mini-interview with Tori Holder
Recently, subscriber Tori Holder reached out to me via email.
Not sure if you remember this, but two years ago you did a workshop about writing the body that I attended and did a short essay on. After some retooling and a lot of "I'll get back to it" neglect, I finally forged a zine out of it, and would be honored to share it with you, she wrote.
Of course I said yes, and received the lovely, compact Limbs that begins with the question, But when does a body start as the place you live in?
I delightedly invited Tori to answer some questions and her generous replies follow. We readers win, because Tori answered all eight questions!
Tori Holder is an artist and comics zinester in and of Los Angeles, California. She has exhibited at events such as LA Zinefest, Phoenix Zinefest, and Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo. Her work can be found online via her website, or with fine retailers such as Quimby's, Silver Sprocket, and the Minnesota Center For Book Arts.
Take us on a walk through a place that gives you life.
There are so many ways I could answer this, but my gut reaction answer is walking up Runyon. I realize full well the cliche, but I love walking up La Brea, taking in the sprinkling of strip malls and apartments, questioning my sanity to walk the 2 miles uphill to the trail, weaving in and out of hikers and their dogs on the fire road, resenting it a little bit and then reaching the top. It's such a nice check in. This is where I live, those are the buildings that constitute my reality. I probably spend a good amount of my way up thinking about the coffee I'm going to get after, finding a little spot like Neighborhood or Sightglass to hole up and work on comics, but it's the benches at the top of Runyon where I really feel like "okay, that's the world, I've got to make something of it today".
You're alone in the middle of the ocean. What are your thoughts?
Just taking in the vastness. I feel like anytime I get more than neck deep in the ocean I feel like such a speck. It's wild you know, a whole universe unto itself, lurking right beside the beaches we know so well.
What is your dream life (at night, asleep) like?
Oh, it really varies. I wish I could say I'm the kind of person who can extract creativity from their dreams, but I very rarely do. Often I'm trapped in amalgamation houses of my childhood or vast shopping malls, never finding a way out, of the thing I was looking for, or realizing halfway through I've lost something in the labyrinth. I have another artist pal who has very similar mall dreams, maybe it's a neurotic creative thing?
What project(s) are you working on right now that you're most excited about?
Right now I've been mostly focusing on a series of collage pieces. I do that sometimes when I'm right off a big drawing project, just to shift gears. I'd love to do a collage zine sometime, but I think that's still a ways off. Oh, and of course I'm starting to hone in on my minizine a month zine, I've been traveling a lot this month so I think it will be about airplanes and buses. Actually writing this from the plane to Denver for their Zinefest.
How would you describe your personal history of zine-making?
I would describe it as the perfect use of the only bit of bravado I've had in my life. I got a mini comics anthology zine from an acquaintance and thought "some of this is very good, but some of this looks like shit I make in my journal". I was in my late teens, reading a lot of John Porcellino, Gabrielle Bell, things my local comics shop was always half pricing because I was apparently the only one buying them. But yeah, seeing zines, idolizing work that felt simultaneously profound and accessible made me one of those jerks in front of modern art. I could do that. I suppose the main difference is I actually did. Definitely something I sunk my teeth into quite quickly, especially after graduating college and losing access to things like darkrooms and screen printing and being a small town radio DJ. I went all in on zines at that point because it was the only art I felt I could afford to make. And then the community was just so fantastic.
What's a type of art-making that you haven't yet done that you'd like to do?
Probably risograph for the easy answer (lots of overlap with zines and screen printing) or metalsmithing. I worked in jewelry for several years as a day job and I always wished I'd been on the designing and soldering side.
What's your process of making a zine--from germ of an idea to distribution?
Oh it really varies. With Limbs, I had almost all the text there from our workshop, and certain visuals that had come up while writing, but typically it is no where near that linear. I often will hone in on a few pages that I want and then build a work around those phrases and drawings, moving things around until it feels cohesive. I tape a bunch of things to the wall and swap them out until there's a story, it's very conspiracy theory looking I'm afraid! But the titles and covers always come last, which sometimes surprises people because they're such a big part of the work but at the end of the day, they're still just the window dressing, they pull you in, but it's just the start, the entryway.
Who/what are you most recently obsessed with?
Ugh, this one is slightly embarrassing, but I've been hyperfixating on shoes lately. I've had three pairs of shoes break in as many months, and I'm always convinced if I'm going to bring a new object into my life, it has to pull its weight. Aesthetically, functionally, sustainably, not egregiously expensive. They're doing great things in the world of ballet flats, square toes are having a moment, I'm here for it.