Holland, Michigan

If you are interested in purchasing this painting, please click on the following link:

mymichiganmemories.etsy.com

Nothing compares to the joy and anticipation of Spring in Michigan! The last of Winter's snow has melted into the ponds and creeks that traverse across the Great Lakes state. The birds sing their melodies and garden perennials begin to push their way up from the cold dark earth to awaken color to the barren and bleak landscape. 

While Spring arrives in segments of weeks beginning in lower Michigan on up to the Upper Peninsula, no town welcomes the season in the same way as Holland, Michigan.

Founded by Dutch Americans, Holland lies on the western coast of the Lower Peninsula, on the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan.  Near the popular tourist towns of Saugatuck, South Haven, and Grand Haven, Holland has become a traveler's destination.

Each spring gardens of tulips greet you as you enter Holland's Windmill Island.  Towering above the tulips in all their radiant colors, is the DeZwann windmill, the only authentic windmill operating in the United States. Holland, Michigan residents Willard Wichers and Carter Brown wanted to bring their Dutch heritage to their town and through serious negotiating were allowed to purchase the heavily damaged DeZwann mill from the Netherlands and transported to Michigan. The 125-foot high mill was reconstructed and in 1965, then dedicated on Windmill Island of 36 acres open to the public  April through October. 

Our first wedding anniversary was a visit to the towns along western Michigan. As we made our way to Holland and Windmill Island, I was struck by the awesome array of colors in tulips! It is as if nature planted a quilt of color in every hue imaginable. 

With this original oil painting of Holland's windmill, I wanted your eye to traverse the gardens of tulips, blending their hues and brightness against the weathered wood of the vast mill structure that rises above as a sentry guarding the grounds. While using a palette knife to indicate the various blooms, though not in great detail, and brush strokes of linear cloud formations, you can sense the movement of the mill's arms as it sends a breeze of movement over the fields of tulips.

Tulip blossoms don't last long, so make Holland your Spring in Michigan destination!