We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Adam Kraft a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Adam, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

“Adam Kraft” is a pseudonym I started using as an artist. I do have a regular job, and I’m glad I decided to pursue it one day. I work as a teacher, and this job shares some parallels with my childhood dream of being a performing artist. In the classroom, like on a stage, I stand in front of others, putting on a show. Before some classes, I also experience a bit of stage fright, and at the end, if I’ve done a good job, there’s a sincere thank-you.

However, this wasn’t originally planned. The teaching job was a compromise I made to avoid selling myself short. I prefer not to sell my art but to keep it ‘clean’ and ‘unblemished.’ Saying ‘no’ feels better than letting it go for a bargain…

So, I make a living through a full-time job, and in my free time, I create to relieve stress. Nothing feels better to me than the moment of bringing an idea to life and seeing the result on a medium. I’ve had my happiest moments being alone in the dark in an attic I use as a studio, whether it’s 26°F or 104°F. In those moments, there’s a sense of intensity, pride, and awe. It’s almost like witnessing a birth. The self-portraits have a great physicality because they require a lot of precision and stamina. It can be exhausting and lead to sore muscles. Those moments are a real high for me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As I mentioned at the beginning, there was this desire in my childhood to be on stage. I wanted to dance. However, in the 80s in a small town, this wasn’t the hobby one would wish for a boy, as my parents thought. I didn’t dare to fight for it, and so that door remained locked.

The affinity for creative expression persisted, though, and I eventually studied visual communication, focusing on photography. Unlike many of my fellow students, I never enjoyed exploring and documenting the world of others. They tried to interest me in journalism and fashion photography, but it didn’t resonate with me. I have never enjoyed photographing another person, and I remember always choosing the seemingly most remote paths during my long walks with the camera. It was always about expressing my personal emotions.

By the way, you’ll find me in front of the old masters at the museum. I love the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio and the melancholy of Caspar David Friedrich. If there’s anything I avoid, it’s conversations among photographers about their equipment. I use a camera, but I have no idea how it works. So, one could argue that I would be better off being a painter…

But I stuck with the camera, and as a nature lover, I began to reflect my feelings through landscapes and flowers. Then social media came along, and with its profiles, one could easily create a stage for oneself. That’s how the first self-portraits in the dark emerged.

So, everything is a bit contradictory. On the one hand, the need for self-presentation; on the other hand, extreme shyness. But isn’t that the essence of the stage: light and shadow?

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

As an artist, one often finds oneself in peculiar situations. I have an obsession with stolen flowers that I need for my pictures. They are more beautiful than the purchased ones and they generate more adrenaline. For a still life, I was searching for a water lily. Since you usually can’t buy them, I spent a while stalking the lakes and ponds in the neighborhood. Eventually, I found a private pond with the perfect white water lily in it. Inhibited and non-communicative as I am, I now faced a problem. How could I make it mine? Since the flower had to be picked during the day, waiting for night time was not an option.

My solution: As the football World Cup was taking place, I waited for the day when the German team had their big game. This gave me a window of 90 minutes in which I could wade into the pond undisturbed. Since then, I associate football with flowers. I love contradictions. By the way, the mentioned pond is now surrounded by a fence.

So, my message to the non-creatives: Perhaps the weird or annoying scene you encounter is the problem-solving of an artist.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I get to do unconventional things, things that go beyond the norm, and that is enriching. Often during my day-long hikes, I don’t touch my camera even once because I don’t find a compelling subject. It feels better to take no photo than a bad one. This has become quite normal for me.

However, as I like the feeling of bringing something home, I started collecting fruit on my hikes to make jam. Thus, a series of jam jars emerged, whose content is more meaningful than the arbitrary goods from the supermarket.

Under a hostile highway bridge, I found a set of fine Romanian cake plates with a gold rim, now displayed in the showcase. It’s like proof that dark places can hide surprises.

On a cold winter morning in January, I went to the Berlin Tiergarten to seize the rare opportunity to walk on the frozen lakes, to be where one usually couldn’t be. On an ice surface covered with virgin snow, I found this little dead bird. During these freezing temperatures, it must have fallen from the sky like a stone. The spot was in the middle of the lake, no trees nearby, and the snow around it was untouched. That moved me, and I brought the dead bird to my studio. This led to one of my still lifes.

I owe these little stories to my detours as an artist, and I am glad that they now accompany me continually. They are hard to come by in the office.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adam_kraft_art/