Ep. 96: BRAD HOLLAND on BRAD HOLLAND (and other things, too)

Once again, we here at SiDEBAR must confess to being late to the party. We really just became acquainted with Brad Holland's work in the last three years or so. Well, actually for me (Swain), that's not accurate. You see, my father had a rather sizable Playboy collection and I used to sneak them out to ogle all the interesting artwork (never cared much for the articles). Anyway...

Brad's been a 'creator of images' (that's a nice safe title) for almost four decades now and he's still going strong. In our opinion, his career and contributions to the art community are marked by several events.

One, his work for the earlier referenced Playboy Magazine. A gig he got when he was in his 20's and his big break, some would say.

Two, his terrific pieces published on the Op-Ed page of the NY Times in the mid '70s. The page's editor was the late Harrison Salisbury, a noted author himself and Pulitzer Prize winner.

And three, his tireless efforts in the area of preserving creative copyrights for intellectual properties. Brad's one of the founding members of the Illustrators Partnership of America, and he's been a vocal opponent of things like the Orphan Works Bill from day one. 

Prolific is a word often given to describe Holland's output of art over the years, but it's horribly understating. A rough tally of his body of illustrations falls somewhere in the, ohh...7000 range! That's a good 'guestimate' from the man himself and a staggering one, to say the least.

Our talk with him ended up being everything we strive for in a podcast—interesting, funny, informative, honest and insightful. If you hear Dwight and I being curiously silent during the conversation (it doesn't happen often, so cherish it), it's because we were listening.

And absorbing. And digesting.

You see, Brad's an extremely well read guy and we didn't even wanna pretend we could hang. We decided to adopt a boxer's philosophy—we stayed on our toes, but stayed out of the way! After all, it's not often that these two art nerds get to hear a fella like Brad Holland tell his story. We didn't wanna miss a thing.

His Site

A great vid about Brad

The BBALM

**Our thanks to Brad for making some time to chat with us—it was surreal (he'll get that).

Also, many thanks to Jason Manley at ConceptArt.org, Richard Solomon and Bryan Beus for their help in facilitating his appearance on the show. It was invaluable.

Picture provided by Jonathan Twingley.