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Please Note:
Holly’s work will be available for viewing and sale at the Brewery Fall Artwalk from 11am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday, Oct 24 and 25. The event is free and open to the public.
Please Join us!
@
642 Moulto Ave. #E-32 Los Angeles Calif.
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v5- When you were a student, were there other artists that you looked to?
HT- I picked up some really good techniques from Karl Benjamin, a teacher from Pomona College, who I studied with when I was at Claremont. He's well known, probably one of the best known geometrical abstraction painters. I was fortunate to be able to study with him. He showed me some of his masking techniques and also a sense of glaring of colors, but I think more than anything, he gave me confidence as an abstract painter, because when I was in graduate school that was not in style.
Installation was all the rage, so I was actually one of the few people in my class that was painting, and this was considered not to be the most exiting thing to be doing. So I think one thing that I got from him was his encouragement to keep going, which was much needed.
v5- Well, thinking of your last show, there is a lot of
opportunity...doors that are open for you.
HT- Yes!
v5- With each grouping of work that I saw it seems that you can imagine it's brother that is yet to come.
HT- Right, exactly.
v5- It can go here, or it can go there.
HT- Exactly!
v5- Do you have the resources to pursue all of this?
HT- That's in fact one of the greatest dilemmas, that you have to make choices. You ask yourself, "Okay, which am I going to pursue? I've only got so much time and money, so how am I going to do this?” I have to decide what I think is either the most important or the best. However, I determine that on where my interest lies at that moment. I think as artists we are constantly editing out. For every painting, I've got about one hundred things that could be made right along with it.
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v5- I notice when you wrote down the size of the canvas that you included the 2-inch dimensional depth of the canvas frame.
HT- Right (laughing), very important. And again it doesn't always fit everyone's idea of what the side of a painting should look like. It's kind of like going under the skin and seeing the veins and what not.
v5- Do you collect other artists’ work? Do you keep other artists’ work around you?
HT- That's one thing I would like to do is collect other artist work. A few people whose work I really like, perhaps we could do a trade. Something like that is always nice. I actually prefer to have other peoples work in my living space and not my own. I my ego doesn't require having my painting everywhere (laughing). It’s not necessary.
v5- Are there books that you recommend to young students that are studying art?
HT- Oh gosh!
v5- Or students that are not studying art.
HT- I have a very eclectic taste when it comes to reading material. One of my favorite writers is Sandra Cisneros. She has this wonderful collection of short stories in 'Women Hollering Creek', really wonderful. Her writing is so visual, the strength of her metaphors is fabulous and I really enjoy it.
v5- Do you look at films a lot?
HT- Oh yeah! In fact, I am embarrassed to admit this, but some of my favorite films come from China, like action flicks with Jackie Chan! ( laughing). I mean my friends laugh at me because I can go see a Jackie Chang movie and then I'll go see some obscure French film that nobody cares about.
v5- What music do you listen to?
HT- Well again it's very eclectic.
v5- Do you listen to rap at all?
HT- I like rap but only if it's not the real kind of anti woman bitch ho stuff. I'm just not into that, (laughing) I can't listen to it.
v5- Some of it is designed to offend... but there's a power to it.
HT- There is.
v5- There’s virility in the layering that’s all voice
HT- That's the thing I think is so fascinating about rap. It's this whole thing about beat and rhythm and I feel it couldn't be derived from non-African rhythm because if you’re ever listen to drums from Africa or a history of the world storytelling, you can see the relationship. I think that's where the power of it is. It's just like telling a poem, it's a narrative. But when it starts getting into a place where it seems "I don't really care about the story anymore" or “I don't appreciate it because I'm so annoyed with the attitude”, (laughing) that’s when I say forget it, I don't have to listen to this!
v5- I was listening the other day to NPR and they were talking about a Greek historic poem, which has a sort of rhyme to the reading of it, and the rhyme was actually reinforcing the memory. It is needed in the structure of the story to allow it to be passed on. There was a modern poet there that was reading his poetry and then he stopped and said, "You know it's so hard to remember these things once they stopped the rhyme". He came all the way back to Homer.
HT- It's true. That relates to why I use visual rhythmic devices in the painting because it gives you a stronger sense of the painting. It forces you to have a deeper understanding, and maybe even a better memory of it.
v5- The idea of making it a painting that will be memorable. In a different kind of way that allows you to know it. Not to copy it as a
photograph, but to know the image in the mind. We are getting an inter and outer level of artificial memory. If you can make such immediate copies of everything then why develop the discipline of memory? Is there still a critical memory?
HT- That's the concern I have. I think again with the students is what I am seeing, even though I know there's more of an emphasis now to develop critical thinking skills, I’m actually seeing a decline in ability in that area. Today I get a calculator; I can add anymore.
(laughing) I used to be able to add in my head and now I have to have a calculator.
If you don't use it after a while it really starts to go.
Art can play an important role because art is all about our problems. If you think about it, you’re always trying to solve the problem. How to make this thing or how to solve your problem, whatever it is. It always comes down to finding creative ways to solve problems. I really try to point that out to my students, maybe you’re not an art major, but the things you learn in this class can apply in other areas because it opens up your brain.
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