In the Studio with Tracey Adams
March 6th, 2025
Tracey Adams virtually sat down with us to discuss her professional background, sources of inspiration, and her creative practice. Adams is drawn to intersections: ideas that seem to be at opposite ends of a continuum, like the organic and the geometric. Her starting points vary and often come from something personal such as an experience or a piece of music.
Since her graduate studies, Adams has been deeply influenced by American composer and music theorist John Cage who informed a sense of patience and change in her studio practice both visually and in her creative process. Music is ever-present within her work, evidenced in the visual intervals and patterns of her minimalist, abstract works on paper.
Moreover, Adams is interested in the physical engagement that creates a sense of performance while creating. While making each piece, Adams strives to stay in the moment and let the work surprise her, never knowing how a painting will look until it’s finished. Her creative process stems from the dualities of order and play allowing each work to evolve through intention and chance, resulting in a deeply personal expression of her thoughts and feelings in that moment.
Though her work, Tracey Adams seeks to externalize internal environments found within herself. Inspired by the words of the late jazz musician Charlie Haden that, “the artist’s job is to bring beauty into a conflicted world,” Adams aims to convey a sense of quiet and calm both inside and out.
CBCA: What’s your background? Did you always want to be an artist?
TA: Music has allows played an important role in my life since I was a child. I earned a Masters Degree in Conducting from New England Conservatory. While there I was drawing and painting posters and record album covers for our concerts.
CBCA: What excites you to make your work? Why do you make art?
TA: In addition to music, being in nature and living near the ocean excites me. I have been using images from sea life and plant forms in terms of abstracting and reducing them to their essence. I have an endless supply of wonderful shapes and lines I incorporate into my work.
CBCA: How do you begin a work? Do you research? If so, how?
TA: Initially, I prepare my panels with layers of torn Japanese paper. When that has dried, I begin culling from my huge pile of cast-off drawings and encaustic monoprints, tearing, placing and gluing them eventually to the panel. I work quickly without thought. My collage paintings take a long time to finish as I only work a couple of hours before letting them sit for a day when I can return with fresh eyes.
CBCA: What do you do to procrastinate?
TA: Row on my rowing machine. Not really procrastination, but a way of staying healthy.
CBCA: What artist(s) or movement(s) have influenced your work?
TA: Rauschenberg, Mitchell, Marden, the Minimalists
CBCA: What are you trying to communicate with your art?
TA: Balance, Serenity and Beauty
Tracey Adams
Tracey Adams
Tracey Adams
Tracey Adams
Tracey Adams
Tracey Adams
