Wednesday Night Poetry to feature Emergent Arts’ executive director
Erin Holliday, a Hot Springs artist and executive director of Emergent Arts, will be this week’s featured poet for Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee+Tea, 110 Central Ave.
The regular open mic session for all poets begins at 6:30 p.m. Holliday will perform at 7 p.m., followed by another open mic session. WNP is free and open to all ages.
A Hot Springs native and graduate of Lakeside High School, Holliday has had a lifelong love of the arts and community, a news release said. While a teenager, she volunteered for arts organizations and attended gallery exhibits and poetry readings downtown. After high school, Holiday attended Kansas City Art Institute, where she received a BFA in Sculpture.
Since returning to Hot Springs in 2010, Holliday has curated nearly 100 gallery exhibits. In
2012, she became the executive director of Emergent Arts, which is dedicated to serving artists of all ages and abilities in the performing, visual, and literary arts. It also hosts community art exhibits and events.
Holliday served on the Community Development Advisory Committee (2013-17) and the Hot Springs Planning Commission. She is pursuing a Professional Community and Economic Developer certification through the Community Development Institute at the University of Central Arkansas.
Holliday was one of three finalists for the Arkansas Nonprofit Professional of the Year in
2016. That same year, she was invited to be in the inaugural class of the Acansa Avante Garde Society which recognizes outstanding artists and arts professionals in central Arkansas. Recently, she was awarded the first artist residency through the Hot Springs Sister City Program, where she spent this past June in Hanamaki Japan representing the arts community of Hot Springs.
“Being in Hanamaki as an artist to experience the culture, scenery, and people on a visceral level was life changing for me,” she said in a news release. Holliday returned to Hanamaki last fall to install an illuminated sculpture as a gift from the city of Hot Springs to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Sister City relationship. Here in the United States, her illuminated sculpture and kinetic installations have been exhibited and collected regionally, and her public works can be seen at St. Luke’s Women’s Center in Kansas City and the Olathe, Kan., Community Center.
Holliday started writing poetry as soon as she could put complex sentences together. In high school, she founded the school’s literary magazine “Fragments of Eternity (FOE)” where students could publish their poetry anonymously. She led that publication for three years and it continued after she graduated. The first time Holliday attended Wednesday Night Poetry was in 1995, before she could drive herself. Since moving into the forest of West Mountain and traveling to Japan, Holliday’s work has transitioned from interpersonal poetic conversations to conversations with nature and history, the release said.
For more information about Wednesday Night Poetry, email Kai Coggin at wednesdaynightpoetry@gmail.com.