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It’s possible that Pete Holland will become as well known for his paintings of campus buildings that don’t yet exist as for those that do.
Holland, an architect and project manager in USC’s Office of Campus Planning and Construction, has been fine tuning his skills as a landscape painter for several years, completing several canvasses of historic campus buildings. Last year, the Arnold School of Public Health called on Holland to create a painting of their future home—which then was only a hole in the ground.
“I took panoramic photos of the area beside Carolina Plaza [where the new facility is under construction] and used architect’s sketches and elevation drawings as a guide,” said Holland, who took up painting in the early 1990s.
Working nights and weekends for a month, Holland completed the painting at a fraction of the cost outside architects would have charged. The finished product is on display outside the dean’s office in public health, and the image is often shown to prospective donors.
If Holland’s original plans had succeeded, he would have started out as an artist, not an architect. The Columbia native was an art student at Carolina in the late 1960s but soon dropped out and enrolled in engineering at a technical college. He became a registered architect after working for several years in the profession.
Not long after joining USC’s facilities management team, Holland completed a BAIS degree at USC in his spare time. One of his electives was a painting course, which rekindled his artistic interests.
“I always liked art but never liked painting until I took that course,” Holland said. He started painting campus buildings, including Longstreet Theater, South Caroliniana Library, the Horseshoe, and McKissick Museum. Using his architect’s eye for angles and perspectives, Holland usually works from photographs to complete his paintings. He’s tried setting up an easel on site, but questions from passersby become too distracting, he said.
Most recently, he’s begun a canvas of the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center and is converting the attic in his house to a painter’s studio.
“In 10 years or so, I’d like to be doing a lot more painting,” he said.
And with more new buildings projected to sprout on the Columbia campus, he might again be called on to paint canvasses of new facilities before they materialize.
“I wouldn’t mind doing more of those, but I’ll have to ask for more time,” he said. “It’s like a part-time job in itself.”
03/04
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