Transcript
Speaker: You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Vellante, editor and producer Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with Something Rather Than Nothing podcast and this episode we have Holly Campbell who's based in Corrales, Oregon nearby to me and she's
Speaker: just a fantastic artist and they encountered her illustrations in her work on acrylic and she does a lot of work in art and Holly just wanted to welcome you to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure and I'm really glad we have this opportunity to chat about art.
Speaker: Oh, first the question is, when you were younger, were you an artist when you were younger? Were you interested in artistic things or creative things?
Speaker: Yes. So yes, as a young human, I was generally happy. I was very innocent, wide -eyed, and gullible. But I was also very artistic. I was also very dramatic. So that's kind of never changed. And I've always had an incessant need for praise, which has never really gone away. But my art is kind of my outlet for that.
Speaker: You know, growing up, though, I always did typical stuff like drawing and singing, some acting, but that always kind of just felt normal to me. And I didn't really think of myself as an artist in a conventional way. It just kind of felt normal. And then I guess I didn't really feel like a true artist until recently. But yeah, that was kind of me in a nutshell, just a weird little kid.
Speaker: Well, what was it? You said you said recently, you know, it's kind of a transition and your head has sounded like where you saw yourself as more of an artist. What what was that? What was that switch? Can you describe that switch? Yeah, well, honestly, I yeah, I can I can exactly I can remember the exact moment, I think, that that switched for me. And it was about four or five years ago. I was you know, I've been just kind of like I had been creating art
Speaker: well, my whole life, but in that moment I'd been more creating on my couch, you know, just kind of like doodles and little paintings and things that just for me, you know, that kind of thing. And I would occasionally, I would like apply for an art show or this or that. And one art show in particular, I don't know if it was just the buildup or eventually I stopped.
Speaker: Um, you know, I, I kept doing it and I kept getting rejected. Yeah. And, and it just kind of was like this moment where I said, enough, like I'm done getting rejected. What am I doing wrong? And I, this, it almost happened overnight, but of course there was more behind it, but I sat there and I thought, you know,
Speaker: I'm not doing enough. These opportunities aren't just going to fall into your lap, right? So I need to figure this out. And if nobody else is going to accept me in my artwork, I'm going to make them accept me in my artwork.
Speaker: You know, so I had this moment where it just kind of like clicked. And eventually I, um, so I literally did just that. I got, um, I'd gotten, well, specifically I'd gotten a rejection letter for this. There's this window downtown it's called foot wise. This, there's this little shoe store downtown and there's a window where people can display their art. Um, and I submitted an application to do that.
Speaker: And it got rejected again. And I don't know what it was, because it was nothing special or different than all the other things that I had applied for. But for some reason, it bothered me more than the others. It was like, I think I just got fed up. And I decided this is it. So I made a website. I started getting business. I got some business cards. I started posting on social media more, kind of amped it up. I started setting aside actual time
Speaker: to create pieces, just take it to the next level. That was like, just do it. Kind of fake it till you make it. You know what I mean? With intention, just putting everything into it. Right. And so, yeah. And I eventually did. And then from there, it just snowballed. It was like, I felt like an artist. I felt more confident. I have business cards. I'm a big deal. Talk to me about my art. I want to show you.
Speaker: And so I did. And I eventually, you know, I just, I started creating more and the more you create, the more creativity you have. So I just, I found myself finding good opportunities for that. I started talking to more people in town, artists that I knew networking. Excuse me.
Speaker: And from there, I joined a little co -op gallery called Voices. And it was a really small little gallery. I think there were only six or eight of us at the time. And it was in this teensy little building downtown, but we were part of the art walk. So once a month, people would come by and look at my art. We'd have little themes and stuff. And just that alone, the networking was amazing. It was a really incredible time because I just started meeting so many people.
Speaker: I don't know if you're not from Corvallis, it's probably hard to understand. There's such an artistic vibe here. It's not underground. It's out there. There's murals, there's galleries, there's the art center and the Corvallis Fall Festival. There's an artist group here.
