BY SHELBIE HAMILTON
an assignment she completed while taking art classes at Collin College in 2013. Holmes said birds are an “endless subject mat- ter,” noting that she has painted more than 1,000 birds in her lifetime. “People really connect with birds,” she said. “People ... love to talk about their own personal relationship with birds. Surprisingly, they creep into people’s lives quite easily.“ Diving deeper The mural is 12 feet tall by over 40 feet long, and also features an additional space below the primary mural. The mural cost about $15,000, Holmes said, of which $7,500 was funded through a grant from the McKinney Arts Commission. The board unani- mously approved the grant request, according to city documents. The mural also received funding from CrossCountry Mortgage and private funding sources, the release states. The project took about 40 hours over the course of four weeks to complete, Holmes said.
little house finches down here, and they have this really pretty song,” she said. Holmes said this project is the first she has com- pleted downtown featuring a subject of her choice, noting that the other murals and paintings she has completed in the area were commissioned. “I want it to be a source of pride because it is the first one of a project, and I want it to be a source of joy and beauty and wonder for our city,” she said. The 100-mural series, called “Wings of the World,” will add murals featuring birds to 10 cities in Texas, each state in the U.S. and in 41 other locations worldwide, a news release states. “It’s really just a way for me to connect with people all over the world, to get to travel, to get to make art and that is like my goal in life,” Holmes said. The context Holmes, a McKinney-based artist and owner of A. Holmes Art Studio, has been painting within the community for 10 years and has been creating murals for the past four years. Holmes began featuring birds in her work during
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Quote of note “I am so excited to have started this project that will take over 20 years to complete,” Holmes said in the release. “It only seemed natural to start in McKinney where I first got started as a profes- sional artist and now the place I call home.” Looking ahead The next mural in the series will adorn a wall on the east side of the McKinney Cotton Mill and will feature a barn owl, Holmes said. “Once it gets going, I like the idea of people maybe traveling to see them because there’s a big birding community, especially in Texas,” she said.
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