Elodie Holmes

My work is made using a combination of glass-making skills that involve glassblowing, hot-sculpting, flameworking, assemblage, and custom color formulas giving me a range of methods to achieve my visions. Themes of interdependence, balance, and vulnerability are regularly reflected in my work. My sculptures attempt to articulate the impact of humanity on the planet through my many interests involving science, social justice, and the environment. There are special properties in glass that are unlike any other materials, like three-dimensional light and the way it moves when molten, that helps me to define my imagery. Pollinator themes, figurative narratives, abstracted themes of time and movement, and collaborations with other artists in mixed medias, are some of the ways I convey my work. The natural landscape, sunsets, and wildlife of the Southwest are a constant source of inspiration. I take my cues from nature and have spent decades perfecting a chemical variation of an ancient Italian glass formula called Calcedony as seen in my Aurora sculptures. My series, Fractured Time, has spiraling forms representing the flow of time with a central opening that is severed and off-set, inspired by the global shutdown in 2020. My bird and bee-themed narratives reflect on the impact of humanity on the planet. In it, bees have become the ambassadors of the natural world, where their plight is more largely reflective of the destruction that is happening to the animal and insect world.

Elodie Holmes began studying ceramics at a young age and went on to study at the California College of the Arts. As her initial passion for ceramics gave way to hot glass, Holmes moved to New Mexico in 1981 to co-manage a glass shop, serve as a teaching assistant at Pilchuck Glass School, and by 1986 she established Liquid Light Glass. In 2000, she founded Baca Street Studios, an arts complex that housed her new gallery and studio. In the same year she co-founded the Baca Street Arts District. In 2004, Holmes co-founded a second glass studio in Santa Fe, Prairie Dog Glass, hosting mentorship programs for local high school students and teaches developing artists. She was also a founding member of the community-oriented Glass Alliance-New Mexico. In 2016, Elodie was honored to receive the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. Her artwork is featured in the permanent collections of the White House, Fort Wayne Museum, and the Art in Public Places Program of the New Mexico Arts Department of Cultural Affairs. Her work has been exhibited across the country, including in the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens, New Mexico Museum of Art, New Mexico Governors Gallery, Racine Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Art +Design, Trenton City Museum, and Museum of the Southwest. Her larger-than-life outdoor metal and glass sculptural collaboration, Capturing the Light: Glass Art Inspired by Nature, was featured in the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens for a nearly two year exhibit.

3-D, Glass