Speaker: And I started to find my way into it. I started to fit in and it felt better and I felt more like an artist. And eventually, you know, Voices Gallery, we were painting murals and we were having art shows. And then I met my friend Sharon Rackham -King. She's an amazing watercolorist here in Corvallis.
Speaker: and a really dear friend. And we joined forces to open our own little gallery. And it was kind of back to that, you know, I'm going to make people notice me kind of thing. It sounds silly, but it's like, you know, going back to that, I was like, I'm not going to wait for people to accept me to their galleries. I'm just going to open one. You know, like, why not just like give myself a platform?
Speaker: Sure. And I did. And so we joined forces and co -own the Hold Studio together. It's called the Hold Studio. And we named it the Hold because it was a very tiny place. And so you think of like, holding cell or something like that. It's a small space. And it was ours. And same thing. We did the arts walk. We designed another mural together.
Speaker: And then I started taking on leadership roles within the Corvallis Arts Walk. So from there, you can imagine all the other amazing networking connections that I made. And yeah, that's kind of when I started to feel like I am an artist. I'm here. I belong, you know, so. Yeah, I do know with Corvallis, which is a fantastic art town and we had
Speaker: I had a guest quite some time, I think maybe within the first 10 episodes or so, Joey Bowers, the manager over at Dark Side Cinema, but also does some of his own music and he actually just started a podcast.
Speaker: through the booth window with somebody else in Corvallis about movies. They do some really amazing work over there. The Dark Side is one of my favorite little places. If anyone's new to town, I'm like, let's go check out The Dark Side because
Speaker: You won't regret it, you know? It's a very cool place. But I didn't know that. I didn't know they were doing podcasts, so very cool. Yeah, yeah. So that's a little plug for Joey Bauer. There you go. No, it's a great program. Tell me, I have a question that I've developed on my own and just like seeing you work and something I've been thinking about overall.
Speaker: You know, and I know your journey and seeing yourself as an artist and working on that, and that's something for you to develop as far as the identity that you're creating. Now, I think I saw that you had mentioned that you were, do you view yourself as self -taught, is that correct? Yes, I do. Okay, and on that, I've often wondered,
Speaker: Uh, you know, I started painting acrylic about three years ago, self taught, never taken an art class and don't even remember doing art in any level of school. And it's been a lot of years, but I just don't remember it being prominent or something that I did. Um, what, how does it feel different for you in interacting within the art community when you see yourself as having
Speaker: maybe come to a little bit later or having taught yourself versus the folks you encounter. Do you feel that is a problem or do you notice that a lot about yourself? Yes. I don't know if I'd really classify it as a problem, but I do notice it and I've thought a lot about this actually. I feel like
Speaker: a lot of my peers, especially being in Corvallis or a college town, so we have a lot of students who have gone to OSU or like the Portland Art Institute, that kind of thing. You get a lot of people who are classically trained, they have their masters in art and it's
Speaker: They like to tell you what's art and what is not. That's their training and that's fine. There's nothing against that to me. We'll probably end up getting into this more later, but I feel like that's kind of crap.
Speaker: sometimes let me ask let me ask the question though so let's let's do it right now what is what is art right so they're you're talking about maybe of like a background or maybe more of an institutional so yeah so for you what i mean let's jump into that right now in particular what what is art
Speaker: Okay, so I think the shorter list would be like what isn't art, you know? Something about, I don't know, like did you make that? It's art. Do you think it's art? It's art. Do not try to please anyone else with your art.
Speaker: The minute you start to create for yourself is when you can truly be happy as an artist. And I think that's what happened to me. And that's finally when I felt comfortable calling myself an artist. And so I don't think anybody else is allowed to tell you what's art and what's not. I just really don't believe that.
Speaker: Yeah, and I appreciate I jumped in with the bigger question. And then as far as interacting, you identified it as it's not really a problem. But it's something that you're sensitive to and notice, right? It's like, how are you conversing in art and what art is, right? And you had to fight a bit. I mean, it's obvious in the way that you talk about it, like a lot of artists have to do. You get to fight for a bit of space. You have to fight and say, hey, look at my painting. This is a cool painting as well.
