FACES & PLACES
THE ARTS MAY 2006

Norma Holt
by Caroline Dechert

“ For me, the beauty of life subsists in the simple dignity of being human and living fully and fairly.” ---Norma Holt

It doesn’t take much to lure me to a show of photography. My dad (a photographer, photojournalist, and camera historian) put my first camera in my hands when I was five, and I think my greatest rite of passage may have been the moment he first let me work in his darkroom. So when three different people wandered into the Library one Saturday, each talking about the Norma Holt show, Mother and Child, opening at Sidetracks Gallery on Stockton Avenue, I was sure to stop by.

What do you expect when you hear Mother and Child? It sounds so simple.

What I love best about this show is the way Norma Holt’s work opens the idea, moving from the simplicity and clarity of each separate image into the deeply compassionate complexity of the show as a whole. Yes, the shot of a mother playing with her child in the water, serene in a quiet foreground with a more crowded scene behind her, is “mother and child.” But so are the two grown daughters in Yucatan, helping their mother walk out the door. So is the grandmother, curlers in her hair, peeling potatoes, with the photo of a child (her grandchild?) on the wall beside her. So is one of my favorites, an image from India of daughters’ hands settling the wreaths of flowers around their dead mother’s face.

Yup, this is no cookies-and-milk June Cleaver vision of mother and child. It is, as it should be, far richer and more delicious.

The photographs, mostly in black-and-white, cover more than 40 years and several continents. Here’s a long parade of mothers and children. Holt has an eye for the moment. Each picture captures a story, conveys a character, invokes a mood. The work is beautiful and true, compelling and sometimes very funny (check out “Trinity,” two street characters and a statue of Jesus). Taken as a whole, the show is also entirely thought-provoking.

What do all these children, over many years and many miles, have in common? What sets them apart? What does the very pregnant mother-to-be lying comfortably topless on the beach say about the keening African mother nearby? Holt manages to bring out the common thread, while remaining true to the separate integrity of each subject, each moment. It’s this integrity of vision which allows the work to be deeply compassionate without any descent into sentimentality. There’s no “pity me” in the keening mother, rather pride and nobility. There’s no MESSAGE plastered on these pictures, just space and suggestion enough to allow you to hear what you’re already trying to tell yourself.

Holt’s photographic technique is as masterful as her vision. Her use of contrast makes her images a challenge to print, a challenge so beautifully met that most viewers will probably be unaware of the scope of the achievement. The work is clean and true.

In recent years, Norma Holt has begun to concentrate on new ways of presenting photographs. There’s more art, more technique here than photography alone. She’s worked with vintage frames scavenged from thrift stores. Collaborating with other artists, she’s devised intricate boxes combining photographs, text, and computer-enhanced images. One print is partially burnt, while another unique print was created by burning the slide from which it’s made. The choices are fascinating.

Fascinating choices and compelling images make this a show you don’t leave behind at the gallery. It’s been present in my mind for weeks now (and not just because I fell head-over-heels for a black and white print of a beautiful older woman, quietly reading). That’s why, after two years or more of telling Marilyn I didn’t have time, I’m finally writing for NewHopePennsylvania.com (sorry, Marilyn – I still don’t have the time, but I promise to write more often!). When art refuses to stay stuck on the wall, and wanders off to share your life with you, it becomes necessary to tell other people about it.

As the quote topping this article makes clear, Norma Holt’s words are as eloquent and worthy of attention as her photographs. One of the great joys of the opening was hearing her tell the stories behind some of her pictures: how her subjects reacted, how she caught a particular expression. She’s a treat, insightful, kind, and wickedly funny. If you missed the chance to hear her then, be sure to get to Sidetracks Gallery on May 13, at 7:00 PM, for her gallery talk, Seeing With Compassion.

If you decide you don’t want to go, give me a call and I’ll give you my Arlo Guthrie tickets for that night. I’d rather hear Norma.

Mother and Child ends May 15 at Sidetracks Gallery at 2A Stockton Avenue in New Hope. Contact Norma Holt through Sidetracks Gallery, 215-862-4586, or newhopesidetracks@comcast.net.