About Shaira

Howdy,
My fab friend Elaine, who wonderfully is making this site for me and you, wants me to tell you a bit about myself like my life, my goals, other projects and my little dog too. So I’ll start with my bio:

Artist’s Bio – SD Holman
Born and raised in Los Angeles, SD Holman moved to Vancouver, becoming a professional artist, photographer and actor. A graduate of Emily Carr Institute, SD joined the public art and activism group, the Vancouver Association for Non-Commercial Culture. S.D Holman has shown in solo and group exhibitions at The Roundhouse, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Exposure, Fotobase Galleries and Artropolis. Her renowned photo-based work G.I.D. (Gender Identity Disorder or Girls in Drag) was exhibited at The Helen Pitt International Gallery, the San Francisco Public Library, the Advocate Gallery in Los Angeles, the Soady-Campbell Gallery in New York City, as well as at Studio Q, the Vancouver salon that Holman founded and operated. Holman’s work was featured in the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival were she earned ‘Favorite Out of Town Artist’. Books she is included in are: Femme/Butch: new considerations on the way we want to go, 2002, Harrington Park Press; Culture and Education 2007, reprinted 2009 Pearson Publishers, distributed in Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia; The Mammoth Book of Erotic Photography published in New York, London and Paris; as well as Fusion, which features four Vancouver photographers. Most recently SD Holman had a solo exhibition in September 2009 at Gallery Gachet during SWARM.
SD is the Artistic Director and participating artist of the Pride in Art Society, which runs an annual three-week Queer multidisciplinary arts festival in Vancouver, Canada.

Catherine added this to my bio to liven it up a bit;;

Holman’s bottom describes SD as a gorgeous, evil stone butch top with a strong whip arm, a perilous aim and a dangerous imagination.

I did not always use it as I thought it made me sound a bit pompous.

Catherine liked to introduce me as her radical sex pervert Husbutch, if she thought she could get away with it.

I had so many goals BCD (that’s Before Catherine Died) and now my goal is just to make it through the next second the next minute the next hour and maybe the next day.

I’ll be writing every day while I’m on this pilgrimage we’ll see what comes of that. I’m working on a book or two, but the drive for that is gone out of me.

About my dog Tilda: you want to know about my sweet little Tilda.

Her full name is Matilda Berry Moo Brave Hart Swenton, of the little dog nation. She is a rescue dog. We know very little about her. She’s from Ventura County and was picked up as stray. I started fostering Her Littleness shortly after Catherine died.

I had promised my friends that I would not kill myself but I was not able to care for myself, or even care about caring for myself. I love animals and I want to do more animal work and I am very responsible, so it made sense to my grief-mad mind that I might help out a little dog in need and that I would have to get up in the morning and go out at least two times a day. I thought it might actually keep me alive.

Well the first week was hell, I thought, what the fuck was I thinking, I can’t even take care of myself, I now have a dog that needs my help who is terrified; won’t eat. won’t drink, not house trained and hiding under anything she can find for the first coupla weeks.

Well, me and Tilda worked out perfectly, She would not eat or drink for the first few days, was even terrified of the tastiest treats I could find. Finally I found some wet food that I fed her off my fingers very slowly in little bits. After a few days of this I got her to eat out of a bowl and drink and take walks. I could catch her peeing and pooing in the house without terrifying her, and scoop her up into the yard with big praise when she did her business outside. I can now walk her without a leash – she waits at corners and heels. She is still terrified of ‘Sit’ so I’m leaving that till later. I will have had her for about three months next week.

Oh and the rescue society had some people that wanted to adopt her but the society decided to offer her to me free without paying the adoption fee if I wanted, cuz she is a special little case and we bonded so well. I thought hard about it for several days before I said yes.

Just so you know, she is young and very healthy when I take her for a run she just trots along and is not even breathing heavy after. I am only worried about her being afraid, and I have a back up plan if she needs to stop.

www.prideinart.ca
www.sdholman.com