Renaissance Man
Having traveled from the basketball courts of Tuscola High School to the artist ateliers of Italy, Christopher Holt could easily embody today’s Renaissance man. An athlete in high school, student of literature in college, world traveler and apprentice to a fresco master, Holt has emerged an artist, teacher, and now director of the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas located in the River Arts District of Asheville, N.C.
Holt, 33, is one of some 10 teachers with the Fine Arts League, which is modeled after the atelier method of art instruction in artists’ studios beginning in the 15th century. The school charges its instructors—all professional artists in their own right—with working closely with small groups of students, progressively training them from the basic mastery of materials and drawing to mastering portraiture, landscape, still-life, and etching.
Holt first stepped into the realm of the Fine Arts League the very day the school moved from master fresco artist and school founder Benjamin Franklin Long IV’s private downtown Asheville studio into a larger space on Rankin Avenue a few blocks over.
As a student of Long and other Arts League instructors, Holt honed his art education with rigorous classical realist drawing lessons—subjects that had already been covered in his undergraduate years, but here a professional finesse and classical mastery was key.
The Road to Realism
Fast forward eight years, and the Fine Arts League has moved into a spacious building in the River Arts District, central in the burgeoning area adjacent to the new Glenn Rock Depot. Not only has Holt been an instructor himself, he now manages the school — and all the headaches that go along with running a non-profit.
Holt certainly looks the artist’s part. Ringlets of chestnut hair clasped in a ponytail trail down his back. He’s usually clad in all natural fibers—smart vests, cottony tunics—with a sketchbook never far away. In cooler weather he’s known to don a beret. But more than the exterior, Holt is an artist from the inside out. Drawing at the kitchen table while his mother cooked, Holt was immersed in art since before his feet could touch the floor.
Always encouraged by his parents, he never felt the need to choose between sports and art in school and worked as hard on the varsity basketball team at Tuscola High in Waynesville, N.C. as he did in his art classes. He took additional art classes outside of school, one with noted local sculptor William Eleazer, but kept up his balance of diverse activities right through to college.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Holt studied English literature, drawn to the poet William Blake, and studio art, where he focused on painting. A pattern of an art-filled life began to drown out the other—the art-less life.
“Being an ‘artist’ was just part of who I am,” Holt said.” I really didn’t dream of working in any other profession.”
His parents had expanded his worldview by taking Holt and his younger brother on travels, and a summer as a Folkmoot International Dance Festival guide introduced him to a world of creative performers. Host to a group of Yakuts from Russia’s eastern Siberia, Holt befriended the dance group’s shaman, who thought nothing of jumping on stage with a local bluegrass band at a pub and playing his unusual mouth harp. Such were the moments that opened young Holt’s eyes to breaking down barriers with art.
“That experience made me always open to meeting new people and finding a way to communicate with people even if I could not speak their language,” Holt said.
Cosmopolitan Tastes
Another summer between college years found Holt in London on a university-based study program. “Being so close to all of those museums—both Tates, the British Museum—was monumental,” he said, still with awe in his voice.
He also took himself on side trips to Italy, Paris, Scotland, Wales, Amsterdam. “That whole experience was being immersed in their [the artists’] territory. Having it all in arms reach—all of these artists I had studied—was ideal,” he said.
And it solidified Holt’s devotion to his art. Freshly out of college, he moved to Highlands, N.C., working in restaurants and landscaping to finance his studio work at night. Ultimately he saved enough money to travel to Central America and Mexico. He left a trail behind—murals painted in Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Mexican city of St. Cristobal de las Casas. “Sometimes I would see an empty wall in the courtyard where I was staying and would ask to do it,” Holt said.
He painted a mural in Mexico over the Easter holidays, taking a week to finish the dream-like scene of Mayan symbols mixed with political-philosophical imagery. Some of the murals still exist, some have been painted over, giving a Holt an early glimpse of the fleeting nature of the art world.
By the time had made it to Tulum, he decided to move to Asheville and start out there as a professional artist “because it kind of made sense.”
Bringing It Home
Once back in Asheville, Holt met up with former UNC classmate and artist John Dempsey, already one of Ben Long’s fresco apprentices. With a McClure Foundation grant in hand, Holt began taking classes at the Fine Arts League. Before he knew it, a commissioned fresco in Morganton drew him even further into the fold as one of Long’s apprentices.
Because of the emphasis of the school on the apprentice-master relationship, advanced students were called upon to work on the fresco—an invaluable lesson in an ancient art rarely practiced today.
The excitement of seeing the completed artwork on the ceiling of the Municipal Auditorium of Morganton convinced Holt he was on the right path in his art career.
“One of the big differences between a liberal arts education and what we are doing is that we have strong emphasis on drawing and work with students until they have it,” Holt said. “Just because the semester ends doesn’t mean you are an expert. You are able to learn more and improve without being shuffled onto the next thing.”
