We were lucky to catch up with Traci Adams recently and have shared our conversation below.
Traci, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Throughout my 27 years in business as a muralist and illustrator, I have had the honor to work on several meaningful projects that have both made a positive impact in the community and have been profound reminders of why I create art in the first place. Creating mural artwork for elementary and middle schools is one of my favorite aspects of my career as a professional artist. When I am at a school with the students, staff and families coming and going around me as I create, I get to hear their reactions, their comments and their perceptions of my artwork in real time as I am creating it. Witnessing these levels of engagement and gratitude for my artwork allows me to see first-hand the impact my art will continue to have after the project is complete and I am no longer on campus each day. For me, it is a profound experience to know that my art is making a positive difference in the daily lives and education of the kids. It warms my heart to hear them say they want to be an artist just like me. At one school , as the classes walked by while I was working on my first mural there, the kids clapped and cheered as they thanked me for making their school so beautiful. Another group of students came with their teacher to where I was finishing up a mural and took turns telling me what they enjoyed and/or appreciated most about my artwork. This brought me to tears as they said in their own words what my art means to them. My murals are featured in many schools throughout Southern California in districts such as Conejo Valley Unified, Santa Paula Unified, Sulphur Springs Unified, Simi Valley Unified, Los Angeles County Unified, and Newhall School District.
I believe in creating art that sparks wonder and radiates positivity, because positive art makes a positive difference. One way I have put this into practice is by creating a series of illustrations that promote kindness and gratitude. My favorite example of this is a page of small Halloween Thank You Notes that I created. Each black and white whimsical illustration prominently features the words “Thank You!”. They are designed to be colored and cut-out by trick or treaters to hand out to each home they receive candy from on Halloween night as a token of gratitude. I started this tradition with my son back when he was 5 years old because I wanted him to recognize people took time out of their busy lives to buy candy, be home and hand it out for hours. I wanted to instill in him an attitude of gratitude and a habit of kindness. It’s so important for our kids to see how far kindness goes and how it is returned back to you when you show it to others. It’s equally as important to show gratitude because everyone feels good when their efforts are appreciated. Over the years the Halloween Thank You Notes page has been circulated around various communities across generations, allowing more and more kids to participate in this kindness campaign. By coloring them, the kids can add their own personal touch and pride of making something to give to others. I have received many messages about how much the kids ended up looking more forward to handing out the thank you’s than taking the candy as well as those houses that look forward to getting these thank you’s every year. One woman wrote that when she received this little thank you from a trick or treating child, she cried because she had never received a thank you for handing out candy before, she then saved it and put it on her desk. What started out as a little personal project continues to have meaning for so many people by spreading kindness and gratitude, one small illustration at a time.
It is important to me to continue to create projects like this as I did this past year by designing and illustrating a series of postcards that embodied the the importance of spreading love. This “spread the love campaign” was a way to reach out to those that I love and appreciate by giving them each 3 postcards , 1 to keep and 2 to share with people they love and appreciate. Art is a universal language that can have a profund impact on many levels, especially when it is shared.
Another story of a project that is meaningful to me, my hometown, and surrounding communities is a series of large-scale murals that I created for the Eggs N Things Restaurants in Simi Valley, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Ventura and Santa Clarita California. What makes these murals so special is that I took the time to research each community in order to represent its key historical, agricultural and iconic aspects within my artwork. While working on these projects I was able to hear so much positivity in the reactions to my artwork from the staff, the regular patrons and passersby looking through the windows! It was such a wonderful experience hearing the stories from people who grew up around these areas, who recognized elements I featured in my designs, some of which no longer exist, as they shared their memories with me. Even years after these murals have been completed, people continue to talk about them and admire all the details I have included in each and every one. The impact these murals bring to all that see them is not only meaningful to me but to the communities at large and for that, I am honored.
In reflecting on the meaningful projects that I have created over the years, I realize there are so many stories worth telling that it would take an entire book to tell them all. Perhaps that will be my next project, complete with plenty of little meaningful illustrations!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am an artist. It is both my passion and my full-time business. When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by greeting cards and eventually stared making my own cards and gifts with my art. Since starting my first job when I was 15 1/2 as an artist for a local gift shop, I knew I would always be part of the art industry in some way. When I was 18, my cousin asked me to paint some fish on her bedroom walls and from there more and more people started asking me to paint my art on their walls. This turned into a great way to make extra money to help get me through art school. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with Honors in Illustration from The Art Center College of Design, Pasadena CA, I stared my own business, The Dream Painter Wall Murals. At first I focused on creating murals for private residences, pediatric doctor/dentist offices and retail stores. Later I expanded my reach to include model homes, hotels, libraries, schools, restaurants, public spaces, community spaces, museums and more. Each mural that I design is unique to each individual client and location. My background in illustration gives my murals a story-telling element that makes them seem to come to life as well as levels of engagement that offer the viewer more and more to discover over time. My brand is currently expanding to include illustration both commission-based and available for licensing as well as a collection of Snowman Holiday Yard Art that was born out of the Pandemic when I was unable to work on my mural projects. These new editions as well as the murals that I continue to create are my way of living my passion and following my dreams. I am always excited about new projects, my ideas keep me up at night!
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
I believe the best support for art, artists and creativity begins with art education for kids. Making art a regular part of kids’ lives from ages 1-17 fosters creative thinking, collaboration and innovation. One of the best ways I believe this can be achieved is to partner professional artists with children/families to create valuable, sustainable creative connections that can open doors for children to understand where they can focus their artistic vision and how they can make a positive impact in the world. I find there are so many parents that feel art is not in their wheelhouse, is inaccessible to them and they don’t know how to bring that aspect of creativity to their kids. Art is therapeutic and freeing, it is a form of communication, and a method of healing. Arts education with a focus on experimentation is a way for kids to connect to feelings and situations that they may be too young to otherwise understand. Art is everywhere and for everyone. Those are the main aspects of art that should be supported and cultivated to unlock the future creative potential of society as a whole.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
For me the main path to inner peace, happiness, fulfillment and success as an artist is through growth mindset, which is by definition a way to focus my mind on continually pivoting toward my authentic self in the face of all the stuff going on around me that I cannot control. To pivot is to embrace change and move further into my own truth. Over the past 5 years, there have been a serious of events, one after the other, that required me to pivot personally, creatively, and in my business. Wildfires in my areas, evacuation orders, a sudden death in the family, the pandemic and the changes that occurred as we moved out of it, all offered moments where pivot was the choice I had to make to stay alive, safe, emotionally and physically healthy and to keep my business moving forward. These challenges forced me to see things in a whole different perspective and therefore come to further understand possibilities for many aspects of my life that I would not otherwise have recognized. The pivot is sometimes easy to want to resist, to fight or to ignore, but in truth to pivot is an art in itself and a true gift to embrace and be grateful for.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thedreampainter.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedreampainterwallmurals/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedreampainter
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credits
All images and artwork copyright Traci C Adams, The Dream Painter