Visions of planned communities danced in Gail Holliday?s head. From 1967 to 1989, the Sykesville resident crafted 11 prints of Jim Rouse?s Columbia.
The posters are on display at The Mall in Columbia to commemorate the town?s 40th birthday, celebrated in unison with the Columbia Festival of the Arts? 20th birthday. The exhibit includes 12 posters.
Each print represents a section of Columbia, including Steven?s Forest, Wilde Lake, River Hill, Dorsey Hall, Swansfield, Phelps Luck, Elkhorn, MacGill?s Common, Huntington and Thunder Hill.
General Growth Properties recently commissioned Holliday to design a birthday poster for Columbia to be included in the exhibit. “A New City,” on display, conveys Rouse?s vision for Columbia.
“[Rouse] was very optimistic in the positive things people could do with their creative energies,” Holliday said. In 1967, Rouse founded Columbia and hired Holliday as an artist-in-residence to promote the new town through her prints. As new villages were created, she added a new print to her collection.
Holliday?s graphic interpretations of Columbia?s villages and neighborhoods are brightly colored because the hand-mixed and vibrant greens, yellows, oranges and purples reflect her love of folk art, children?s drawings and spontaneous creativity, she said.
“All of my prints are hand-painted on screens; that?s basically a very primitive method compared to today?s big, digitized machines where everything is done through photographs and light sources,” she said.
Holliday incorporates defining elements from a neighborhood?s history, such as a fox hunt in the print devoted to MacGill?s Common and an old train trestle and a river in the print for Huntington.
While creating the posters, Holliday explored one of the oldest printmaking techniques, the woodblock method. In woodblocking, the raised surfaces on a block are inked andpressed onto paper by hand, Holliday said.
Her prints are available during the Columbia birthday celebrations this month at the Mall at Columbia and the Columbia Archives, said Barbara Nicklas, spokeswoman for General Growth Properties Inc.
“Gail Holliday gave Columbia its graphic image,” Columbia Archives Manager Barbara Kellner said.
IF YOU GO
Gail Holliday
Where: The Mall in Columbia, 10300 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia
When: Through July 15
Cost: Free
