A colorful life: How Bill Holub found an escape through art

Tucked away in his second-floor apartment at The Watermark at Cherry Hills in Northeast Albuquerque, 93-year-old Bill Holub sits in his favorite gray chair in his living room. On the wall are water and oil paintings, each one painted by Holub.

“Here is my favorite,” he said, pointing to the piece depicting cowboys saddling up their horses on an early winter morning. “That is called ‘Early Start.’ I’m very familiar with that scene.”

Holub is one of many Watermark residents who will have their various talents on display at an artisan show on Saturday, Aug. 24. Prints of Holub’s work will be available for the public to buy, as well as artwork and other handmade goods made by other residents of the senior living community.

All of the proceeds from the fair will go toward the nonprofit Watermark For Kids, which helps children and their families with the cost of medical procedures, extracurricular activities, housing and more.

Holub said he grew up the 11th child in a family of 12 children on his family’s farm in Sheridan, Wyoming. He found his love for drawing in elementary school when he came across a picture of a bird sitting on a snow-covered tree.

“I was so impressed and taken by that picture, I decided to try and draw it,” Holub said.

With the encouragement of one of his teachers, he continued to draw throughout middle school and into high school, where he won $15 in one of his classes for designing a logo that won a contest.

What drew him to art? Holub said he felt in control when he was sketching or painting.

“I feel like nobody’s going to tell me what to do,” he said. “I am completely relaxed.”

The feeling of being at peace was not one he felt often during what could best be described as a turbulent childhood. His parents died when he was 7 years old, and he was sent to live with one of his older sisters and her husband in Spokane, Washington.

“Her husband did not tolerate me being around,” Holub explained. “He found every excuse to not be nice to me.”

This went on for several months before he finally reached his breaking point. Unable to live with them anymore, he took the train back to his family’s farm in Sheridan, where he lived with several of his older siblings until adulthood.

In his early 20s, he joined the Air Force and was deployed to Japan in 1952, during the Korean War. He worked on communications equipment and spent his off time sketching the various villages and places he saw while walking the countryside. He returned to the United States in 1954, then moved to New Mexico in 1964 to work for the Federal Aviation Administration. It was during this period of his life he got more serious about his art and began painting with oil and water paints to create depictions of warplanes flying through the sky, sketches of adobe and pueblo architecture and colorful western landscapes.

His signature in his paintings is a light-colored string of mountains that can be found in seemingly every work Holub has produced. Blending reds and yellows, the mountains were inspired by ones he used to see all the time, when he and his wife would drive up to their cabin in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

“We would go through Española and you would see the different colored hills and mountains,” he said. “That’s where that comes from.”

For several decades, he sold his artwork at numerous shows, but stopped two years ago. A bad back and a tremor he developed had hindered his ability to paint.

“Some days, I can sit down and sketch and draw,” he said. In fact, he is working on a new piece now that is in the sketching phase.

He can also still pass on his knowledge of art to others, which is what he’s been doing since he and his wife moved into The Watermark at Cherry Hills living community two years ago. With the help of Community Life Director Kelly Nobbs, Holub taught a few watercolor painting classes.

“We learned a lot from Bill. I really admire him,” Nobbs said.

In addition to helping Holub teach classes, Nobbs is also helping him sell his art once again at the show Saturday.

“We have art the residents made, one of our employees and her husband have their own jerky business, my resident care coordinator is going to sell her barrettes and hair pins — it’s going to be a little bit of everything,” Nobbs said.

Gino Gutierrez is the good news reporter at the Albuquerque Journal. If you have an idea for a good news story, you can contact him at goodnews@abqjournal.com or at 505-823-3940.