Tracy Sharp: 00:00:01 ... Ran the hose on the porch above, and I had a piece outside that I was varnishing. I wasn't paying any attention, because a lot of times when I'm painting, I have music on just drowning out everything. I'm just in there, and then all of a sudden I look and I just see the paint just running down. But it was like this very dramatic moment for me, because [crosstalk 00:00:25] lost it. So, yes. Even with painting, that can happen. Or you just overwork something and then it just turns to mud.

Tina: 00:00:33 And then you can't ... Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:00:34 Is your daughter, is she okay? Is she good?

Tina: 00:00:37 She's okay. I had to go get her early from camp this year. She had kind of a thing and I had to go get her, and then now she's having kind of feelings of ... So, I took her to her psychiatrist yesterday thinking ... She's going to a therapist. She's been going since day one. I'm great with that, but I thought, I'm going to get her assessed by a psychiatrist. Very serious, right?

Tracy Sharp: 00:00:57 Right.

Tina: 00:00:59 I was pissed when I left there.

Tracy Sharp: 00:01:01 What? What?

Tina: 00:01:01 I was there for 14 minutes. 14 minutes. And they went down a checklist. Do you feel guilt? Do you feel depressed? Do you feel whatever? Asking an 11-year-old, do you feel guilt? She's like, "What's guilt?" She's 11. At the end of it, the woman goes, "Well, she's depressed. We'd like to put her on Prozac."

Tracy Sharp: 00:01:16 Are you kidding?

Tina: 00:01:17 I said, "Are you [inaudible 00:01:19] kidding me?"

Tracy Sharp: 00:01:19 Right. You paid money for that? 14 minutes.

Tina: 00:01:24 And you're going to put her on Prozac?

Tracy Sharp: 00:01:26 Yeah.

Tina: 00:01:26 She's 11. You're not even going to see how serious, if you can ... You're just going to medicate it? No. I was like, "We're done here." I wasn't very civil, because I was like ... And then she said, "Well ma'am, you should understand that a psychiatrist's job is to prescribe medicine."

Tracy Sharp: 00:01:44 What? Oh.

Tina: 00:01:44 Now, I'm a words person, so I'm like, "Okay, no it's not. That is a function of your job, to solve a larger mental issue. It is not your job function."

Tracy Sharp: 00:01:56 Right.

Tina: 00:01:57 In that office, 14 minutes. I timed it, 14 minutes, she was ready to write a scrip for Prozac.

Tracy Sharp: 00:02:00 That's horrifying.

Tina: 00:02:02 It was horrifying to me, too. It was horrifying to me, too.

Tracy Sharp: 00:02:03 Not that there isn't a time and a place for medication, but just to take such little time to figure that out.

Tina: 00:02:11 And here's the thing that really set me off ... Mic is on by the way.

Tracy Sharp: 00:02:13 That's nauseating.

Tina: 00:02:15 Here's the thing that really set me off though is ... You go in, and you have to do a book of intake form crap.

Tracy Sharp: 00:02:25 Right.

Tina: 00:02:25 Father suicided ... Write all this pretty sensitive stuff down that-

Tracy Sharp: 00:02:27 And remind me, this is very recent, right?

Tina: 00:02:29 Last year. Last March. So, I give it to her, and 30 minutes later, they call her back. I'm assuming that they've gone through so when we get in there, I don't have to repeat it in front of her. We don't have to ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:02:41 Right. Bring it all back up. No.

Tina: 00:02:43 "So, tell me about Elizabeth." I'm like, "Did you glance at the intake?" "Yes, but I'd like to hear it from you."

Tracy Sharp: 00:02:48 Oh, and she's there.

Tina: 00:02:52 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:02:52 Tell me about a person that's sitting right here. Why don't you ask her?

Tina: 00:02:55 Yeah. And I said, "Well, here are the main things that have happened in the past. Her dad ... And she goes, " Oh, I'm so sorry."

Tracy Sharp: 00:03:00 Who was it?

Tina: 00:03:01 I'm like, "So you didn't read it?"

Tracy Sharp: 00:03:02 Who was it?

Tina: 00:03:03 Somebody that was like number one on Yelp. I'm never doing that again. I was pissed. I'm still pissed, you can tell I'm still pissed.