Speaker: I really love your acrylic painting and your illustrations. Do you have a top medium for yourself as far as where you feel like this is where you truly express yourself?
Speaker: Yeah, I think acrylic is the one for me. But of course, I dabble in everything from acrylic to ink to watercolor. Lately, I've done some new things with digital, which is totally new to me. But I'm learning and that's been really fun too. So yeah. Well, that's great to hear. I love acrylic painting. And that's how I started. I like what I like to do. It's very
Speaker: For me, it feels like a very populist and accessible type of medium for when it comes to art. I do enjoy that. All right. What do you think is the role, Holly, of art right now? And I know you've been subject, like all of us, everybody in this country and in the world, to the current conditions, pandemic, what is the role of art? Is art helping us? What should art's role be?
Speaker: in social disruption. Talking about nowadays, you know, late 2020, what do you think the role of art is and has it changed since, say, the end of 2019?
Speaker: Well, I just think about social media, you know, we're constantly consuming media and art specifically, or at least, at least I am. I mean, I have a very curated feed, as I like to say, you know, I'm constantly following new artists and keeping up with things in that way, Instagram mainly.
Speaker: But thanks to the internet, there's just been this fascinating shift from being uninformed to extremely informed. We have all this information that we could possibly need right at our fingertips. And I think that art is great at, or artists themselves really, are great at putting work and the issues in front of us. And then it's kind of our job or
Speaker: speaking about myself, it's my job to do the work. So the artist kind of like waking me up to it and then it's my job to go from there and do the research, stick to the unbiased news, figure out how do I feel about these things? We live in this bubble and this bubble of what I've been conditioned to believe and think about all these issues.
Speaker: And it's really uncomfortable at times. But I'm trying to pop that bubble. And thanks to artists, I think if there wasn't art constantly on my feed with all these crazy issues in 2020, specifically, it's uncomfortable. But I'm learning to sit with that uncomfortability and just kind of work through it that way through art.
Speaker: and doing the research and letting those artists tell me, you know, show me, what do you need to do right now? What do you need to worry about? If that makes sense. It's really complicated, you know? Well, I know. And I think part of it is, too, is I've done this podcast in real time and talking to real people and real artists dealing with real situations in the world over the last few months.
Speaker: And it's, it's been interesting because I think I've had to look at the podcast a couple times when the pandemic first star is like, shit, who to hear? Who the hell wants to talk about like sculpture and painting and like, you know, the, the first reaction was like, what, you know, like.
Speaker: I want to I don't want to die. Right. Like not worry about what's on the wall. And then, you know, that was like an initial response. But then, you know, obviously things change. You'd be like art's super important. It's helping us like adapt and understand and live and see what's worthy. And I think with the social justice movements, you know, and with Black Lives Matters and
Speaker: You know, just looking at the podcast itself, you know, being representative, what type of voices need to be there. So I found myself as a creator in these tumultuous times saying, you know, what is it that I'm doing? Why am I doing it? Am I doing it right? And, um,
Speaker: And talking to artists, I found that there's been that disruption and it's caused artists to question a lot. And artists, you know, good artists tend to like questions. Absolutely. And it sounds like you've been pretty much
Speaker: You know, trying to respond to the challenge that we face right now. I do feel that way. You know, I think what you kind of like in response to what you were just saying, you know, it's like we have to we have to really lift others up and give the space for those voices that deserve to be heard right now. And that can be really hard because it's like.
Speaker: who am I to you know I'm not I'm not here to tell you I can't possibly know the struggle I just can't you know and it's and it's not something that I'm ashamed to admit it's not something that I had thought about um until recently and I didn't know that there was work to be done you know and there's going to continue to be work to be done and I need to I need to lift those voices and I need to share in any way I can
Speaker: Um, but know that I'm, you know, I'm doing what I can on the back end, you know, um, do like doing my own research. I'm, I'm trying to, to again, pop that bubble, be uncomfortable, listen to the voices that need to be heard. And, and that's all I can, you know, that's all I can do and, and fight against it, you know, do the best way I can, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. Um, I have another question and, uh,
Speaker: If you listen to the podcast over time, I'm a huge comic book fan. And so I zero in on origin stories. That's always like really big for me. But so Holly, what or who made you who you are?
