Burlington native Margaret Lindsay Holton to do a SOLO show at the Hamilton rescue station.

theartsBy Pepper Parr

August 31, 2014

BURLINGTON, ON.

 

Those people who earn their living as artists – have a rough row to hoe. Artists get asked to do any number of things for free. We all assume that their art is far too expensive and we want to buy too cheaply, hold it until the artist become famous and then sell for a fortune.

Holton H&S

Margaret Lindsay Holton

Burlington artist, Margaret Lindsay Holton is having a family-friendly SOLO art exhibition in the Hamilton Beach Rescue Community Hall at 316 Beach Blvd, on the Hamilton Beach Strip, Sunday, Sept.14th, 2-5pm. FREE lemonade, with free parking at the back of HBRU. ‘

Holton summer haze cover

Summer Haze; Piano improvisations on a century-old Bell Upright – Performed by Margaret Lindsay Holton

Holton ranges over several disciplines – never adverse to trying something new and different. Along with her art, Holton will be releasing a CD, Summer Haze; Piano improvisations on a century-old Bell Upright.

Pinhole photography is something Holton has been doing for years. She describes this as “the oldest known form of photography on the planet first used in Asia around 500 B.C, and in the West, around 500 A.D.

For Holton this is photography without the use of lens or fancy gadgetry that lets a small pinhole of light into a completely blacked-out cavity. This incoming ‘pinhole’ of light creates a reverse image of what the pinhole is facing, in other words, a ‘negative’. Today, from this ‘negative’, a ‘positive’ print is pulled using conventional darkroom developing techniques. In other words, the ‘positive’ photo image is what you see as a ‘finished’ photograph.

Holton Bailey'sBrow.mlh

Leaves you with the sense that you are seeing both summer and the beginning of the fall colours.

Holton is fascinated that any ‘image’ can transfer without any mechanical intervention. She likes how this process forces her to ‘slow down’ in the act and art of taking pictures. Pinholing is the epitome of ‘slooow photography’. An exterior shot, on a good bright, cloudless day, can easily take 3-4 minutes of exposure depending on the camera she am using. She only get ONE shot per camera. Interior shots can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, again, depending on the incoming pinhole light source.

Holton SugarShackFreelton.mlh

Sugar Shack: Crisp feel, strong colours – about as Canadian as you can get.

Hamilton Spectator art critic Jeff Mahoney had this to say about Holton pin hole work: “Perhaps more than any of the other arts, photography is the horse that memory rides on. Music can take us back, but it is not documentary in nature. And literature, for all its reach, precision and poetry, remains essentially abstract, from a sensory point of view, everything left to the imagination.”

“A memory is not what happened, it is not the thing that is being remembered. It is a shadow of what is being remembered, and a picture is a shadow of that shadow.”

“We try to get at memory to get at the life, the time, the emotion behind them. But the sources are no longer available and immediate to the direct senses. Their residue in the brain gets mixed up with static; extraneous feelings, psychic noise, dream and mental error. We use pictures and other media to get at memory, to fix it. And that confuses an already confused issue even more. Pictures are partial stories, subject to perspective and quality of light, leaving out much — smell, sound, touch, temperature, heart rate, context.”

“How are all these ideas contained in Holton’s art? In two ways. Computerized photo collage and pinhole photography. In the first, the collages, Holton uses computer manipulation to layer several colour photographic images, sometimes of the same subject taken from different and/or overlapping angles, sometimes of different subjects. Now this is what memory looks like. Or at least feels like.”
“Memory’s Shadow confirms our impression of Holton as an important mixed-media practitioner, with a genuine artist’s eye and a probing intellect.”

This is an artist worth spending some time with.

Holton SummerBreeze.mlh

Moody, soft use of colour leaves a sense significantly different than the Sugar Shack piece.

Directions: If driving in from either Niagara or Toronto on the QEW, take the Eastport Drive ‘turn off’, and then turn into the ‘Hamilton Beach Community’ via Beach Blvd. Beach Blvd is only one long road for the length of the beach strip. The Hamilton Beach Rescue Unit – 316 Beach Blvd – is on the west side.

If you want to follow Holton – make a note that she is partaking in ‘Doors Open’ on Sept 27th at the Different Drummer Books, signing copies of a new WW1 short story anthology, ‘Engraved: Canadian. She has one story in the 16 piece anthology.

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2 comments to Burlington native Margaret Lindsay Holton to do a SOLO show at the Hamilton rescue station.

  • Really pleased to let you know that Margaret Lindsay Holten has very generously donated one of her pinhole photographs to the 2014 Doors Open Burlington event which will take place on Saturday, September 27th,as part of Culture Days, September 26-28,2014. One lucky person will take home a very beautiful piece of art created by Margaret.

  • lyn

    Thanks Pepper! Always nice to get a helping hand 🙂 BUT, just to be clear, the emphasis at the Hamilton Beach Rescue Unit Community Hall will be on newer digital photo works & recent acrylic paintings. A pinhole ‘sampler’ will be there, but I’m saving most of that aspect of what I do for the up-coming Fine Art Society of Milton ‘Studio Tour’ in the first weekend in October. (I’ll be showing at another artist’s home on Cedar Springs Road.) Still, I’ll have lots of new goodies at the Beach Strip show! ~ Hope to see you at the HBRU on the 14th! Cheers, mlh