Handmade: A Seahorse for a Whale House

Kale and puppies are the reasons I learned about Tony Holand’s seahorse. My husband, Thomas, had swung into Cronig’s to pick up some kale for a minestrone soup and ran into Tony in the vegetable aisle. Tony’s news of the day: five new puppies. He showed Thomas pictures. Thomas texted the pictures to me. We had to go look. Not 24 hours later, we were on the floor of Tony’s and his wife Dawn Bellante’s cozy Vineyard Haven living room with puppies, and three adult dogs, swirling around us. 

But before we made it to their living room floor, I had spied the head of a giant copper seahorse through the window of Tony’s shop. 

“Is that giant seahorse going on a roof?” I asked.

Tony is one of the country’s most renowned weathervane makers, crafting custom weathervanes for the likes of Steven Spielberg.

“No. It’s going in someone’s yard,” Tony laughed.

Since we already have a 13-year-old dog at home, we had to let the puppy fantasy go. But I could not stop thinking about the seahorse. There was a seven-foot high by eleven-foot long sculpture in Tony’s shop, and I had to know its story — the who, what, and why of it. I called Tony and asked if I could come take a closer look and hear the story. He was delighted to talk about it.

The story goes that one of Tony’s weathervane clients had asked him to make a thirty-two-inch whale for an Aquinnah property. Tony went to look. They talked it over. “I was not feeling a whale,” Tony says. “I just couldn’t see how it would flow or relate well to the house or the spectacular view of the Sound.” The client’s house was inspired by Steven Holl’s “Whale House,” an award-winning Edgartown house that, unfortunately, has been demolished. Both houses used the physical architecture of a whale as a way to inform their shape and structure. Nevertheless, the client agreed with Tony’s assessment that a whale on the lawn wasn’t quite right. They walked around the property some more, batting ideas around. As Tony tells it, “We walked to a slightly elevated place next to the house and he [the client] stretched his arms out wide and said how about here? But something really big?” 

They decided to think on it and keep talking. Tony knew the client and his family were avid equestrians. What about bringing the idea of the ocean and horses together with … a seahorse? Tony drew it up and photoshopped a larger-than-life seahorse in a space near the house. Too small. They scaled it up a bit more. As a model, it worked. The client was game. Next was the job of making it, which Tony knew would take the better part of a year. Tony had several other projects on his plate — he has a waitlist of more than two years for custom projects. “I needed to clear my calendar, but I also needed physical space” he says. “This was going to take over the studio.” The client was patient. And Tony had some research to do. “I had to learn about seahorse anatomy. I also wanted the ribs of the seahorse to echo the architecture of the house, which has rib-like lines.” He laughs: “And I like to slightly overbuild everything. Then I can sleep well at night.”

The seahorse was not Tony’s first big project. He has built large Chinese and Bhutanese dragons, along with the largest full-bodied weathervane in the world: the Nittany Lion at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium. But the thrill and gift of being paid to do work he loves is still fresh. Tony brushes a hand over his shaved head and says, “It is pretty rarified air to be here. A metal sculptor on Martha’s Vineyard. That people come to me with ideas and trust me to realize them. Trust is the whole show. It’s pretty amazing.” Tony has earned this trust. This year will be his twenty-fifth year as a metal craftsman and his twentieth year on his own. His mentor and partner, Travis Tuck, died in 2002. 

Tony grew up in Pasco, Washington, where his family has a 7,000 acre wheat and barley farm. “I was driving combines and tractors from [age] twelve to [age] twenty.” But Tony was always interested in drawing and art. One spring at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene, where he was studying commercial art and business, “a friend who had returned from a summer on the Vineyard spoke of this magical place and asked if I would like to go. I said, ‘I’m in … Where the hell is Martha’s Vineyard?’”

They got jobs at a bike shop. Tony had fun, but he never thought he’d stay. After finishing school, he saw an ad for an apprenticeship with Travis Tuck. “It appealed to me. The drafting, the sculpting. To be given an idea and then to realize it,” Tony says. These days, he hires Ty Rossi and Greg Blaine to weld and build the stainless-steel frames for his sculptures and weather vanes. While they built the seahorse frame, Tony finished other projects and made space. And then, in the spring of 2021, he set to work. The seahorse has about 250 copper panels and 300-plus pieces of copper tubing — each a different size and shape. “I wanted it to feel completely organic,” he says. Indeed, even though it’s made of metal, its shape undulates. The seahorse skeleton transitions from the four-sided tail, growing to six planes and then to eight, making it appear as though the structure is alive, expanding and contracting in all directions. Every piece has a complex angle. “Covid was great for this project. It was so quiet. I could completely drop in and focus,” Tony says. I also suspect some of Tony’s training as an ultramarathoner, which he is very quiet about, contributes to his ability to stay in the present and realize such detailed work.

By the time my family arrived to look at his puppies, Tony was almost done. He had nearly all the panels in place and was ready to braze each section together. By the next time I visited again, it was the day before the seahorse was headed to Aquinnah to be installed. “I have to admit.” Tony said with a chuckle, “I’m having a little separation anxiety.”

Fortunately, he can go and visit. A few weeks after it was installed, Tony and Dawn went for breakfast at the Outermost and stopped by to see the seahorse on their way home. In late spring, I finally had a chance to go see it. I gasped out a “Wow!” when I saw it. After its first winter outside, the copper had a beautiful patina — deep browns, hot oranges, and a few flashes of verdigris. Tony’s work had brought the organic lines of nature and the more structured lines of the house together. “To think this was supposed to be a thirty-two-inch whale,” Tony quips. 

Driving home, I reflected on watching Tony’s process from the sidelines. Tony is right: He does live in rarified air, because he is able to stop, look, and think about things (like the essence of a seahorse and Martha’s Vineyard), and then produce something that helps other people reflect and see things differently. Tony’s seahorse is placed in such a way that it serves as a kind of welcome guide as you walk toward the house. It is so spectacular that you have to stop and look. And then you see the trees, the plants, and the sea beyond. And this pause that he created, even if it is just for a few seconds, gives one an opportunity to appreciate the earth and the good fortune of being one of the people who roams it — and maybe even swims amongst the seahorses. 

Bluedot Living will now and then drop in on those handmade-on-Martha’s-Vineyard creations, and their creators, that help sustain our community. While Bluedot focuses often on the natural landscape — the trees, ocean, land — we also believe in the preservation of the human landscape. Art and artists are key to our community because they remind us of the value of our resources by offering us new perspectives. And we always like things made locally.