{"id":42803,"date":"2022-01-10T22:33:58","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T05:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sacredness-of-southwest-colorado-inspires-artist\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:09:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:09:40","slug":"sacredness-of-southwest-colorado-inspires-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sacredness-of-southwest-colorado-inspires-artist\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sacredness\u2019 of Southwest Colorado inspires artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shere
Shere Holleman poses with her artwork at the Dolores Public Library.<\/span>Kala Parkinson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A lifelong artist, Shere Holleman\u2019s creative vision was reborn when she landed in what she describes as the \u201csacredness\u201d of Southwest Colorado four years ago from Boulder.<\/p>\n

Here, history and archaeology are deeply woven in the environment, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt it when I looked out at the Canyons of the Ancients Monument,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Originally from Michigan, she moved to California for college.<\/p>\n

\u201cI swear I was in one of those wagon trains that came out,\u201d she said, speaking of her draw to the West.<\/p>\n

The Dolores Public Library hosted a reception for her art Saturday, featuring food and beverages and drawing the interest of many locals eager to catch a glimpse of her exhibit \u201cBronze and Bones\u201d on display in the library\u2019s glass gallery through January.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first saw this space, I thought \u2018This is where I want to show this work because it\u2019s going to work in here,\u2019\u201d Holleman said.<\/p>\n

The strung creations \u2013 the product of three years of work \u2013 feature buttons from Civil War uniforms, antique animal traps and bovine bone.<\/p>\n

Holleman views the pieces in this exhibit as a sort of reconciliation for their origins.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these materials have seen violence, and this is a way to bring it into a different context and maybe heal the whole situation somehow,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When she first moved to the area, a friend presented her with a tin case of buttons from the Civil War, sparking Holleman to purchase thousands since then. Much of her art has stemmed from random pieces she\u2019s collected over the years, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was drawn to them immediately. They have this presence because they\u2019re so old,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have been to war. They\u2019ve probably been worn for years. And somebody saved them and kept them for 160 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The act of weaving itself is soothing to Holleman, who has practiced meditation since she was 15.<\/p>\n

She has a black and white personality. Sometimes, she\u2019s very tapped into the world around her, and at others, she\u2019s not. Same with her art \u2013 she often thoughtfully considers each step \u2013 will a dark band go here, or would it be better placed to the left? At others, she works solely on intuition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always in my life worked to balance the left and the right brain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

This was evident growing up, as she excelled in both art and calculus. A natural product of that was her career in architecture, and then later teaching, before she eventually veered deeper into the art realm.<\/p>\n

She finds solace in weaving her pieces, some of which take up to 120 hours to fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very meditative process,\u201c she said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s now focusing on painting with acrylics and oils and shedding light on local artistic talent and the cultural heritage of Cortez.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just grateful that there are places like this that appreciate and show art, and that there are people from the community that want to come see it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

exhibit \u2018Bronze and Bones\u2019 on display at the Dolores Public Library through January <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[363,28,167,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-42803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85461,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42803\/revisions\/85461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42803"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=42803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}