Creator Stories
Rocky Holmes:
"I'm Willing to Risk It All"
Firefly Music Festival 2019
Rocky (born Rachel Holmes) is truly one of a kind, with her bright orange glasses that match her equally as bright orange VW Beetle, and a personality somehow more colorful than the art filled walls of her bedroom. As her interview will soon reveal, Rocky is very passionate about making everyday spaces beautiful and stimulating, as she believes very strongly in the connection between your visual environment and your mood.
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While her journey to becoming an artist definitely had some bumps in the road (you could even say it was rocky, haha), at the age of 22 she has a job she absolutely loves as a paint instructor at Muse Paintbar in Gaithersburg, MD. After struggling to find her place in undergrad and switching her major 8 times, she eventually made the decision to attend her local community college art program. Despite the stigmas about community college, the smaller scale actually gave her a more individualized and supportive environment than she ever would have had at a big (and much more expensive) state school.
For now, she is very content with her job at Muse, but is definitely not losing sight of her ultimate goal of becoming a tattoo artist. Once her portfolio is ready, she hopes to land an apprenticeship with one of her favorite artists in the DMV, and start her career making what has to be the most high stake artform out there. If you can't already tell, Rocky is not one to do anything halfway. Interviewer Sarah D'Souza uncovers more details in the interview outlined below:
Let’s jump right in, what type of art do you typically create?
“Well, I'm definitely a painter. I've always been a painter… even since I was a little kid. But I feel like I branch into a lot of other genres of art... I've done collage, drawing, [and] all that stuff. You have to do, like, everything when you go to art school. But painting is what I always come back to. I work at a painting studio now and I'm a painting teacher, sort of like a resident artist.”
“Ultimately, I do want to be a tattoo artist, which is a kind of like painting. And so, like one of the reasons I really tried to dig into paintings was because I was like, if i'm good at painting, i'll be good at tattooing, and the more I do the more I just like totally fall in love with it. It's all about colors and not about structure, the way a lot of other art forms are, and I really like that. Painting is truly the love in my life.”
“But bottom line, I love creating and having complete ownership of what I'm making,” which applies to pretty much every type.
What has been your artistic path?
“So… I actually had like eight different majors in college; I (spent) three years switching majors, and nothing I did felt right. Everything felt like I was… going to school to learn to do a job that I'm just going to be miserable at for eight hours a day. And so I spent a lot of time really thinking about what I actually want to do.
“I really value having a job that doesn't feel like a job. [I’d rather] not have a lot of money, then have a lot of money and be miserable 40 hours a week. And so, I kind of looked at my life and at what I kept continuously doing when I have free time and what I do when I'm happy, and realized that I like making art, and that making things was always what I went back to. And so, I decided I should try going to art school because that's where they teach you how to make things.”
"So, that next semester I went to MC’s Takoma Park art program, which is a little bit different. You actually have to do a portfolio review and test into it, and it definitely is [one of the best programs] in the state. A lot of the teachers also teach at Micah in Baltimore, which is one of the top art schools in the area. Once I started, I literally was obsessed with it; I cannot even begin to explain how great Community college is, it is so much less expensive and my teachers actually care about teaching and my art as an individual.”
“In art school you only get two grades: you get midterm grades and you get a final grade. And it's all about your progress, so you bring in all of the work that you've done so far in class and you sit down one on one with your professor and talk about it, like wow here's how I've seen you grow… And so, the way that they grade was just so much better for me because, like I've never been great at... exams, and reciting information; I've always tested really poorly.”
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"At MC (Montgomery College), all of my professors knew exactly who I was and the kind of art that I was interested in and what inspired me. And so the teacher actually designed an entirely separate curriculum for me and all my projects… and mentally challenged me.”
So, if something goes down in this interview, shout out Community arts colleges, I think a lot of people think that to go into art, you have to go to New York City and go to a fancy art school, but art is not a secret that someone knows and can tell you.”
So what are the influences that lead you to start creating art?
