McCall Hollister is one of 12 artists selected as a Gallery 263 2024–2025 Small Works Project artist. This project presents artwork in flat files at the gallery and on our website. Visit McCall’s Small Works Project page →
Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I was born in the Boston area, grew up in mid-Michigan, and then returned to Boston a few years ago to get my master’s. I’m kind of a Midwest guy at heart, but I love the trains here on the East Coast.
I recently graduated from SMFA at Tufts with my Masters in Fine Arts and Museum Studies. My background is in museum education, but these days I’m more interested in exhibitions, and I currently work as an art installer. That said, I still love to teach, and I currently am teaching an introductory book arts class.
What kind of art do you make?
I make mostly books, which means I write, I design, I print, I bind, and so on. I’m of the (very biased) opinion that books are the perfect art object, and I want my hands on every part of the process. In a book, everything is relational, with each page and passage working as a part of a larger sequence. It makes me want to learn an instrument.
More recently I’m trying to teach myself film photography, but I’m too impatient to actually learn and I just want to take pictures. Most of the decorative parts of my books (paste-downs, end-sheets, etc) are made from photos I’ve taken. Eventually I’ll make a photo book, or two.
What concepts does your art explore?
I’m a pretty obsessive collector and record-keeper in most areas of my life, and as a result I spend a lot of time thinking about what responsibilities I have to these collections. Like, how to take care of both an individual object and a larger archive.
I collect a lot of rocks in particular. It kind of started as a grounding technique and turned into a habit, and now I have hundreds and hundreds of objects that I take care of.
Can you tell us about the work you have on view in your flat file drawer at the gallery?
I’ve got a mixture of prints, books, and parts of my collection. There are a few blank journals bound as part of a workshop I did at Penland School of Craft this past summer, as well as a diary-esque short booklet I wrote this spring as I prepared my master’s thesis. I have various prints, including postcard size inkjet photo prints, some risograph print experiments, and screenprints of one of my favorite rocks.
And yes, I’ve included rocks in my drawer.
Where do you make your work?
I’m currently studio-less, which means a lot of my studio practice has gotten absorbed into my day-to-day life. Usually that looks like a long period of gathering stuff, kind of writing, gathering more things, fussing about it, sitting on it for a while, and then eventually printing and binding the thing.
These days I spend a lot of time on trains, and so I do a lot of work on the train. I’ve got all these train photos that I’m playing around with, and I’m thinking of what I can do with them.
What are your favorite materials to use? Most unusual?
I have two and a half rock tumblers that I use to smooth rocks and other materials. For a while I was exclusively tumbling bricks, and brick is such a soft material that it nearly melts, and I get all this gorgeous liquefied brick left over. I’m piddling around with how to utilize the liquid brick: In a print? A book? A new brick?
What historical and contemporary artists inspire you?
Harry Dodge, Bill Watterson, Mark Dion, Paul B Precadio, Ben Denzer, David Byrne, Amaranth Borsuk, Ulises Carrion, Keith Smith, Lynda Barry, Sophie Calle, Edward Tufte, Eileen Myles, Scott McCarney, Maggie Nelson, Johanna Drucker, and others.
When did you decide you wanted to be an artist?
There wasn’t one single moment I decided to be an artist, it’s been a sort of continual deciding and re-deciding to do this. That’s just how it goes.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
Please don’t ask me to identify any rocks, I know very little about actual geology.