Q&A with Jamie Adams

What is your favorite tool, material, and/or process?
Drawing with a ball-point pen.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received about your work?
Make demands on your own work and exceed them.

What is the best advice you’ve ever given to someone about their work?
Be your own best critic.

Where do you make work?
Sketchbook anywhere…at WashU, coffeeshops, patio, family room, etc…taking pictures of trees and clouds during walks (occasionally when I’m driving although this is not recommended); painting in the studio adjacent to residence.

What do you listen to/watch while you work?
Film score composers—Ennio Morricone, Bernard Hermann, Michel Grand, Bruno Nicolai, Elmer Bernstein, John Barry, Philippe Sarde; various wailers and baladeers—from the Indigo Girls to Bee Gees

What’s your top studio jam?
Sergio Mendez’ Timeless CD; his single That Heat (feat. Erykah Badu & Will.i.am) is a fav. But whatever it is–I tend to play the same song over and over for days…I know this is strange.

Best studio hack OR the skill you’d be most lost without?
Left hand?…although I occasionally switch just in case…

What food can be used to bribe you?
Luigi’s Italian Ice or TroMo (tropical moose shaved ice in Webster Groves)

Do you have a studio uniform? Please describe.
Anything with paint already on it, which is most everything…

It’s the 11th hour before your opening. What are you doing?
Taking Bruiser for a walk; then sipping on a bourbon…

Who or what has had the biggest influence on your work?
Hopper, Courbet, Delacroix, Guston, Michelangelo?

A book you’ve read more than twice is __________________.
To name a few… The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard; Anatomy for the Artist by Jeno Barcsay (my first copy a gift at 10 yrs. old); Courbet by Linda Nochlin; Tradition and Desire: From David to Delacroix by Norman Bryson.

How do you stay motivated?
Keep making, reading, watching, then repeat. If that doesn’t work, take a break and do something completely different.

How do you procrastinate?
Clean the studio, take a walk, read a book, or watch a film. Sometimes it’s procrastination, other times a means of reflection.

Early Bird or Night Owl?
Over the summer my studio session started for years at 4am until 12n before the kids got up [when they were young]; then we all would go on a “St. Louis siesta” (to Shaw Park pool) from 12n – 2pm; then back to the studio until 6pm. Now morning ritual begins at 6am; studio 8am-5pm; studio days are 5-6 days/wk; 7 days/wk in the summer.

Do you have pets? If so, what are their species and names?
We were informed that our dog, Bruiser, is a Shih Tzu Chihuahua mix, but his guard-dog behavior suggests some Terrier tendencies. Not sure if his underbite condition is a curse or blessing, making his default expression [affectionately] a perpetual, gargoyle-like grimace.

Biggest pet peeve?
Getting paint on my ‘good’ clothes…

What is your favorite thing about St. Louis?
Family in close proximity for now.

Epoxy, mineral spirits, or Command-Z?
All of the above.

Tell us something we forgot to ask:
Other obsessions: guitar, writing music, listening to podcasts on various histories while working out.