“Art is never finished. Only abandoned.” —Leonardo Da Vinci
All artists, illustrators, photographers, designers and humans who make or have made creative things, face an inevitable question: What happens when what they’ve made, and all that is adjacent to the making process, is all that remains after they die?
Brad Holland’s remains include thousands of original, printed, finished and unfinished paintings, drawings, sketches, books, manuscripts and so much more. Much of it is currently residing in storage. But he also left behind things that inspired or influenced a legacy of artworks.
This week, Brad’s niece, Amalie Holland, is doing the unenviable job of sorting the belongings that nourished his existence as an artist. She has found homes for some. “Leaves Bookstore in Greenpoint and Bushwick has taken a lot of the books,” she told me. “And SVA is coming … to see if they want any of the art supplies.”
But there is more … like the furniture. “I’d love the landlord to say he’ll keep it. But the reality is, we may have to pay someone to take it away. All that to say, everything is very up in the air. I’ll let you know if [anyone] decides to take more, and beyond that, I’m fine for people to just be directed to my public-facing email address (amalie.holland1@gmail.com), or Brad’s (brad-holland@rcn.com). I check his email daily.”
I am reminded of the last scene in the film Citizen Kane, where workmen are throwing a lifetime of stuff into the flames of a fireplace, marking the end of an era so that a new one can begin.
The photograph of Brad in his loft by Cynthia Turner is courtesy of Amalie Holland. The untitled drawing (which I call “The Hood”) is Brad’s interpretation of the tenement building where he lived in the pre-gentrified Alphabet City on the Lower East Side when I met him the month after he moved to New York. The photograph of his workspace was taken shortly after his passing.
The post The Daily Heller: What Brad Holland Left Behind appeared first on PRINT Magazine.