Holo Holo and The Questions with Darcy Bartoletti
Holo Holo
I met Darcy earlier this year when I basically forced myself into his studio for a studio visit. I had seen his work online and in coffee shops on Kauai. I like to know what’s going on, and so I called his wife Morgan and I said I want to meet your husband. I like to meet people and bombard them with personal questions about their creative experience, which is their emotional experience, and subsequently their human experience. I like to ask people what it’s like for them to be alive.
I have always been like this. I grew up in a small village in The Hudson Valley and I started walking into town around seven. I liked to go into stores and make a mental catalog of inventories, but really I liked talking to people. I liked asking them how they were, not like oh, I’m good how are you, but like how are you really? And they would tell me, and I loved it.
Sometimes I would wander a little too far and my mom had to be called to come and pick me up. Once in Montreal I wandered off from the hotel room while my mother and her boyfriend slept off a hangover from a wedding the night before. My mother woke up in a full panic. The police were called. My name was yelled over and over. I was finally found in a nearby dojo happily learning karate.
I started flying alone at four in the matrix of mother, father, grandparents, Florida, New York. I like flying. I like going places. I like airports. I love watching planes in the sky because I think everyone in that plane is going somewhere, doing something; they are newly in love or grieving or getting a divorce, or on a business trip, or going on their first vacation. We are all so human on the plane; we are stuck in the liminal space where we are forced to be with ourselves with all our hopes and fears.
I am still exactly like this. I was born like this. It’s who I am. I had a friend die tragically when we were in our mid twenties, and someone speaking at her service recounted her saying to him, Why are you always trying to be somebody? You already are somebody. This was her final gift to me, this beautiful sentiment. I am already me. It’s up to me to decide if I treat that like a gift or a curse.
I had a friend who used to say to me, I’ve never met someone else who could make someone cry on a street corner in under five minutes. People want to be themselves, they want to be seen and heard and acknowledged. We are already ourselves, not our opinions that we learned from our parents, but our selves, our beating hearts filled with a desire to be who we already are and a desire to be connected to others from that place. The world is worse than a shit show, it is heartbreaking and scary, but we have this, we can stand on a street corner and ask someone how they are really doing, and we can listen to their answer.
We can be curious about the world and the people we meet. Curiosity has been my biggest resource in life, to be curious about me, and about you. Watch how everything changes when you decide to be curious about your pain instead of trying to shove it into an already full suitcase and cram it shut.
Holo Holo is a Hawaiian word meaning literally to go for a walk, or a ride. Darcy taught me this word in our initial discussion about his work. It’s about going on an excursion into the world to have fun! It’s about being in nature. An adventure away from home where the rigidity of the mind is not invited, because the mind can be a real pill. It can spiritually reference following your intuition or being pulled by something and doing it even though you don’t understand the why. I fell in love with the word instantly, and then with Darcy’s work.
It is so hard to allow ourselves to pull the string of our own longing and ideas. It is so hard to accept slowness and pleasure into our lives. What if we started from a place of excitement about being exactly who we are, and then we went out into the world like it was the soul ride that it is?
My favorite Carl Jung quote says, The soul demands your folly, not our wisdom.
I love the way Darcy takes us through the beauty of curiosity and exploration in his work. I love the dance of ease and form. I am grateful to him for letting me into his studio and his creative process. I love this interview! I hope you enjoy it all as much as I do!
Let’s go holo holo! Let’s folly!
With Love, Jen
Where were you raised?
Long Beach.
Has the landscape of that place influenced your work in any way?
It definitely gave me a rigorous work ethic. My thinking was that if I worked hard at it one day art would take me far away from there. I don’t mean to denigrate it but the area I grew up in during the 80’s was violent and terrifying. So as a kid I dreamt of getting away.
At the same time it had amazing qualities. North Long Beach also was saturated with character and had a vibrant multi cultural community. For perspective, I recently read that that part of Long Beach has a cultural diversity similar to that of Queens, NY. It was very integrated. We lived in the same blocks and all hung out at each others homes and with each others families. We lived, played and skateboarded together. We walked to school together. Even with constant threats and trauma all around us there was still somehow this beautiful, wholesome and thriving community.
What book are you reading?
Sapiens by Yuval Harari. Its so good! I love when academics can redefine an entire perspective. For example Harari suggests that the actual species that benefitted the most from the Agricultural Revolution was wheat, not humans because wheat was living its best life whiles ours was becoming ruled by anxiety over weather patterns and long, back breaking works days. Our quality of life went way down. I guess I love the idea of grass outsmarting us.
What was the last thing you fell in love with?
Punkie, my 3 year old daughter.
How do you re-charge your creative battery?
For me the creative battery has become totally intertwined with my physical and mental self. They are all dependent on each other. If Im feeling depleted, exhausted, bored, sore, I have to stop working and focus on taking care of myself. When I do that I feel rejuvenated and my creative battery is recharged. Also if I go without expressing my creative self I began to feel irritable and discontent.
A list of things I use to help: prayer/meditation, swimming, hiking/walks, cooking, writing, naps, sauna, weight lifting, dinner with my family, visits to big cities, coffee or lunch with a friend, gardening, pedicures, massages, clothes shopping.
What do you love most about yourself?
My drawing talent and my curiosity.
When and where were you happiest?
Now; An artist raising a family, living and working on the island of Kauai.
We have 24 hours in your city… what should we do?
Get a coffee at Java Kai, my brother-in-law’s cafe, before anything. I know it’s family but I promise their coffee is one of my favorites in the world! Kauai is a small island so I feel like this city question applies to the island of Kauai. The Northshore is a spiritually stunning landscape like nothing I’ve ever experienced. East side, hike in to this waterfall and jump in. Then grab plate lunch from Pono Market and post up at the beach all day. There isn’t much to do here. You either hike mountain or go beach. Its a special place that forces you to be quiet within yourself. So enjoy it.
What do you most dislike?
Fear, failure and death.
What do you do for yourself when you’re having a hard day?
I always try to quickly call someone from a small list of like minded friends and talk about it. This almost always helps me talk myself out of my own predicament. Because most of the time the issue is completely fabricated in my mind. I have created a false story and I am believing in it.
Gratitude lists. They always work.
Before I die I want to….
Live a long, healthy and joyful life with my wife and daughter, Morgan and Punkie.
