We recently connected with Tori Holder and have shared our conversation below.

Tori, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Most of what I learned was through trial and error to be honest. While I do have a formal education in art and writing, making zines was a whole new adventure for me. I would say the most influential teacher I had in that space was the work of my peers, going to lots of zine fests and bookshops to see what other people were doing and the ways they had thought up to tell their stories. I still do this, and am always amazed by the amount of talent in the zines and minicomics communities. Additionally, seeing the boundaries other people would push in terms of effort and materials really helped me to feel more comfortable making more complex works knowing there was a market for it. I think my biggest hurdle was actually finding that creative community both for inspiration and to distribute my work. Looking back, I feel that being more open to “putting myself out there” was the biggest lesson to speed things up, not all opportunities will knock, sometimes you need to knock first.

Tori, 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?

My name is Tori Holder and I’m an artist based in Los Angeles, California. While I mostly work in zines, I also do illustration work and collage. Some of my favorite freelance projects have been creating book covers and flyers for events, I always take a special pride in someone asking me to be part of their creative process in such a big way as facilitating its visual component, Focusing on my personal work, I like to make things that are, well, personal, and dive into the subconscious to examine the emotions associated with everyday life that we ordinarily don’t pay attention to. It’s funny, because my work often relates to things that are overlooked or ignored, and I think that element is exactly what makes it so relatable. I think that’s probably the best compliment I get on my work, that it feels very relatable in a way that is very specific to the individual, that it feels like I made something just for them.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I struggle a lot with perfectionism and wanting to realize projects exactly how I envision them in my head, and I think learning that in most respects, “done” is better than “perfect”. It’s great to have big goals and hold yourself to a high standard, but occasionally, wanting to make the best thing you’ve ever made can obfuscate what the thing itself actually is. There have been many times when I sat on a zine or project ages before finishing it because I couldn’t make it live up to the idea. It always ends with me running close to deadline and having to take stock of things in their as is state. I refuse to be late on things, which is a trait that’s really lucky to have when battling perfectionism, as at some point you have to be done, whether to meet the client’s deadline or your own. Additionally, as we move towards a world where things are less and less hand-hewn, the slight marks of things prone to human fallibility become less viewed as imperfections and more as signs of the warmth of humanity.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is always to create the things I wish I could find in the world, and tell stories that not only are relatable to the reader, but encourage them to make their own art, in whatever form that may be. We’re all familiar with the critic’s lament “I could have made that”, but I think it’s encouraging in a way – okay, make it then, make it better, make it weirder, make it so impossibly you that there’s no way I could have made it. There’s nothing I strive for more in my art than to continue the tradition of inspiring others to create, and to revel in the endless creative possibilities life has to offer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://toriholder.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/thattorih
• Other: https://patreon.com/toriholder

Image Credits

image of Tori Holder: Joanna Hoang
All Other Images Courtesy of Tori Holder