Speaker: Well, I definitely have to give my grandparents a lot of credit. We spent a lot of time at their house and I felt like that was kind of where a lot of my creativity stemmed from. There was always a lot of music, a lot of theater. My grandpa, I don't remember if
Speaker: I've mentioned him yet at this part of the podcast. But he was great. He was big into, he did like off -Broadway shows. He did really amazing work with music and acting. And he always kind of, you know, he'd have us posted up in the living room and we'd be, you know, singing on the piano and teach me how to do that stuff. And at the time I didn't think anything of it. You know, I was like, this is normal.
Speaker: everybody does this, but then eventually it was like, okay, I'm actually, this is like an artistic thing and this is part of who I am, you know, and kind of fostered that creativity is my point. And then eventually, through all of that, I started a job at a real estate office when I was 16. And I'm still there, actually. But in that time, I met this amazing woman named Sue and she was
Speaker: about 20 years older than me. And we had a really great friendship, you know, she was also an artist and she had this, you know, she was also childless by choice and that kind of thing. And I just kind of, I remember this moment out of high school where I was at this very impressionable time in my life and Sue was there and she would always, you know, I'd go to her house and I thought to myself,
Speaker: wow you know i always thought you had to like leave high school go to college get a job start a family you know get married start a family that whole thing in the very conventional way and i never felt like that was my destiny and so seeing her with this like amazing artistic ability and just i didn't think that that was i don't know i i guess i didn't think that that was really how
Speaker: Adults could be like I thought you had to have this nine -to -five, you know Yeah, I don't know and so to see this woman who was so happy just her and her partner making music making art and I'd walk into her house and I was like you have your art everywhere and you can do this and you don't have to do the conventional
Speaker: You know college degree and this not like you can just if that's what makes you happy like you can just do that You can live a different way. Yeah, and it was kind of like it was an epiphany and then you know from there she since passed on which was Just a sad day. That was just the worst and because she was the one who would just kind of foster that Creativity in me and she would show me things that I just wasn't familiar with you know I mean imagine being just out of high school. You're totally aimless right like
Speaker: don't really know what you're doing. Well, particularly as a young woman, too, as far as the options of how you can live, it's not always exactly clear what's permissible or how you should. No matter what your situation, I think having that type of contact and experience, particularly with something that's important for you in that type of expression, be like, huh, this is
Speaker: This is nice or this is a good way of living. Yeah, it seemed comfortable and it seemed exciting. There's another option. You don't have to go do what everybody has told you to do your whole life.
Speaker: Yeah, I didn't go to college. I thought, oh my god, I'm not going to college. I'm never going to amount to anything. But at that exact time in my life when I would have been going off to college instead, I was like, no, you can just be an artist. And you can just live. And you can just make pretty things and inspire people and be inspired instead. And that's not to say don't go to college. If you want to go do that, I'm not at all telling anybody to do
Speaker: it, you know, do what makes your heart sore. That's not, you know, and for me, that was art. And well, I think our roles a lot of times could be socially compelled and that pressure can be heavily felt. And I think that's what, you know, you're speaking to as far as the options of
Speaker: maybe including art in your life, being an artist, you know, in living a different way. And I think Oregon tends to be a pretty good state in a lot of areas for that with some of its kind of artistic community and like live and let live aspects, you know, of its individualism that I particularly, you know, enjoy.
Speaker: I got another big question just as far as like, I try to focus at times like on the act of creation. And, you know, I've seen a lot of the art that you that that you make and you create a lot of things. Do you ever step back and ask why it is that you create fundamentally like why, why that happens? Do you feel it's a choice for yourself?
