Holly Jean Studios

Hiya!

I've got a few pieces on display at the Kettle Creek Environmental Education Center gallery! My friend Colleen and I have a show called "Into the Woods" that is up for the month of August!

Join me for the opening reception, tomorrow August 1st from 11-1pm 🥰

I really wanted to have fun with these pieces and try out some new things, the cyanotypes have been super fun and a refreshing change of pace

Like always, I am doing too much, and appreciate your patience with me as I make work for two more upcoming shows. Will have new work for sale in the next few weeks on my website too- where does the time go? No really...

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Carved maple frame and etched mirror ☁️☀️☁️ playing around with some new ideas. Working away at your made to orders 💕 Grateful I get to be an artist in this life, thank you endlessly for being here

✨️New work dropping on the website this Sunday at 7pm ET ✨️

Life has been moving fast these days. Some of my work lately has been very much inspired by the little piece of sky I see from my home on South Mountain, looking at the Lehigh Valley and Blue Mountain in the distance. (Before any of you west coasters come for me I realize these are hills compared to your mountains 😂). I love my home and my neighborhood so much, and a lot of my time lately has been fighting the data center fight in my own neighborhood and for Allentown. It's unbelievably emotionally draining trying to explain to people why our quality of life matters more than data. How I'm so afraid to lose the birds and bugs (necessary but ew) that take up residence in my yard. How developers are able to come in and decide data centers can go in communities with little to no consideration for the people and nature that call these places home.

I wish I had more work to share. Honestly, I'm tired in so many ways. Tired for the people who have been in this fight for years already. I make art to share with you to celebrate this world and our memories and these places we love so much, and it feels like I'm watching us lose them in real time. It feels like we're yelling and no one is listening.

So- hold on to your friends and family this summer. Plant something. Admire the skies. Water your garden and trade flowers for vegetables with your neighbors. Make art. Can you do that for me? These are the things that matter, these are the things that data can never replace

Seeing these pieces on a gallery wall irl was literally a dream come true 🥰 (literally, because there isn't a clean wall in my house where I could see this whole thing as I put it together)

I knew I wanted to make this sort of wooden wall quilt out of a bunch of separate pieces. I love the idea that each piece sort of creates this thing, this blanket, that only exists here during the duration of the show; and that once it's over and the pieces go off to their new homes, it'll never exist like this again. That they and you are a part of something bigger. That there's something that connects you to the others who have a piece.

Devotion: the act of profound dedication, loyalty, or affection toward a person, cause, or deity, often characterized by intense focus, religious fervor, or selfless service.

There's devotion in the making of quilts for your loved ones. Devotion in the altar. I'm not a religious person, but I do believe in this resurgence of devotional objects and folk artwork that celebrates the beauty of your own life and the things that matter to you. The beauty of the world around us and the people and things we love. The resurgence of color and textures in an encroaching monoculture. At the end of the day, a shelf can just be a shelf, or it can be something more.

Thank you for the 10000000000000x for giving me this opportunity!!! Show is up for a little longer and there's a link in my bio to the listings of the pieces 💕

'Quilted Visions'
27"x 27"
Carved and painted maple plaque

Been enjoying the book, The Other Side by Jennifer Higgie. (HIGHLY recommend). It's a collection of thoughts and stories about the connection between women artists, their work, and the spirit realm. The sort of divinity assigned to people trying to understand meaning and purpose of life. The making of art to figure out our place in the world.

This piece was meant to be a celebration of the decorative arts, homemaking, and what historically has been accepted as traditional women's craft and women’s artistic connection to the spiritual world. This is the piece I'm most excited to revisit and the last piece made for this body of work.

Please join me for the First Friday reception at tomorrow from 5-9pm! So many amazing pieces up on the walls (seriously am fan-girling about the Brings May Flowers III exhibition). Come say hi and celebrate the show with me 🥰

Last available shelf shrine from my solo show [PLACE]holder at ⚘️

"The Shapes of Things to Come"
Carved and painted maple altar

A lot of the pieces from this collection are inspired by PA Dutch, hex signs and barn quilts. The way that patterns as blessings and symbols of protection adorn our homes, barns, farmland. I've always lived and love living in Pennsylvania, driving through miles of farmland and seeing these erected paintings of color, hex and folklore scattered in between. In a way, the patterns of this piece protect the view, protect the portal, protect the landscape. Nature is everything to me, spending hours in my garden trying to grow native plants and pollinators. Composting all the food we eat to return it to the soil. Protecting what I can.

