We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Michael Holt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Michael below.
Michael, so happy to have you with us today. You are such a creative person, but have you ever head any sort of creativity block along the way? If so, can you talk to us about how you overcame or beat it?
The greatest tool ever given to me to destroy creative blocks came during graduate school. You spend most of the time in undergraduate learning how to see, and honing your abilities. Graduate school was the perfect time to try new possibilities, be bold, and to go off the map into unknown worlds. But how do you know what direction to go with such little time? You want to make the best of the experts that surround you, the discussions, debates, feedback in the studio from visiting artists and critics, and from your peers. But you have two short years to come up with something that is distinctly your voice. And if you are intensely focused, something that is entirely new to the world.
The answer was not arrived at without struggle. I must have tried twenty different mediums or concepts, only to have each one torn to shreds during group critiques. And for very good reasons. As frustrating as it was, it kept coming down to the same questions. How does this relate to you as a person? As an artist? Who are you? What gets your blood pumping? At your core, what fascinates you? What is it that you just can’t let go of no matter what happens? What makes you happy? What are your obsessions and/or compulsions?
It took radical self-reflection and nothing less. And once I found my core, I knew who I was as a person, and as an artist. Armed with that, there would never again be another moment of creative block. As long as I knew myself, the work would always flow from that. The medium only matters in terms of messaging and aesthetic. I am the content.
My high school graduating class was the first time in American history when youth outnumbered adults. This change of demographic drastically altered the way products were advertised and to whom the advertising dollars were directed. And at the same time, my main mode of information gathering was through only a few primary points. Magazines, movies, and MTV. American pop culture was where my mind fixated and thrived. Throw in a healthy dose of the aesthetics from these elements throughout the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, and you essentially have my brain in a nutshell. I’m constantly spitting out lines from movies or some forgotten commercial from the 80’s.
But that is not enough to truly understand the “why” of who I am. I had to dig deeper. How did all of this start? Who invented the means of advertising and product identity that captivates us as a society? How did we come to find identity in this culture of movies, music, product, and advertising campaigns? If you go back far enough it all came down to one man. Edward Bernays. The godfather of public relations and product identity. Once I read his works, I understood all of these things not only in practice, but at its core, a sort of philosophical or even spiritual understanding of the forces that made me, me. And what’s more, if I could master these forces, I could direct attention to or even subvert those editorialized intentions. I can use their weapons to my own ends and my own messaging.
The horizon becomes infinite. A never ending well of inspiration that I cannot escape. I am as a fish that cannot escape the water it lives within. The only difference is, I am aware of the water now. And I can use it however I see fit.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My main work is in the literal dissection of magazines with an X-Acto knife. In order to better understand the mechanisms by which it functions, it had to be surgically explored. Page by page, image by image, text and aesthetic weighed together as one.
Pieces of a magazine are experienced as we move through the carefully curated images and text, with the whole never really coming into focus, except by a subconscious level. By studying the means by which the information and graphics are delivered, I was able to slice away the noise and negative spaces to bring the whole of the object into greater focus. The greatest achievement of these exercises was discovering ways to either subvert those processes or reinforce them.
During the pandemic I began to also work with cut and layered self-adhesive vinyl on acrylic panels to compliment this practice. Often the vinyl works reference personal or world events, sometimes they reference the cut magazines used as a study. It becomes a reflection of identity in consumer ready objects, and the commodification of self and my place in the world. I continue to look at new mediums that express these concepts in either aesthetic, function, or form. I am looking forward to seeing where the next vehicle comes from.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
You have to be obsessed with making. If it’s hard to get into the studio, or to make work because you just aren’t “feeling it”, then this life may not be for you. I don’t feel right when I am not making. It’s a real mental and physical need to do what I do. If I could find a way to simply spend all of my time creating in the studio, that would be the perfect life. I really don’t need much else other than experiencing life on my own terms and creating.
Get out there and learn any medium or technique that you can. Don’t get bogged down in just one manner of thinking or creating. And even more important, once you have learned about a new medium, start using it in ways that it was never intended to be used. You never know what will happen. Sometimes it can be magical. Think of the materiality of a substance or thing instead of how it is actually used.
And no matter what happens, or what they tell you, never, ever, ever, stop making.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
My ideal client would be someone in the music or movie industry that wants to use my particular brand of anti-advertising. I would love to do an album cover or poster for a movie. I think my aesthetics with the cut magazines or collage would be delicious. I’m even open to doing a cover for any of the magazines I cut. I think it would be incredibly fun and rewarding to see one of the magazines I’ve cut on the cover of the magazine it was derived from.. A little bit like Inception or something.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.michaelholtart.com
- Instagram: @michael_holt_art
