salmon or steelhead, but equally as pretty and satisfactory when at hand. The release is hopefully gentle and quick as the fish goes back to that deep hole to wait out winter and another appetizer to drift or swing directly in front of it. And the process continues well into Spring while the constant of solitude also remains.