A quick lil shop update with my last few pieces from markets and whatnot! Live on my website under the ready to ship shop ⚘️

On bloom in my garden- bleeding hearts, blue star, and woodland phlox. Not pictured- lilac and irises (my favorites) and I've got some rose and peony buds up and coming!

Spring honestly might be my favorite time of the year. Bought myself this vintage lil alabaster milk glass vase 🥹 Am I sick again or is it allergies? Still can't tell 😂 Catch me outside weeding 💅

Thresholder II
Painted and carved quilted maple wall plaque

Another piece from my solo show [PLACE]holder at ✨️

Join me for the 1st Friday reception for myself and a bunch of other artists this Friday from 5-9pm!

This show has meant to much to me, I'm so proud of the work and how far things have come since starting Holly Jean Studios in 2020. What a crazy ride it's been. I almost quit and went back to work full time last year (salary... health benefits....bonuses... paid vacation...I mean come on 😂😭) and I'm really glad I didn't and stuck it out. Being an artist is one of the hardest jobs in the world but it's also a privilege and immensely important work. Every piece you make is like putting a piece of your soul out there; and recently in meeting so many of yall in person and hearing from you that you've followed me for years and how much you appreciate my work, that you own a piece and all these sweet things I never thought I'd hear- it brings me to fu***ng tears lol. It means everything to me. It feels like I'm being seen for the first time (only because I finally started putting myself out there to be seen). I love the work I'm making, and I think it shows. I'm so grateful I get to be an artist in this fu**ed world. Yall fill my cup (I take my coffee black 💅)

Anyways. Excuse my word vomit and vulnerability. Thanks for being here, hope you can make the show 💕

𝓓𝓪𝔂 𝓓𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓮𝓻

Another piece from my solo show [PLACE]holder at ✨️

Vignette is a good word and I think about it often.

"the pictorial part of a design as distinguished from the frame and lettering"

"a running ornament (as of vine leaves, tendrils, and grapes) put on or just before a title page or at the beginning or end of a chapter"

These pieces feel cyclical to me; moments of the earth and sky meeting, pointing to one another, windows to everyday moments captured and framed by ornamentation, patterns and shapes. Beginnings and ends to each day, the chapters of our lives. How many beautiful skies have we all shared? Where were you when you saw this same sky? It could've been yesterday or 20 years ago. These nonspecific moments, unimportant, fleeting; did you take the time to notice the world moving around you? There's magic in the everyday. These studies are my way of recording that.

This piece and a few more, available through with a link to my show in bio ✨️

Some [PLACE]holder behind the scenes and inspiration at the end 💕 and rare sightings of me (hello!)

3 months (and probably a few years off my life tbh) putting this show together. I laughed, cried, and fu**ed things up. It's amazing what giving yourself permission to dream and pushing yourself to make can do.

Some thoughts-

what is a placeholder? The shelf is a placeholder- a space holder. In the same way a photograph is a placeholder for a memory, it isn’t the memory itself. A wall plaque over a doorway as a blessing (a threshold-er if you will), a quilt denoting the bed as a place of comfort, a blanket to wrap you and protect you. Symbols of importance. It's a designated space, to hold meaning for you. Without trying, it denotes significance and becomes a pedestal for whatever you as the curator want to display. I make placeholders; but it's you who chooses the meaning; it's you who completes the story and you who decides where and what it will hold. Ashes, memories, artwork- plaques throughout your favorite spaces in your home; whatever it is, it's the residue of these beautiful moments of everyday life that you chose to honor.

[PLACE]holder is on view through May 10th, with a reception on first Friday May 1st from 5-9pm. If you can't make the show, see the work online at www.archenemyarts.com/palceholder2026