NEIL HOLLINGSWORTH
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It's been said that most people will have three major careers in their life. I’m now well into my fourth. Following a tour in the military in the early 70’s I worked a number of day jobs, and went to school at night. No real direction. Just planning ahead.

It was during this period that I discovered soaring, and spent most of my summer weekends flying sailplanes. The lure of aviation became so strong that I decided to put the academic world on hold, and entered technical school. Two years later I was a licensed aircraft mechanic working at a local airport.

Aviation at that time was an all consuming passion for me, but between working on aircraft, flying and a short lived affair with skydiving, I still found the time to paint the occasional watercolor, or illuminate a letter to a friend.

At the end of a particularly cold winter in an unheated hanger, I found myself tempted to change careers when the father of a friend, who owned a graphic design business offered me a job as a graphic designer. I decided to mothball my tools, and accept his offer. I gave my notice at Hangar One, and two weeks later I was working as an "artist."

A couple of years down the line I left to become a partner in a typesetting/graphic design shop with Michel, close friend of mine. That was a great job, but at the end of nearly eight years of operation the growing popularity of desktop publishing had taken a large bite out of our business. Sadly, Michel and I decided to close our shop. After that I worked for a number of design firms on a salaried, and freelance basis. I also worked for two years as a book designer, and illustrator for a small publishing company.

Ready to give up the freelance world for a stable job with a regular paycheck I decided to follow in the footsteps of my wife Karen, who at the time was working as a registered nurse. Two brutal years of nursing school later, I was an RN.

My nursing career began in the ER, but I eventually moved to the operating room. This lasted nearly a decade, then one day our friends Jeff and Leslie Cohen told Karen and I how they had begun to sell their artwork over the internet. I gave it a try, and found that it worked. I spent the next year working days in the OR, and painting nights and weekends. At the close of that year the sales of my art were such that I felt confident enough to take the leap, and left nursing to paint full-time.

That was in the final days of 2005. Presently I am represented by four fine galleries, and have my work in private collections in the united states, and around the world.