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Also the encouragement that I got from my mother.  She would put a big piece of paper on the floor with marking pens and sit my sister and I on it and we would just start drawing on it. So there was always this atmosphere of creativity in the home and a lot of her friends were artists so I had access to people, seeing what they were up to. Part of being an artist was a way of coping.  I would escape into my little imaginary world and that was my way of coping with whatever feeling was around me.

v5: A safe place.

HT: Exactly. So I was sort of the little artist nerd girl.  I always had something I was working on. I also liked to write and still do, although I haven't been as active with that. I continued through high school and then enrolled in Pitzer College.
I did a double major in art and creative writing and that is where I really forged the commitment to do what I was doing and really gained a sense of who I am. I'm still in touch with people that I went to school with. I said to myself... “Okay, I can do this I am going to figure this out somehow.” The key was realizing that I needed to do it. That was a big turning point. Once I finished graduate school and then unfortunately went through a divorce, I felt that I had given up an awful lot for this, so it came down to, “Can I do this or not?”   I literally had a talk with my self one-day and said I really need to figure out a way to do this somehow.

I was then invited to apply for a position for one year at Scripps College, which is one of the Claremont Colleges.
 

This came about in 1992, when the students at Pomona College had taken over the administration building in protest. There was a lack of ethnic groups on campus and I had written a letter to the editor of Claremont Courier in support of what the students were saying. Based on my experience as an undergraduate student, it helped me to see that there was a need to further diversify the campuses, although I certainly got a great education. Yet I felt there was room for improvement, so I wrote about being a teaching assistant while I was in graduate school and working with a young African Americans artist and how I felt. My presence was very reassuring for her. So I think it was the chair of the hiring committee who saw my letter in the paper, called me and said I want you to apply for this job.

I went to the interview and they hired me... I could not refuse. I mean, who is going to turn down a year of teaching at Scripps. You get spoiled very quickly. My experience there was absolutely incredible; they were wonderful to me. It is a really great institution and working with the students you get absolutely spoiled.

v5: What area of the curriculum were you?

HT: I was teaching beginning drawing and two-dimensional design.

v5: Did you develop your own class projects?

HT: Yes. What I found was that once I had started teaching, it surprised me that I was actually good at it, because I wasn't sure. When you are in graduate school as a studio major, no one tells you how to teach. I can do this and actually do it pretty well and the students are very responsive.  I like doing it because it is fun and so that was sort of the beginning. What I have the most to offer them is the fact that I am a studio artist living in Los Angeles, my experience and my point of view.
Also my willingness to see them, treat them with respect as real human beings and to take them seriously as an artist often times more seriously than they take themselves.

v5: Exactly.

HT: That's the other thing because, especially if it's a drawing class that is three hours long, it could be very tedious. A lot of people when they enroll don't understand that. I warn them at the beginning that this is very hard work, be prepared and then they come in after a week.... 'God, this is really hard, I thought this would be much simpler'. I'll try to make it more interesting and try to incorporate current events and things that I consider timely or important into what is going on in the classroom. Just to try to brake some of this musty old sort of traditions in terms of curricula.

v5: Right.

HT: Especially what you see in art appreciation. Usually my sense on how this course I usually taught, is that someone just comes in, yaps at them for a whole semester and show slides while they are sleeping! So what I do with the art appreciation class is to give them an assignment
to go to the Brewery during the art walk and find an artist and interview them. My theory is that if you want them to appreciate art, then they need to understand where artists are coming from. They need to interact. Most people really don't have any contact with an artist.

I also have them actually purchase a piece of artwork! Whatever they can afford! Whether it is to go to a garage sale a thrift store or gallery or making a trade, what ever they are able to do. The idea behind that is again, I feel the best way to appreciate art is to have your own piece, whatever it is and to be able to look at it, think about it and live with it.

v5: You are addicting them to it.

HT: Exactly, I am a one woman PR campaign for the arts! It's scary, but I really do feel a sense of purpose as far as trying to provide access or some sort of link between the general public and art. I am very disturbed by what I've seen in the last ten to fifteen years.

v5- Do you think it's important to understand who the artist is to understand their art?

HT- Yes and no. Certainly who we are does affect the art we make no question.  It may be more obvious or not depending on the artist. In some ways the kind of work that I make doesn't fit with me because of a stereotype of what someone like me would make... 'a woman of color, a contemporary artist'.... that maybe I should be making more radically conceptual work that it's more political.

v5- Do you feel those kinds of pressures?

HT- I used to.  I feel fairly comfortable now that I've asserted myself as a painter and that my work is accepted. I think things are getting better. I had just spoken to my students about this article by Howardina Pendel, a New York painter, educator and African American, in which she did a study about ten years ago about racism in the art world. When she did a survey of all the major museums and galleries in New York to see what kind of break down there was and found that things weren't so great.  I think at the time of about the 100% of what they showed, maybe 5% of the galleries had artist of non European descent, which was not so great. So I talked to them about that and thought about it, then realized that things definitely are better than 10 years ago. Perhaps regionally there's differences as well. But at this point I don't feel that I'm deprived of opportunities to show my work because I am not a white man.

v5- Your work is extraordinary, Holly. Thank you.

HT- Yes, well that's the thing I believe in.

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