Today we’d like to introduce you to Holly Crawford.
Hi Holly, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m an artist, an art writer, a curator, publisher, and art historian… Here’s my journey. It’s more complicated, but this will give you an idea. I don’t have BA and MFA in Art. I discovered other artists with economics degrees too. My freshman year at UCLA, I started in the Art and Design Department. I was thinking of Art Director/Set Director. I was told women didn’t do that. I would also have made a good film editor. I have a very good visual memory. I wanted a career. I always did art, but fear of not being able to pay the rent motived me.
I have advanced degrees in economics—ABD—and MSPH behavioral science from UCLA. I was a research economist before I meet and married my husband. I announced I was getting married on Friday, and on Monday, I was unemployed. When I looked for jobs, I was told they just wanted to see what woman with advanced degrees in economics looked like and they didn’t want to hire a woman. No, they wanted a married male MBA. Moved on from this very painful moment by painting. The late Lionel Epstein saw them and introduced me to people in the art world. When the late Henry Hopkins became the Chair of the UCLA Art Department, I wrote him a very short letter. I wanted to teach a class. After several years, when he became the Director of the Hammer, he allowed me to do that.
Over the years, I moved both physically and artistically from paintings, monotypes, and drawings to interactive art and from various locations in California, including San Diego many years ago, to NYC and now back to San Diego. I keep moving and growing, but love of California I took everywhere. The more open approach to life and strangers. We say “hi” to strangers.
AC Institute and ACBooks started in NYC after I finished my Ph.D. in Art History and Theory from the University of Essex slightly more than 20 years ago. AC is a nonprofit, a 501, that’s an alternative space for experimental art, writing, and on occasion music.
My dissertation, later book Attached to the Mouse, researched the more than 200 artists that I found who use Disney images in their art. How and why? There was no literature. On this. When I taught the class at UCLA, I discovered a huge hole in contemporary art around the Mouse. That research lead to major French exhibitions, catalog, and keynote speaker at a conference. I’m very good at research and interested in cultural critique. That book and several conference papers allowed me to join AICA, which is an international association of art critics. That opened another world.
AC started as a short couple-page newsletter with many very, very short art reviews. Then as a hospitality suite at a hotel art fair. And as a project with that, I submitted to the Armory (Piers) Art Fair. There was no call for projects. I had an idea, and I emailed them. You have to take chances. You ignore rejection. I’m not saying it doesn’t get to you. It does, but you take a deep breath and move on. Creative problem-solving has helped me. I think this from moving so many times as a child. I heard “you’re not from here.” Yes, even in California. The Armory responded, and they were interested. The project was Critical Conversations in a Limo/Outsourced Critics. The idea came about seeing a sea of black limos driving collectors around NYC. So, from black limo to white art box. So, I envisioned a movable white box—a white limo. I then needed to really put it together. The next year the Armory emailed me and asked for a project. That was Sound Art Limo. Then Flatland Limo and Live in the Limo.
I leased a very small space in Chelsea area in NYC. It was 100 sq ft. I used the outs walls and added the alcove. I curated exhibitions. I gave people opportunities. First, we published small catalogues using Amazon’s CreateSpace. I had followed the development of POD (print on demand). These catalogues helped artists. Then there was opportunities to publish books. I started with a book by Richard Kostelanez that was out of print. I found a distributor. Publishing world is very fluid. Several distributors later, AC Books are distributed by SPD in Berkeley. The latest book was just reviewed in the Boston Globe.
I’m leaving you with me in NYC. After 21 years, my husband asked if we could not move back. In mid-August, we did. I laughing say I most have taken the rain. I’m back! It’s back!
I’m here. We bought a house recently, and I have a 500 sq ft space in the Arts District in Liberty Station. Given covid, cultural space issues, and general rejection in the arts, it’s DBA The Art ‘Museum’ for the Tired, Poor, and Rejected, An AC Project.
You might be asking how I funded the space. I’m a big saver and have been, fortunately good with house sales and investments. I don’t raise money. There’s no membership. Everyone who has worked for me has been paid. I was told get unpaid interns. That’s wrong. Some are still in the arts, and others are not.
