Many reviews are now integrated into the specific projects.
It was an honor to be interviewed by Jonathan Turner of Dispatch/Argus
Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2009, 5:49 pm
R.I. artist makes longtime passion her career
By Jonathan Turner, jturner@qconline.com
 More photos from this shoot |
Photo: Gary Krambeck
Susie Holgersson with some of the colorful sea coral that she painted on the wall of the new 'Ocean Experience' exhibit at the Putnam museum in Davenport. |
 |
Photo: Gary Krambeck
Susie Holgersson with some of the colorful sea creatures like octopus, sea turtles and jellyfish that she painted and on display in the new 'Ocean Experience' exhibit at the Putnam museum in Davenport. |
 |
Photo: Gary Krambeck
Susie Holgersson holding one of her two paintings Frans Hals painting 'A Man with a Beer Keg' , left and Winslow Holmer painting 'Old Man and the Sea' as she stands with a giant octopus model that she painted and on display in the new 'Ocean Experience' exhibit at the Putnam museum in Davenport. |
 |
Photo: Gary Krambeck
|
Susie Holgersson drew upon a variety of experiences to get where she is today. The Rock Island painter and scenic designer is doing what she loves full-time for the first time -- being an artist.
"I never had confidence to believe I could just do it," Ms. Holgersson, 55, said recently. "It was nice to dabble in, but I didn't take it as a profession. You gotta believe in yourself. It's taken 55 years for me to believe in myself."
Two of the Moline High School and Augustana graduate's latest works are in very visible locations -- the walls at the new "Ocean Experience" exhibit at the Putnam Museum, Davenport, and the set for "Holly Jolly Christmas," running through Dec. 31 at Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, Rock Island.
"Her work is amazing," Circa '21 producer Denny Hitchcock said. He has known Ms. Holgersson more than 25 years, from when he taught her at Augustana, and has employed the artist regularly to design Circa sets since 1999.
"All of her work is excellent," Mr. Hitchcock said. "'Peter Pan,' with the complexity of the needs in the design, I thought she filled them extremely well. It was beautiful, functional -- smooth-moving scenic units. I thought it was a spectacular show."
Ms. Holgersson has completed set designs for more than 35 stage productions, going back to Music Guild's "Sound of Music" in 1975. She will also design "Whodunit," a murder mystery musical, for Circa next May. She has also worked as a scene painter for Circa under other designers.
"She's wonderful to work with," Mr. Hitchcock said. "Every place she works wants her back."
Ms. Holgersson's creative roots go back a century, to Sweden. In 1909 her great-grandmother, Selma Lagerlof, became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and is most widely known for her children's book, "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils," which is about Ms. Holgersson's grandfather.
Ms. Holgersson's father built houses in the Quad-Cities and her mom "had a really good eye for design," she said. "It was something I absolutely grew up with."
After finishing at Augie with a degree in communication and technical design, Ms. Holgersson worked in sales. "To be in art as a career was just not something that was acceptable," she said. "You have to be broke all the time. It wasn't that important to me, but it was important to people around me not to be broke."
She wended through careers across the country in interior design sales; DuPont Corian countertop sales, and most recently pharmaceutical sales. Ms. Holgersson said she was known at one time as "the Corian Queen. I don't want to be known as the queen of Corian when I die."
She moved back to the Quad-Cities in 1995 and did theater sets while working as a drug rep, and later was hired to work in hospice, where she also felt she could make a difference. Her job was eliminated in November 2008. "In retrospect, it was the best thing that ever happened to me," Ms. Holgersson said.
During her time creating several ocean environments over nine weeks at the Putnam, she felt the freedom and joy that comes from art.
"Children would look up, and I'd hear this intake of breath, 'Look at this!'" she recalled. "They'd call people over. I wanted to give people something. I wanted to help do something. The joy -- you could see it on their faces. Their eyes would light up. This is something, I don't mean it from an arrogant standpoint. I can give from my art, which inspires people."
"Now I can just concentrate on it," Ms. Holgersson said. "I love painting. It's just -- ahh!"
She got the Putnam job from her previous association with Midwest Exhibits of Davenport (the designer), with whom she'd worked at the Family Museum, Bettendorf, and a Deere exhibit at the Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago.
Mr. Hitchcock was a primary motivator for Ms. Holgersson to work on her art full-time.
"Denny's been one of the main people in my life who always seem to feel like I didn't believe enough in myself, that I had more value than what I thought I had," she said.
Ms. Holgersson enjoys being creative in the creation of paintings and sets.
"That's what makes me feel so good inside, when I can have that concept come out of my head," she said. She has studied the physiological effect of specific colors, and she works to make a set piece or painting as realistic as possible.
"I painted a mahogany parquet floor at Circa, and marble, and the actress was about to step on it, and she said she expected to hear her heels click on the marble, it gave her that strong of a marble feeling," Ms. Holgersson said. "I get a thrill out of somebody thinking something I painted is real."
She also is thrilled be part of a permanent exhibit at the Putnam, compared to the limited run of a play. In a rainbow of colorful environments she painted coral, deep sea, kelp, mangrove trees, dotted with undersea creatures like a tiger shark, turtle, jellyfish, and dolphin.
"That's very enriching and feels really good," Ms. Holgersson said of the ocean exhibit. "To have something that's permanently displayed, it's awesome."
For the first time, the artist will also design two productions at her alma mater (Moline), including "Music Man" in March. This past fall, Ms. Holgersson bought a studio and condo at the DuMarche Market in downtown Rock Island. She plans to open her studio in April.
To see other samples of Ms. Holgersson's work, visit www.scenicdesignbyholgersson.com.
