Every week, a group of women at the Kane County Jail add more flowers, butterflies, and hummingbirds to a 30-foot mural they designed themselves.

Geneva artist Tia Holinger mixes the paint, offers a suggestion here and there, and otherwise lets them do their thing. It’s one small piece of a creative life she’s built in between an array of other pursuits.

Although those who’ve seen her work would no doubt disagree, Holinger says she has never thought of herself as an artist. She sees herself as the daughter of an artist and someone who teaches others artistic techniques. She loves art and sharing it with others, but she has never focused on one specific medium.

“I think the first time I realized that art was something I shared with others was when we painted on store windows for Halloween as young children,” she said.

Holinger grew up as the daughter of a museum exhibit designer, which seemed perfectly normal to her, even when her father brought home real dinosaur bones for her to take to show-and-tell. Every day when her dad came home from the office, he’d sketch while he talked about whatever was on his mind.

“When I got sick, he drew pictures of the bad germs inside me and the good germs that were scaring away the bad germs,” she said. “So I have to say, hands down, it was my dad who shaped my creative life.”

Holinger may not specialize, but she juggles several roles: painter, ceramicist, pet portrait artist, pet sitter, printmaker, and community artist. When asked how those parts of her life connect, she found the question amusing.

“Whatever is in demand at the time,” she said. “My husband is a true writer who never varies from a disciplined schedule. All my work happens in between other activities.”

Her weeks are filled with community service, a children’s book in progress, and dog sitting. Once a week, she works on a collaborative mural with the female inmates at the Kane County Jail. The inmates handle the design and painting, while she helps out, makes suggestions, and mixes paint.

On other days, she volunteers at Erin Livermore’s All Things Art Studio, teaching the middle school class. Or she might be working on her children’s book when some dogs arrive at her home — allowing her to pretend she’s a dog owner again while the pet parents are on vacation.

She’s crazy about dogs, and she loves to keep busy.

“The days fly by! It is like connecting the dots of a constellation. In the end, it forms a happy, rewarding picture,” she said.

Holinger’s work at the jail and her middle school teaching fill her with joy.

“It is fun to share working with others as they experience art,” she said. “I see it take people out of the moment and into the experience of what we artists call ‘flow.’”

The inmates get limited outdoor hours each week, so seeing that time enriched by their work on the mural makes her extremely happy.

Holinger’s involvement with the project started when a friend in a local garden club recommended she help with a mural the inmates had requested. She had already joined garden club members on their weekly summer visits to plant, prune, weed, and maintain the jail garden alongside the female inmates.

When Holinger took on the mural, she felt strongly that it should be the inmates’ wall and that they should own it. When she asked them the first week what they’d like to see, they all agreed: flowers.

The next week, she brought in samples of flower murals, and they set about drawing their own flowers along the 30-foot wall, enlarging them to two to three feet across. Week after week, they kept adding butterflies, ladybugs, hummingbirds, and more.

“Everyone participated, the inmates as well as the garden club ladies. It has been lots of fun,” she said. “These inmates seemed to enjoy the experience as much as my students did when I was teaching full-time.”

Jails have limited budgets, just like schools. The garden club members generously paid for all the supplies, and Holinger donates her time and knowledge.

Juggling all of this is a challenge. Each of Holinger’s commitments has to take a back seat at times to make room for the others.

“I have to say no, which is extremely hard for me to say,” she said.

She wouldn’t have it any other way, though.

“Life may be full of practical demands, but my mind is always working on creative problems from the moment I get up until I fall asleep,” she said.

Right now, she’s trying to find more time for yet another challenging passion project: a children’s book she’s writing and illustrating.

Holinger loves to paint, especially landscapes and flowers.

“The sky changes constantly, and I am always pulled by it. The beauty of flowers is impossible to imitate, but I will always try,” she said.

The movement of a brush loaded with oil paint reminds her of skating on a fresh rink of ice.

“The nuances of color make it transcend the other mediums, except watercolor, where the colors can be just as nuanced but don’t have the same brush feeling,” she said.

Clay has a similar appeal. She admits she was extremely naïve when she took her first ceramics course, but an outstanding teacher helped fix that. He even taught students to make their own glazes, and her father was amazed at how much she learned in one semester.

“It was then that I woke up to the fact that for thousands of years, people had produced all their own tableware this way, and some still do,” she said. “I love the texture of the clay, the coolness on my hands, the plasticity to pull it up into amazing shapes. It is like magic.”

Holinger shares that enthusiasm with her students and loves watching them realize that mud can become something beautiful, just as she once did. She emphasizes that it takes time to produce good work.

“Of course, it took me working every day for a month to finally learn how to center the clay correctly,” she said. “It was just like learning to ride a bike.”

Holinger moves easily between painting and sculpture, and she helps her students do the same. When kids who have only worked on paper try their first 3D project, she walks them through examples until they see how a sculpture guides your eye around the piece the same way a painting does.

Holinger’s advice to emerging artists: “Keep taking classes! There is always something new to learn in art!”

If you know someone who deserves to be featured in a Local Artist Profile piece in Tri-Cities Central, fill out this quick nomination form.

This piece was written by Ellen Jo Ljung, a longtime Geneva resident, author, award-winning educator, and glass artist. Visit her website to learn more.

Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] with questions or comments.

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