Speaker: No, I don't think it's a choice. I feel like it's something I have to do. Because again, the more creativity that you use, the more you have. And simply put, it just makes me happy. It's like breathing. It's my identity. It's mine. And at the end of the day, it's all I have. I think it's important to mention that I don't create for anyone but myself. And once I learned to do that, I found true happiness as an artist.
Speaker: And and kind of what we were just talking about, you know, creativity doesn't have to be your job. In fact, I don't have to have a day job. I mean, I have a day job. Excuse me. I don't have to. You know, my art is not my job. Art is my release. But that's not to say that artists can't make it their day job or their business, of course. And then, you know, I used to think that I had to suffer to be an artist. Like growing up, I was conditioned to believe that it was a requirement to be like
Speaker: this angsty and dark and tortured artist and then I could only produce real art at that time, you know, but that's ridiculous. I don't know what it was, but I woke up one day and I just realized like, that is a crock of horseshit.
Speaker: If that's your jam, you know, then like, please, by all means, like stay angsty and use that inspiration if you need to, but, but know that you can create things from a happy perspective too. Like I thought I had to paint dark emotional pieces, stuff you would only see in like museums that like cause spectators and critics to roll about and say,
Speaker: Wow, she's truly an artist because she's sad and tortured. I got stuck in that cycle and the inspiration would always leave me. It would leave me for weeks and even months at a time because I thought that everything had to have a purpose and it had to evoke pain and suffering. But honestly, some of my most popular work is the product of just making something because I felt like it. Again, it's just a prime example of creating work for myself.
Speaker: Um, if I have to create, uh, if like, if I have to work to create something that I think people will like, I'll never create anything of value because the truth of the matter is that I cannot please everyone. It is just simply impossible. So instead I'll just please myself. And that has taken me further than any of that angsty stuff. So, you know, so that's me. Well, and thanks Holly for saying that. I mean, I know that, and when I try to describe the podcast in general, um, and you know, when I'm interviewing artists and guests,
Speaker: you know, part of it, I say is like, this gets into a lot of psychology, right? Because like, fundamentally, you know, we're talking about philosophy, big questions, you know, obviously, you know, I have a couple more for you that are like, the big questions, but then we're talking about art and creativity, or like, why you're creating things, but it's also a huge psychological component that you know, it's, it tends to do very with very personal feelings of identity, of healing from trauma,
Speaker: of being able to express yourself in your own individual way that are all psychological manifestations, you know, and just hearing your description about like being in the right space or what's the proper space for yourself to be able to create, you needed to be, you know, you thought you were told to do the angsty thing and that doesn't that, you know, we all feel that way sometimes, but it might not be the main driver.
Speaker: Sure. Of our creativity. Absolutely. Holly, I got a big question for you. I think you know about it.
Speaker: Why is there something rather than nothing? Yes. So I've listened to a few episodes. I knew this was coming. And honestly, I don't know why. I really don't. But how fortunate are we that there is something rather than nothing, right?
Speaker: The only thing I can ... When I think about this question, there's one thing that comes to mind. A few years ago, I was introduced to the book Big Magic by Liz Gilbert. She's the author who wrote Eat, Pray, Love. But Big Magic is nothing like that. This is turned into ... It's like my Bible.
Speaker: It changed my life, and I think that sounds so silly, but it did. Well, tell us about it. Tell us about the book. OK, so this book is just kind of, I don't like using the phrase self -help when I'm talking about this book, because it's not what it is. It's about kind of tapping into your own creativity and asking yourself, like, do you have the courage to bring forth the work? And whether you're an artist, a writer, a poet,
Speaker: and whatever. And that's kind of what it's about. And actually, if you'd like, I can just read the back excerpt of this book because this kind of answers something rather than nothing for me personally. And its creativity is sacred and it is not sacred. What we make matters enormously and it does not matter at all. We toil alone and we are accompanied by spirits. We are terrified and we are brave.
Speaker: Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege. The work wants to be made and it wants to be made through you. And I think that is so powerful. It's like it drives me, you know, because it's and she talks in this book about ideas and how they kind of float through people from person to person.
