In 1979, Lonnie Holley made his first sculpture. Like most of his art, it was something born out of an ugly situation.
Holley’s niece and nephew died in a house fire in their hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Their mother, Holley’s sister, fell into an even deeper depression when she realized she did not have enough money to buy her children tombstones.
“You can imagine me having to absorb all my family’s tears and my tears,” Holley told The Fader in 2013, “I was just wondering, what could I do?”
That’s when Holley created two baby sculpture tombstones out of discarded sandstone from a nearby mill.
At first, he thought they were just tombstones, but when he realized what the sculptures meant to his sister, Holley began to understand the power of art.
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On February 27, the day before his sold-out musical performance at the USC Wong Conference Center, Holley found his way to the ceramics studio at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts. Nestled between student projects, he worked on a clay sculpture of a mother and child. Cutting away a piece from the base of his sculpture, Holley made sure it was still stable. The thin slab of grey clay appeared as if it would crumble under its own weight in comparison to Holley’s large, ring-clad hands as they ran over the sculpture’s textured surface.
“I made some of them myself, others were gifts,” Holley said, referring to his many rings, “I wear them to protect my fingers when I sculpt.” Each twist and dimple in the clay mirrored the silver knots and bands that adorned Holley’s knuckles, exemplifying a strong emphasis his art practice places on the transformation of scrap materials and integration of the self.
As he worked the clay, an abstract figure of a mother, holding a barely recognizable child, appeared, and he addressed the students about their “responsibility” toward a shaping a life worth living. “After our mothers leave us,” he said, “we are on our own and must learn to want to live.”
As the seventh out of an astounding 27 children, Holley recalled how in his infancy he was kidnapped by his caretaker, a burlesque dancer, and taken across the country as she toured with a revue. When Holley was four, they returned to Alabama, where he was sold to liquor store owners Mr. and Mrs. McElroy. Though he would attempt to run away at various times throughout the years, he lived with the McElroys until the age of 12.
Holley’s search for his mother did not end until his teenage years when word got out that he was spending time in Mount Meigs at the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children. His paternal grandmother found him and raised him, ultimately fulfilling Holley’s dream of being reunited with his mother again.
“I would go from her house to mama’s house, but I stayed with her, and I loved her,” Holley told The Fader. “You see this woman, she rescues you, and then she takes you to what you’ve been dreaming of, but before you get there you still learn lessons along the way.”
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The day after his impromptu session in the ceramics studio, Holley appeared on stage at USC for a performance with his live band, Nelson Patton (named after its members, Dave Nelson and Marlon Patton).
Never performing the same song twice, they improvised songs about growing older and the future. “I’m getting older / I’m getting older, by the second,” Holley, age 69, wailed.
Over the steady rattle of percussion, chimes and snare drums punctuating his words, he told the packed crowd that he longed to “stretch out the time.” We’re “moving on into the future,” he said, encouraging the audience of mostly students and young artists to do the best they can, before they get too old to do it. They responded by swaying to the music.
Holley’s songs energetically blend New Orleans jazz and traditional gospel music. Much like his visual art, Holley’s music uplifts as it simultaneously thrusts us toward the darker shadow-sides. As Holley noted, his music and art hold a “cathartic power” that is not instantly apparent.
Holley, who is largely self-taught, joked that if you think he’s just a “folk artist,” then really, “folk need to study” him a bit more. His artistry lies in his ability to take the abandoned scraps of life— including sounds, as well as found pieces of wood, sandstone, wires, and rags — and turn them into something memorable, something that heals.
As Holley would say, thumbs up to Mother Universe.
Lonnie Holley’s performance with Nelson Patton was inspired by his inclusion in the exhibition Outliers and American Vanguard Art, organized by the National Gallery of Art and that traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from November 18, 2018 to March 17, 2019.
Holley’s appearances at USC were co-sponsored by USC Roski School of Art and Design, USC Department of Art History, the USC Visual Studies Research Institute, and LACMA.