Melissa Vacek - Interview by Oddist Jones

The American Artists Gallery Interview 3/3/12

with Melissa Vacek...

…on her art, music, and the sources of her inspiration.

By Oddist Jones, South East Regional Editor - The American Artists Gallery

 

Melissa Vacek is a stunning and gifted photographic artist. Her work is both provocative and evocative. Often at first glance her images can be disturbing, but beyond that, after falling into the piece you see that underneath there is always softness, soulfulness and a certain innocent vulnerability. Melissa’s post work on her photos can easily be described as nothing less than astounding. Like an enchantress she adds layers of rich textures and weaves darkness and light to create photographs that often look like they were painted with the finest oils.

    Although her primary passion is photography she also draws, paints, writes and records her own music. Her art is in a constant state of evolution and she has alluded to me that in the near future she will be experimenting on something new and exciting. Here is my interview with Melissa... enjoy!

Oddist: I'd like to start at the very beginning if that’s OK with you Melissa. Can you tell me about your earliest memory when you knew you were an artist?

Melissa Vacek: Oh, I have really no idea. My father does sculpting and painting along with being a musician [and] my mother is a writer who also is artistically inclined as far as sculpting and painting. I watched them and learned from them. I have loved art and wanted to create art since I could remember. [When I was] a toddler my father dedicated a wall in the basement of our house for drawing on and every summer we had a family art project or projects. I really can't remember a time when art wasn't a part of my life or when I didn't think of becoming an artist.

OJ: You have such an amazing and unique style. Can you tell us just a little about your process and the equipment you use to get the wonderful photos you share with us?

MV: Well it all varies as to what it is I’m actually shooting, but it starts with a thought, a dream or a nightmare, a concept, maybe a song, or a feeling. Depending on how crazy of an idea it is, who I ask to model for me, lol… Once I have my model who has the look that I want, then I pull together any props I may need, along with location to shoot, whether that will happen outside, inside [the] studio, etc. Then once I’m done with the shoot, in my computer it goes and [it’s] ready to be processed. Some images take hours and hours of light painting [and] layering of textures, while others may be left more simplistic with just an adjustment and conversion. Most of my street photography and URBEX is straight out of the camera except for maybe a black and white conversion here and there. I first started with a Nikon Coolpix as my camera, a flood lamp, and an old sheet with some push pins, lol! Today, I use a Nikon D90 with an 18-105 zoom and a 50mm. I have [a] lighting kit along with a back drop which I use in my house wherever I can find space. But, for the most part, I love using natural surroundings, because utilizing natural light can really just make an image pop and because some locations give such great mood and atmosphere. All of my post processing is done in Photoshop.

OJ: You do some very impressive work with your layering, textures and lighting. Some of your photos almost look like painting. Speaking of, you've posted some paintings and drawings, how often do you get to work on that and do you have any projects of that kind going on now?

MV: I sketch and doodle; often nothing I would dare ever show anyone [insert smiley face emoticon here]. Painting I love but honestly with lack of space and no studio even for my photography, set up and clean-up is a bit too much for me. So unless the mood hits me I usually will go months without painting. However this summer I will be starting a new project using mixed mediums in my parent’s garage, lol. It will be a mixture of sculpture and painting. The pieces will be roughly 60x60, the largest I ever worked, and it will be a series of 5 which were inspired by some sketches I did a couple of years back. So that should be interesting. It is frustrating when you have an idea and you can't execute it right away due to lack of space. But, right now, everything is just rough sketches on paper with words to help me to remember my idea when I have the time and space to do it.

OJ: Well, I for one can't wait to see these new projects; they sound very interesting. I'd like to close by asking you a bit about music. I know you write and record your own music; can you tell us what you play and how you go about putting it all together to record?

MV: I play piano and have been playing since I was 8. My first two years of high school were dedicated to music theory, history, composition and playing piano as well as bass drum, xylophone and a few other percussion instruments. I play guitar but not very well. The music that I have made and recorded was a sort of rough draft of a collaborative project I did with my father. He's a very talented man of many different artistic disciplines himself, so we got together and developed a few songs. He's the one playing the guitar in recordings that I've made this far. We played a couple local coffee shops but he's not much on public performance so needless to say the project has kind of fell to the way side, but I continue to write songs and play with my father and sometimes even my sister when we all get together. I like a lot of different kinds of music so stylistically I have created a few different songs, but I think out of all of them I tend to lean more towards a folky kind of style; something that tells a story. For the past three years now my main focus has been solely on learning the ins and outs of Photoshop and my camera, so I guess even though music for me is a constant, my developing of new music to record has been on the back burner and will hopefully make a reappearance in the future.

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