When not working on fresco projects, the core of instructors teaches anatomy, cast drawing, life drawing, portraiture, still-life painting, plein aire painting, and as of 2009 portrait and figurative sculpture.
Oil and Water
In some ways the Fine Arts League fulfills its mission well under the radar, molding students (who include college age, adult and professional artists) into classically-trained protégés who go out into the world better trained artists than when they came in. They learn the very basics of traditional methods from making their own ink from black walnut shells, to grinding natural pigments and oils into paint. At the nth hour anatomy classes might seem tedious, but students will know why a certain muscle bulges this way when the body is twisted that way. These are the lessons of Leonardo.
“Ultimately what we are saying is that drawing is fundamental to any artist and we’re there to make them better,” Holt said. “It’s a very serious part of their work and part of their creativity.”
The atmosphere of the school itself immerses students in a netherworld of the Old Masters. Set in the River Arts District—a hotbed of everything from modern experimentation to traditional crafts—these studios nonetheless feel a bit like jumping down the rabbit hole. Moss-green hallways smell of linseed oil. In dark classrooms, easels stand at the ready, a simple still-life set up center stage awaiting rendering—a scene repeated since centuries ago. In a figure drawing class a pale-skinned model lies supine amidst a bed of damask pillows. The low hum of a heater keeping her warm in the cool of the concrete building is the only sound, save some classical strains emanating from someone’s laptop, as students sketch in deep concentration. “We work the exact opposite as our society,” Holt said. “Patience, taking the time to make something fine—things that are beautiful and ephemeral take time and effort.”
Fine Art Future
Patrons obtain a glimpse of these “things” (and the school) during fundraisers, with red wine flowing and completed student and teacher works framed and at the ready for a new home. Since 2010, the Fine Arts League has maintained a presence downtown in the Grove Arcade, another development that Holt has worked to facilitate.
Being director of the Fine Arts League takes Holt away from his own painting at times. The logistics and organization of classes and students, press releases and patron visits, holding board meetings, answering e-mails, fundraising and financing fell into Holt’s lap. “I was the natural choice for becoming director because I was already helping do a lot of the work necessary to make it happen,” Holt said. The arrangement leaves founder Ben Long, who lives part of the year in Italy, peace of mind on his travels.
Collector and patron Carol Pennell enthuses, “Christopher is naturally building strong ties with people. His vision is as much about self-confidence, self-realization and culture building as it is the teaching of craft. Most every one of the individuals that come back to art (from another career) are finding happiness and an individual voice.”
Also a collector of his work, Pennell notes Holt’s “special touch.” One of her favorite pieces is a 16-by 18-inch pen and walnut ink rendering of a mighty tree done while the artist was abroad in Italy, simply titled ‘Tuscan Olive.’
“It is more than just style,” she explains. “If you have met this man—the artist, there is a deep well of kindness in him. His work essentially illustrates his innate and unique reverence towards drawing a subject.”
Step-father to three teenage girls, Holt’s few days away from the school are spent supporting the family at team tennis matches, band concerts, and teaching the girls how to drive.
Ultimately, Christopher Holt will get his time back in the studio, but today, manifold talents that began in mountains of Western North Carolina, were honed abroad and at home, are being put to good use at this center for the arts.
Asheville’s New Cultural Scene
The River Arts District is located along the French Broad River, just minutes from downtown Asheville. The community of artists is committed to creating art, supporting the artists in our neighborhood and producing successful art events.
There are 16 studio buildings housing the work space of more than 140 artists whose mediums include clay, photography, drawing, jewelry, collage, pastel, iron, wood, glass, textiles—even soap, calligraphy and wax.
Studio strolls are held twice a year on the second weekends in June and November; however, artist studios typically are open to visitors whenever the artist is in, and each weekend between 60 and 70 artists can be found at work. Classes often are offered to the public.
For more information, visit riverartsdistrict.com.
Who is Benjamin Long?
Benjamin Franklin Long, IV has established an international reputation as a portrait painter and rare contemporary master of the ancient art of “true fresco,” which is painting directly on wet plaster walls. Born in Texas, Long is the grandson of McKendree Robbins Long (1888-1976), a revivalist preacher and visionary painter whose early art training had grounded him firmly in the Western classical tradition. Benjamin F. Long, IV grew up in Statesville, N.C., and studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Art Students’ League in New York.
After serving in Vietnam, Long traveled to Italy to apprentice himself to Pietro Annigoni in hopes of studying oil painting but found that Annigoni was no longer painting in oil but in the medium of fresco. Undiscouraged, Long committed himself to Annigoni for almost eight years, working beside him in fresco work and teaching himself to paint in oil. Long completed several frescos in Italy, including the only painting by a non-Italian at the abbey of Montecassino, before bringing his fresco talent to America.
A trail of Long’s frescos runs through Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Iredell, Mecklenburg and Wilkes counties in North Carolina. For more information, visit benlongfrescotrail.org.