What motivates people to put their hearts on the line and create a work to share with the world?
Self-described digital alchemist Ann Tracy recently visited The Bee to share her artwork as part of a series of in-house discussions we're having with creative people in our region. She used her time to suggest ways to prevent or surmount creative blocks.
You may know Tracy not as a visual artist but as founding director of the Beyond the Proscenium theater company. She lives in Sacramento's Woodlake area with her husband, three cats and a dog.
For this installment of our "Creative Drive" series, we asked Tracy to do all the work for us. Here she is, showing us how she deals with creative problems.
– C.M. Anderson
Features Editor
By Ann Tracy
When it comes to creativity, sometimes you just sing a silly tune and at other times you do a few jumping jacks. I make these and other absurd stops along the way to creating digital alchemy with my photographs.
If a wall pops up between my muse and me, I make up a silly opera about what's blocking me and go outside to sing it in a cartoon voice. (Yes, that was me in Woodlake Park the other day.)
I write about the fear that produces creative blocks in florid prose, then take the paper, throw it on the ground and grind it under my heel.
I daydream, build castles in the air, gather wool, take a flight of fancy, puff on pipe dreams. Note all the active verbs for this passive activity.
I keep a notebook handy to write down all the ideas I get, even the crackpot ones, because I can always edit them out later.
I exercise, hoping to stimulate the mind-body connection. I read books and magazines about subjects beyond my expertise. I perform tasks like brushing my teeth with my less-dominant hand. The effort puts a different part of my brain to work.
I play the "what if" game: What if this image were upside down, how would that affect the composition. What if I take the theme I'm trying to work out and do the opposite?
Keep the channel open
I don't worry about appearing absurd. I don't think an artist can afford to worry about that.I often think of modern dance doyenne Martha Graham exhorting ballet choreographer Agnes DeMille to "keep the channel open. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you."
Graham admonishes artists to not judge themselves but to keep working.
I work even when I'm on vacation. In fact, I get much of the inspiration for my digital art from photographs that I take on my travels, some of them shot from the windows of planes, trains and automobiles. While others pass by these humdrum scenes without a thought, I pause, feel and imagine.
Inspiration from surprise source
In a series of recent works called "Power: Grids and Shapes," I recalled shooting photos from the window of a train going from New York to Washington, D.C. I felt an emotional attraction to the images of old factories, transformers and power lines.I created another series of art for the Nada Motel show in Reno in June. I went out to West Sacramento to shoot photos of the old motels there.
When I got back to my studio, I didn't know what to do with them.
Rather than focus on my block, I decided to just do something else, anything else.
I went flipping through other images and ran across some old French line drawings with naughty images.
Suddenly, ooh-la-la, the NO Vacancy sign sputtered on.
Why not pair these images with my motel photos?
I fussed and played with the images for hours upon hours upon hours before I finally felt I'd gotten it right.
Coming back from Reno, I savored my success: the sales slips tucked away in my purse.
Ann Tracy will exhibit her digital alchemy at George Streng's Photogenics Studio, 415 First St., Woodland on Nov. 7 as a result of networking she did at the Nada Motel show in Reno.
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