Speaker: There's a really interesting part of the book itself where she talks about this idea she had for a book, and it was a non -fiction book based on some true events down in, I think, South America. I'd have to double check, but anyway, she put all of this effort into writing this book.
Speaker: she abandoned it. She didn't finish. She let it go. And then with all the hopes to come back to it, that was the goal, but she never did. And then a few years later, she meets this other author who I guess they hit it off. They were instant friends, but this gal ended up writing the same book. She wrote the book down to just exact details. It was
Speaker: It really was all right. Yeah. And so with that in mind, you think about why is there something rather than nothing? It's like these things are here because they need almost like they need a host, you know, and you are like a manifestation. It's like a manifestation of it. Right. Right. And anyway, and I think about that, you know, because
Speaker: That's true in things that I do too as an artist. When you look back and you think about that footwise window, the one that I talked about in the beginning where I didn't get accepted and I was so upset. I was like, nope, I'm going to change it up. I'm going to do this instead. Let that go. Move on.
Speaker: And I did. And then eventually through the galleries that I was a part of and the Corvallis Arts Walk, I ended up curating three separate shows for that window. So I became the curator. And so it's like, if you think about these things in that way of, you know, ideas moving from person to person and, um, do you get what I'm saying? Like I, it's hard to explain.
Speaker: Well, absolutely. And I think it's kind of the the fundamental question. I think you're getting rate rate rate at it, too, because I think that the the dynamic that tends to be in the background is conversations like things manifest themselves like there's these energies. And I think you can look at is like the an idea of it going through the artist and being manifested at the same time.
Speaker: like the conditions are there. And I knowledge you would be like, I think about it in the sense of science where you have the same discovery made in different places. But it's about at the same time. And it comes from like the conditions like this discovery is ready to be made amongst humans. And it goes up like in a couple places at the same time. I've always been fascinated by that dynamic. And I think that's part in the background of
Speaker: you know, what you're getting to the question of vessel and that energy, that type of thing. Yeah. And I think, and this is just my story, but I think anyone can do this if they want to, like you don't have to wait around and depend on others to give you these opportunities. Like you are here right now and you can do anything you want to. Like if you put in that work, just, just do it and watch how you evolve, you know, watch what the universe is like going to do for you. You just,
Speaker: You just do it, you know? Yeah. It can be so simple. No, and sometimes it might be ultimately simple, and that's maybe the beauty of it, you know, and the explanation sometimes the simplest one, you know, is the right one. Yeah, I'm totally interested in checking out that book. Yeah, I'll certainly do that. It sounds great. One of the things here at the end,
Speaker: I wanted to ask you to let listeners know how to connect to each and every kind of piece of art that you share, like where to find you, where to find the pieces.
Speaker: So part of this is for the intimacy of the listeners to kind of come in contact with you. Can you help guide folks along? Sure, of course. So really, I mean, Instagram, that's number one. I'm constantly on Instagram. I update that more than anything. And on Instagram, you can find me at Holly Campbell Art, and it's Campbell Like The Soup.
Speaker: But anyway, I I'm on Instagram Facebook same username and then my website is just Holly Campbell art comm so You know, that's that's that's that's fantastic. And well, it's been great that you know in the sense of to with Corvallis I wanted to mention when we were talking about the podcast before it's Caitlin Stowe and Joey Bauer and through the booth window and
Speaker: And I think it's nice to hear a little bit more, honestly, Holly, about your experience there in Corvallis, a town I enjoy. I've picked up on the Art5. I like to know what's going on, and I've appreciated some of those elements. And encountering your art has been a real joy. And I'm glad listeners are going to be able to maybe have a bit more
Speaker: exposure to it. But just deep down, Holly Campbell. Holly, I wanted to thank you for joining something rather than nothing. Oh, thank you so much. And thank you for your very kind words about my art. I really appreciate it. This has been fun. My pleasure and hope we get a chance to talk soon. Awesome. Me too. Thank you. Take care, Holly. Bye bye. Bye bye.
Speaker: You are listening to something rather than nothing.
