We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dani Holway a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dani, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?

I think one of the biggest obstacles I’ve had to face as an artist and student of life is this incredibly prevalent misconception that you have to pick one thing and stick to it. There are these boxes that society, so many creative spaces, and we ourselves construct that we try so hard to squeeze into out of embarrassment, fear, or a false sense of control and order. We always have to label things. This crumpling means making ourselves smaller – limiting ourselves and choking our power in order to be digestible. I have always been multi-passionate (maybe it’s the ADHD), and have never been able to tame my interests. We have to release the feeling of shame and guilt, that fear of perception or what others might think, in order to be trusted with the master key to unlock the many doors the universe lays before us. Life is about exploring, after all.

Dani, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I often rebuke titles because I always have so many ongoing projects overlapping in an endless loop, I’m not sure there’s one specific way to describe myself at any given point. I’ve been a creative spirit my entire life – most likely equipped with two right brains and completely void of a left one.

I currently feed most of my energy into my photography company, Boy Howdy Co, that I co-own with my incredible partner. I’ve always had a camera in my hands as evidenced by the many film albums lurking in boxes in my mom’s garage, but I began seriously investing in learning about photography in high school when my career goal was to become a photojournalist. Instead, I ended up in college for theatre but have always remained a photo hobbyist. One label I’m happy to uphold is hype-woman. I love being the ultimate hype-woman, and photography is the perfect vessel to celebrate rawness in people and in moments. My favorite thing to capture is a combination of the two: people existing and experiencing in moments big and small, hence why we are documentary-style photographers, or digital historians. Our ultimate goal to to mesh our passion for travel and photography – I have some personal projects on the brain but we also love shooting elopements. We also love working with other creatives and arts organizations, and who couldn’t resist a heartwarming engagement, maternity, or family shoot.

I am also a writer. I received my MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I focused my studies on poetry and playwriting. I’ve been published in several online literary magazines and I often teach writing workshops and events around town. My first play, a one-woman show about the aftermath of abuse, was both produced and sunsetted in January 2018. Writing is intrinsic and personal to me – I mostly write without the intent to share, which is very different than my other creative practices. It is my spirituality in a sense; there are opportunities for community but in the end, it’s about my relationship with my own thoughts and feelings. I love hosting workshops for this reason – the space is not for critiquing (although there is a time and places for such classes), but about chipping away at walls and self-imposed limitations. Basically, it’s not about being “good.” It’s a practice of simply being.

I do still dabble in acting and theatre, although I’ve become far pickier about where I commit my energy to in those spaces. This has been the hardest box for me to break, and I find myself more susceptible to belittling who I am and what I have to offer when I don my actor’s cap. I’ve recently found more joy and passion working behind the scenes in script supervision, championing new works, and coaching others through their individual projects.

All of this to say, I maintain “hype woman” is the most succinct way to describe myself and the work I do. Boy Howdy Co is my passion project and available to anyone looking for photography coverage. I am eager and hirable as a teaching artist and when my book gets published, you will be the first to know. Above all else, my mission is to uplift other artists and guide their visions from seed to bloom.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Show up.

Physically show up. Financially show up and support projects, individuals, and organizations within your means. Share artists and their work on social media. Loud and proud, baby! It will never be cringey to be loud about yourself, your friends’ accomplishments, artists you admire, and work you are inspired by or passionate about. I think as a collective we have the best intentions, but since the pandemic, it’s been difficult to get people in the room, literally and metaphorically. There’s a time and place for AI, but don’t use it if you can hire a living, breathing artist. And for goodness sake, tag tag tag the creator of any art you use or share!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn anger. As artists, we are so purpose-driven. We want to change the world. In my 20’s, I was filled with a lot of resentment and rage from my personal experiences and various guilts, defeats, and failures, and I often brought that negativity into my artistic circles (as we are prone to do.) I had very little patience, very little understanding, and no room for forgiveness. I was on a unending soapbox, if you will. I learned there was a stark difference between changing the world through bitterness and changing it through compassion.

There are very few things in this world that are black and white. I believe we all mingle mostly in the grey, where boundaries are meant to both be set and explored. I doubt there’s anyone who hasn’t fallen victim to poor judgement at some point in their life. The true test is in the aftermath of error – what we learn and how we implement it. And if we ourselves have the capacity to change, learn, and unlearn, why would we assume any differently of others?

Contact Info:

• Website: www.boyhowdyco.com or www.daniholway.com
• Instagram: @boyhowdy.co or @xdanimc
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/boyhowdyphoto
• Other: TikTok: @xdanimc

Image Credits

Boy Howdy Co
Jacob Oderberg