MONMOUTH, ME, November 26, 2018 Doris Anne Holman was recently recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who’s Who and was included in the “Lifetime of Achievement: Collection of Prestigious Listees” (Volume II) – one of 125 inductees (August 2019).  As in all Marquis Who’s Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

Ms. Holman had a career in education lasting more than four decades. After receiving a Bachelor of Science from Goucher College in 1959, she was hired as a teacher of first grade in Virginia and later moved to Maryland where she continued teaching first grade and received her master’s degree in reading from Loyola University in Baltimore in 1969. She also had four children during this time period. Following this, she relocated to Monmouth, ME where she taught second grade, became a reading supervisor, and later an art teacher. She continued to paint in an impressionistic way, using watercolors mostly with inks and gesso. She received an art equivalency from the University of Maine system.

Having taught watercolor workshops in Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Bermuda, Ms. Holman considers the highlight of her career to be teaching at Dockyard in Bermuda in the 1990s where she sold a painting that was given to Masterworks Museum of Bermuda. She has shown her artwork in BirdsNest Gallery, Bar Harbor, Pine Tree Kiln, Sullivan, Light Impressions, Rockland, Round the Corner, Orrs Island, and the Cindy Pettengill Gallery in Wayne.

Ms. Holman is credited as an author and illustrator of many children’s books:

Come with Me to the Sea (1998)

Edie the Great Egret (1999)

Harry the Great Blue Heron (2000)

Mandy an Sally Manatee (2001)

Ollie and Little Burrowing Owl (2001)

Broken Wing, a Sandhill Crane (2002)

Candy, the Littlest Canada Goose (2002)

Oscar the River Otter (2003)

Come with Me to the Pond (2004)

The Old Fisherman and the Pelican (2005)

Dusty the Gopher Tortoise (2006)

Goldie the Green Sea Turtle (2008)

In addition, she wrote “Watercolor Sparkles” in 2001, a how-to watercolor book for adults. She shows how to paint with wet tissue, sponge, printing leaves, and coffee.

Ms. Holman spent winters in Florida after retirement and was a guest author in Florida schools for ten years, reading her books and drawing on paper plates with many children.

In recognition of Ms. Holman’s talent and outstanding abilities, she was juried into the Maine Arts Commission, received a Percent for Art for the painting Foggy Day. Vincent Hartgen of UMO invited her to show in his travelling art exhibit, Museums by Mail, in the 1970s. She is shown with Vincent Hartgen and Frances Hammabe in that show. She won many purchase awards in Maine and awards from the Yankee General Gallery in Gloucester, MA. In 2004, she received the Presenter Award from USF for Suncoast Young Authors Celebration. In 2014, she had her Mt. Katahdin painting in the centerfold of the Kennebec Journal. In 2016, she had a one woman show on Grand Manan Island, Canada. That year, she was in a Story Walk in Gardner, ME and read “Come with Me to the Pond” on an outside trail with 145 children. In the fall of 2018, she appeared in “Eagles and Evergreens” by Robert B. Charles. Chapter 44 is about Doris Anne.

She has previously been included in the 59th edition of Who’s Who in America and in the 25th edition of Who’s Who in American Women.

Ms. Holman still paints daily, heading to New Hampshire soon to paint the rugged white mountains. When asked about her lifetime achievement award she said, “it is an honor to be recognized for something one enjoys doing … and I have always loved teaching, painting and writing for children,” adding “I cannot think of anything more wonderful to do with time, than to spend it creating, laughing and teaching others how to do both with a sense of peace and confidence.”