December Artist Spotlight: Faye Holland

How did you start doing art?

When I left my job as an elementary school teacher and became a stay at home mom, I spent any spare time I could find practicing my religion- crafts.  I concentrated on knitting and crocheting, but I also sewed, embroidered, made jewelry, made children's barrettes and peg dolls, orchestrated tons of craft projects with preschoolers, and even learned how to build dollhouses.  But when an artist friend taught me to do encaustic collage with paper and beeswax, and then another friend taught me the joy of collecting little objects and gluing them onto other objects, I started finding that any time I was making something that wasn't some sort of a collage, I wished that's what I was doing instead.  Now I spend the majority of my time making 3d collaged Christmas ornaments and magnets featuring photos of celebrities, using hot glue, fake flowers, beads, and whatever other bright and shiny things I have squirreled away.

What is your preferred medium?

If it's candy colored and plastic, I want it.  If it's glittery, I want it.  If it's vintage, I want it!  But I couldn't live without hot glue..

What drives your creative spirit these days?

I'm really inspired by all of the materials to be found at Christmas.  Everything is sparkly and colorful and filled with texture- it's all meant for celebration.  All I see are things I want to arrange and glue onto something!.

How does reuse play a part in your art?

All of the most interesting components of anything I make are thrifted finds, from discarded slices of Barbie's cakes, to broken vintage wooden ornaments.  I keep the tinsel ribbon from every gift and make things from the ribbon spools too.  I need everyone to keep donating their mardi gras beads to ACR!  I need all of them.  And your bubble wrap too!  I reuse as many packing materials to ship orders as I can..

What compels you to donate to ACR?

I feel guilty about every single thing I throw away.  I am so thankful that ACR takes my old odds and ends so that creative people can give them a new life.  And it's always fun to be digging through the bins and see something that came from my house..

Do you have a favorite ACR find? What did you do with it?

I love finding rick rack and unopened packages of sequins at ACR that had been in someone's grandma's stash for 50 years, but my favorite find was the giant bag of vintage plastic flowers and gift bows I stumbled upon in the fill a bucket section.  Those flowers have made it into so many ornaments!  Before that, it was an old all-wood, unfinished dollhouse I got for $25 and restored into a witchy inter-dimensional portal..

Where can we find out more about your art?

You can find my shop A-List Ornaments at alistornaments.etsy.com and follow me on Instagram @alistornaments .

It is a true gift to have you in our community, Faye! Thanks for all you do to help keep Austin so festive!