In addition to running a construction and remodeling company, Alan Holmgreen is a potter, a creative of functional stoneware pieces in a backyard studio he calls Mudbone.
“The highest form of art is to serve a purpose,” he said of the satisfying practice of making handcrafted bowls and pitchers.
Holmgreen, who has taught art, ceramics, and design at TAMIU, has generously shared the studio space of Mudbone and his knowledge of ceramics with local artists over the last year.
“There is no community school for the arts in Laredo,” he said. “Casa Ortiz does a great job with workshops for the arts, but overall there is no concerted effort or one space where all the arts can be taught. I have hope that Mudbone Studios is the beginning of a community of productive ceramicists who meet here, work in proximity of each other, discuss technique, and exchange critique,” he said.
“They work at all levels of experience and speed. I teach informally what I know, and they also learn from each other,” he said.
Artist Génesis Galdamez Blanco, a recent TAMIU graduate in art education and a Daphne Art Foundation Artist-in-Residence, said that being part of the Mudbone cohort has allowed her to find her style, to better understand and refine the technical side of creating in clay, and to experiment with different types of clay, design, and glazes. “I have gotten better at throwing. The amazing thing about clay is its resilience and how it connects to you in its own way. My time at Mudbone has allowed me to get to know more artists who work in clay and painters who have an interest in ceramics.”
“The 20-somethings who frequent Mudbone ask when they will see me create something, but the truth is that if you are teaching, you are not creating. I often don’t have the bandwidth to be as creative as I was, which is something I miss. The flow state of creativity is the best therapy to escape the stresses of day-to-day experiences,” Holmgreen said.“In general my work is very political, very deeply rooted in cross-cultural identity issues of Hispanic culture. though it may not be very obvious,” said Celina Vallarta, a 2009 graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, who works at Mudbone on a Cinco Blanco clay series in progress, a series she calls Piñatas.
Art is the highest form of hope.”
- Gerhard Richter
“The piñata itself is political, though not very obvious. Art is political. That’s what art does. When I started ceramics back in 2007, I was deeply interested in our Hispanic culture, our roots, our history, and a celebration of where we came from, and I actually worked on piñatas back then from a different approach. I am also a mosaic artist, and I tend to have a repetitious nature in my work. I think the reason I do that is because for me it is a form of art therapy. It keeps my hands busy, but it tends to tone down everything that’s going on in the world when my mind has gone into overdrive, over-thinking, and over-analyzing. That type of repetition in my hands is familiar, comforting, and very satisfying,” Vallarta continued, adding that piñatas, with their origins dating back to Spain and China, were once made of clay.
“This series is an investigation of my own cross-cultural identity as a border child, being a no sabo kid, though I’m not technically a no sabo kid because my indigenous roots are from Laredo and South Texas,” she concluded.
Lifetime artist and art educator Debbie Goldberg creates functional art pieces in mid-range pottery clay, including plates, bowls, and cups — many in service at the dinner table and some in gifts to friends. She counts drinking coffee from a cup she created with her hands as one of the most satisfying aspects of her work. She creates pieces at her home and fires them at Mudbone. “There is something very relaxing about being at the wheel,” she said.
“There are two kilns, a wheel, and plenty of shelving at Mudbone. It is very generous of Alan to allow the space and equipment to be used. His generosity points to the need to have a community kiln, a community space,” Goldberg said.
“Art, music, and dance classes were part of my upbringing. Art has been an important part of my life as a creative and rewarding avocation, as an art teacher for 30 years, and now in retirement as I teach art to members of the Laredo Stroke Support group and as an aide to Paty Orduña’s art classes at Border Region MHMR,” Goldberg said.
Holmgreen, a metal worker and a pilot of fixed wing aircraft and gliders, has been flying since high school and has been licensed since 1989.
He was born in Laredo, the son of the late María Luisa Kahn Holmgreen, a San Antonio attorney, and Dr. William Corbett Holmgreen, a military dentist. He’s the grandson of the late María Luisa Rangel de Kahn and Henry Adolph Kahn.
He recalled the experience at the age of eight of watching a woman at the wheel at the Royal Delft factory in the Netherlands. “I remember a sense of awe watching what she was going to do as she manipulated the clay on her wheel. I still enjoy watching others throw. And I, in turn, enjoy giving demonstrations,” he recalled.
Holmgreen said a two-year apprenticeship with renown ceramicist Harding Black at his studio on Broadway in San Antonio, was “an invaluable portal to understanding glazes and clay. He was the self-taught dean of Texas ceramics, but his passion was glazes.”
He recalled, “We hand-mixed our clay in a large peltre (enamelware) bowl. Everything in the studio had a crust of clay. Harding was 80, and I was 24. He used Big Chief tablets to write to other ceramicists and to document the notes of his extensive research of glaze chemistry.”
On scholarship to the San Antonio Art Institute, Holmgreen taught art classes for children and gained the experience of building kilns and setting up the Institute’s sculpture department.
“I worked my way through college, graduating from Incarnate Word in 1989 with a degree in math and a minor in fine art. I have many more hours in art than any anything else,” he said.