“My first influence was definitely my mom. She doesn't think that she's an artist, she's very like type A whatever, but she loves looking at art. And so, she really encouraged me to look at art. We always have a million things hanging in our house, she loved going to art galleries. And what I’ve learned is that being a good artist is just being good at looking, and it took me years to realize that. When I went to art school everyone was like: drawing is all about looking, painting is all about looking, you just have to be good at looking, and I was like that's such bullshit! But it’s true”
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“I was so trained at how to look at things and how to appreciate and find beauty and things that by the time I started I really made that connection of oh, I like looking at things so I like making them too, because, like colors are naturally beautiful and you just (have) to lead them to beautiful places.”
"Virgins" by Klimt
Rocky's favorite painting
Would you say that your inspiration and influences have changed over time?
“the more I learn about art, the more I realize that it really is this lineage of creation and that with all artists, pretty much since the camera has been invented, the idea is just to create everything that's in our heads”
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“so the more I learn about the lineage of art and the things that people have thought of it adds more jumping points for like oh, I didn't realize people were doing that, let me think of some way that I can add to that.”
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“So I think my influences definitely like change a lot, but the biggest influence of all has just been art through the ages”
So, what makes you want to move into the tattoo space?
“I like making things for people and I like making things that people feel that they really can connect to and experience. I think that one of my gifts as an artist is being able to hear someone else's idea and see it for them and be able to make the things that they might not have fully rendered in their head...into something they’ll really enjoy”
“I like how tattoos make people feel beautiful and really connected with their bodies. I love the idea of doing, like, surgery cover ups for scars and things, to kind of reclaim those areas that they may have felt like they lost.I also really liked the idea that my art will go do things. Pretty much every other art form just kind of hangs on walls or creates one specific space that's beautiful, but I like the idea that my art will be out like teaching classes or like going to jail, or traveling all around the world.”
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“So I think all of these reasons combined, It really feels like the best job for me. like I can't think of (anything else) that meets all those qualifications, to the extent that being a tattoo artist does. And, honestly, It's a little edgy in the art community like painters are much more soft, kind of quiet, behind the scenes, and tattoo artists are definitely more loud and a little bit more ballsy. I feel like I fit into that more, like I'm willing to risk it all for a good tattoo.”
In your journey to stay true to your passion for art, and the way you want to produce art, have you had any challenges along the way?
“Definitely. The decision to drop out of business school to try to pursue creating was definitely something I struggled with a lot, and my parents really struggled with comprehending why I would actively not do something that (I’m) good at and making money at and try to do something… harder.”
“And people are always going to question it like, no matter what I do people are going to challenge my values and my definition of success. So I really have to stay very firm and remind myself that I will be successful once i'm doing what I want to do all the time. If I can go to work and go home and enjoy all of that in between, and wake up every morning and love what I’m doing all day regardless of if i'm at my job or if i'm at home, that is true success to me.”
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In general, how would you say that art has benefited your life?
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“Literally, changed my life. I struggled a lot growing up, mostly because I had really bad undiagnosed ADHD and didn't find out until I was like 17 or 18. And I didn't know the healing and freedom that creating brings. As a creative person in a world that felt very gridlocked with a lot of rules, for a really long time I felt just kind of lost. I was like, where is my place in the world?”
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If you were to explain why these are, like, important to the College park community, how would you do that? How would you say it benefits?
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Well, in general, art is so important because it's beautiful, and things should be beautiful for people to look at. And In the same way, having art on the streets makes you feel like the Community is beautiful. And I think that no one gives that enough credit to those visuals for being such a big part of our mood and how we feel.”
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“Also, having beautiful things places makes everyone feel more connected to the place they live, and I think could really use that. I feel like a lot of students don't treat this community like it's a place they actually live, they treat it like it's a place that they're just visiting to party and then they get to leave. And so, I think if we made it more beautiful, it would encourage people to want to keep it that way.”
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Interview conducted by Sarah D'Souza, edited by Jordan Tisaranni & Jason Lynn