St. Lucie Cultural Alliance | Member Spotlight – Port St. Lucie Botanical Gardens
Contributed by Laura Mehr
Member Spotlight – More about Port St. Lucie Botanical Gardens
Greg Hold, spun aluminum wire artist extraordinaire, is the Faerie Forrest creator for the Port St Lucie Botanical Gardens. His gathering of faeries has charmed and entranced thousands of visitors since the inception of the Faerie Forrest in May 2018.
Greg began his career as an entrepreneur and inventor, owning numerous businesses including an RV sales center in Maine in the 1980s, then an earth moving operation, as well as a TV satellite company. His love of art followed him throughout his working life, and as he sketched and drew his ideas, trying his hand at painting and airbrushing, it proved artistically unsatisfying. He always “dabbled” with welding, and loved engineering spun aluminum wire into both artistic and functional forms, dreaming of retiring to an artistic life.
After breaking his back and neck in two separate accidents he and his wife, Shirley, did retire. He began his ‘Second Lyfe’ and his dreams of becoming ‘a true artist’ led him serendipitously to the ‘Junk in the Trunk’ quarterly garage sale at the Port St. Lucie Botanical Gardens, where he displayed his burgeoning collection of artistic sculptures.
Joleen King, Board President of the Botanical Gardens at the time, recognized Greg’s potential and immediately launched the Faerie Forrest campaign to display his work. Greg was flabbergasted that anyone would be so enthralled with his work that they would want to publicly display it and to actually pay money for his creations! Surprised, amazed, and grateful, even now Greg cannot believe this has happened to him.
The Faerie Forrest at The Gardens now includes six of his meticulously crafted Faeries, with two more being installed before the end of the year. The faeries and his other sculptures are made of spun aluminum wire, stainless steel, and recycled materials.
His ‘Second Lyfe’ refers not only to his retirement and the commencement of his artistic endeavors, but also to the use of recycled parts in his work.
Since the founding of the Faerie Forrest, Greg has produced another sculpture of a ballplayer for the City of Port St. Lucie, located at the Jessica Clinton Park on Southbend Blvd.
Greg participates in regional art shows, recently winning Best in Show at the Art Show in The Gardens at the Port St. Lucie Botanical Gardens this past January. He will again be displaying his latest work this coming January at the Art Show in the Gardens. He will also be at Holiday Expo in Vero Beach in November, and at the Expo in Jupiter in December. While demand for his work outstrips supply, he is inspired by his customers’ desire for custom pieces.