Holtquist accepts private commissions. As an example, a client requested a female version of “The Casket of Emotions”, a headless torso striding upstream carrying a box with no top or bottom, a box that will never fill up; a monumental version of this sculpture is on display in my studio garden. Upon the client’s prior approval, a blue patina variation was created, “Barbara’s Box.” This sculpture was awarded a Juror’s Award in the Attleboro Art Museum’s 2008 show entitled “Out of the Blue.”

Barbara’s Box

Another commissioned work, “Guardian Angel,” a small bronze of an angel wounded during his custodial duties of serving to protect, was installed on a gravesite. It received a Special Recognition Merit Award during an international sculpture competition.

Guardian Angel on Pink Marble

Public commission, “Farm Family Portrait”, is a bench permanently installed on the Minnesota River Headwaters Recreational Trail on the way to the Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge. The sculpture was made possible in part by a grant provided from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council and funded, in part, by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

Farm Family Portrait

“Farm Family Portrait” is a group of five threshing stools arranged as if absent sitters of three generations are posing in the Sunday best for a family picture. It addresses the vanishing, evolving nature of America’s traditional farm family. Each Threshing Stool is unique, sculpted in Dakota granite to resemble a shock of wheat and has bolted to its top a cast iron implement seat; they are of various family member heights ranging from child-sized to farmer-sized. The local granite symbolizes the hard, arduous life on a family farm; shocks of wheat recall earlier, backbreaking methods of crop farming; and the implement seats recall improvements that freed the farmer from walking down endless plowed fields.

To discuss possible commissions or arrange a studio visit, please click here.