My personal art seems to be done in many parts of the world from Melbourne, Australia to Athens, Greece. Those projects usually have some honorarium… There’s a project I’ve done in Turin, Athens, and Bath. I’d like to do interactive art projects here! It’s called Art Alchemy and the Gift. I have gold envelopes, silky string, black and red wax, and seals—a brain and a heart. What do you want to put in the envelopes? Many letters, rings, hair ribbon, Roman coin, money, and other things. You hand the envelope back and decide on heart or brain seal, I sign and date the art… We created something together. I gift it back to you. People want to give me something in exchange. There is economic argument that all gifts are based or needs to be an act of reciprocity, an equal exchange, and most gifts are to relatives. Why can we gift to strangers? We do.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Road is never smooth. Challenges come in different ways. Being a woman has been a challenge. I wanted to be a mother. It didn’t happen. I tried everything. Being laid off because I announced I was getting married. He said he only hired single women and married men. Married men are less flexible. Married women have other obligations. It’s too generalized. Being told women don’t do that was/is a challenge.
Just doing my art is challenging. The act of creation. Nothing, and then you think of something, and that leads to something else. That’s exciting. Getting your work out is the greatest challenge. It’s very difficult finding people and spaces who want to exhibit your work. Art is rejection. Vincent Van Gogh’s brother was an art dealer. It didn’t help. You can’t focus on it. The late John Baldessari told me that he barely peaked at rejection letters. He ripped them up and tossed them into the trash. He almost ripped up a letter with a grant check be he thought it was another rejection. Ripping up rejection is a good practice.
I have exhibited and will be exhibiting other people’s art. I feel responsible. I need to help find their audience for their project in my nonprofit space. (My mailing list is mostly NYC. An art audience was less of a challenge in NYC. But nothing is constant. Things change. Saturday was a day for going to galleries, and then in 2008 it stopped, and people came to opening only. Covid killed it completely. I did have a large NYC following, but I’m here now. I’ve moved again. Will people come? I don’t know. First Friday is the Arts District mass open day. Maybe earlier that day. I’ve talked to others, and it see it’s Saturday afternoon.
Interesting to think about a journey that was smooth. Would it be satisfying? It would be a completely different life. Not my life.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
There’s my art which interactive performance, and other media which includes text performances. The interactive work needs participation. It’s collaborative. Somehow it works. One project is Past, Present, and Future—the title is longer and more complicated—I made a deck of tarot cards using my photos. There’s money, flowers, food, and other things. I created the project in response to a request from an art fair in Torino. The space I was offered was the waiting room in a decommissioned hospital. I did a three card readings. (I wasn’t into tarot cards but studied it for this project.) Over fours days, I did hundreds of readings. I had candles and dimmed lights, a black tablecloth, and red silk rose petals. There are no negative readings. Death card is renewal. One of the first readings was a man who drew an ear, a mouth, and food. I puzzled over the cards. I said hearing was important. He laughed and told me he sang opera and he was in Torino for a performance. That’s one of my personal art projects.
AC’s space is the Arts District is called The Art ‘Museum’ for the Tired, Poor, and Rejected. I’m working on exhibitions around that theme. First artist is Doug Harvey in April. Jonathon Keats is installing the Library of Objects in May. It’s around the history of Liberty Station. I put an open call on FB and Instagram, and only men sent proposals. I working on some women for the fall. If the space doesn’t work for exhibitions, I’ll see if it will work as a space for artists and writers’ residences.
And then there’s books. Not too many every year. That’s a collaborative project with the writer, the printer, and distributor. Books need readers. Books are getting reviews. That’s great. So far, most books are selling around 300 copies. I’m a very small publisher.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
I was in Greater NYC. It was difficult. I had to close AC., the physical space. I did a performance using zoom, and I asked 4 artists to use it for their performance. It really worked. We don’t need to be so tried to one physical space.
Before I moved back to San Diego, I had a house with a front yard. I’m not into grass. I made a front garden… It was an English cottage garden. It was sharing a space with people out for a walk. On occasion, we would talk. That was good.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.acinstitute.org | www.acbooks.org | www.art-poetry.info
Image Credits
Holly Crawford