Tracy Sharp: 00:03:10 You've got to find someone to recommend-

Tina: 00:03:15 That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to her play therapist and some other people I know and just ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:03:18 People that know you and know her, because-

Tina: 00:03:23 And I need a psychologist apparently, not a psychiatrist.

Tracy Sharp: 00:03:26 Right.

Tina: 00:03:27 I was thinking psychiatrist, because I thought they were the [inaudible 00:03:29] of assessment. Apparently their job is to ... I was pissed. I'm still kind of disillusioned.

Tracy Sharp: 00:03:36 See, I have great ones, but they're all men, and she probably would be more comfortable ...

Tina: 00:03:42 She's good either way, but if they're kids, I'm great. Sorry, switching. I'm doing [crosstalk 00:03:49] and adding in stuff.

Tracy Sharp: 00:03:53 That's the point. You've got to go and get her.

Tina: 00:03:55 At some point. She's starting drama club today.

Tracy Sharp: 00:03:58 Good. Good.

Tina: 00:03:58 Really, I hope that becomes a thing. Like Jay is O.M. Norlin at a painter. You're still just Tracy Sharp. You don't change your name.

Tina: 00:04:07 Now, you are welcome to keep these and read or sign today. Everybody's been doing it a million different ways.

Tracy Sharp: 00:04:13 I can sign them.

Tina: 00:04:13 Right. Dear Tracy.

Tracy Sharp: 00:04:16 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, hopefully the drama club will be a little bit of an outlet. And she enjoys painting, right?

Tina: 00:04:25 She loves it. She goes to Color Wheel.

Tracy Sharp: 00:04:27 Yeah. Do you have space in your house for her to paint? Yeah, good.

Tina: 00:04:33 Yes. Or to do whatever it is.

Tracy Sharp: 00:04:36 Right.

Tina: 00:04:36 I talked to ... You and I talked about this the first time is like how it feels. I talked to an art therapist, she was referred to me, and I was talking to her, and I'm like, "Well, I must come and interview you," because I think I'm going to ask her to write the forward, she lives in Marietta. I thought she was in New York.

Tracy Sharp: 00:04:55 Oh, no way.

Tina: 00:04:55 I was so excited.

Tracy Sharp: 00:04:55 Yeah, I have some art therapists, too, if you don't find a good one, let me know.

Tina: 00:05:00 She's good so far. I'm interviewing her next week. I sign. Isn't it the 15th?

Tracy Sharp: 00:05:09 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tina: 00:05:12 Not that it really ... There's you.

Tracy Sharp: 00:05:18 How long did she make it in camp?

Tina: 00:05:20 Two weeks of a month.

Tracy Sharp: 00:05:24 Oh. Did she go with a friend?

Tina: 00:05:25 No, but she's been going to this camp since she was five.

Tracy Sharp: 00:05:29 Oh.

Tina: 00:05:29 Five. So, they know her.

Tracy Sharp: 00:05:30 Right. She just couldn't be away from home right now.

Tina: 00:05:34 She was afraid ... And you're [inaudible 00:05:36], she was afraid something was going to happen to me. Because she said, "That's what happened with Dad."

Tina: 00:05:44 You're just last page.

Tracy Sharp: 00:05:47 Okay.

Tina: 00:05:47 And then you keep one. [inaudible 00:05:49] execute it.

Tina: 00:05:53 Because that's what happened with her dad. He dropped her off at school one day, and she never saw him again. So, she would go to bed crying, wake up crying.

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:00 Yeah, that's going to be a thing.

Tina: 00:06:05 It's hard.

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:09 Any time any kind of drop off or goodbyes.

Tina: 00:06:13 She won't even go to sleepovers now.

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:16 That's okay.

Tina: 00:06:17 That's what I said, too. You know what? I'm great.

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:20 Just bring them to you. Just keep bringing them to you, because eventually, she will. And still, I know for you, it probably feels like forever, but that's really not that much time.

Tina: 00:06:27 No. And it's-

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:29 Time moves slowly when you're in pain, but it's like-

Tina: 00:06:32 And when you're a kid-

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:33 So slow.

Tina: 00:06:34 And I feel like it's a season change thing.

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:36 Right.

Tina: 00:06:36 Now it's back to the ... It just was the season where it happened again

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:40 Right.

Tina: 00:06:40 So, kids were ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:43 All those triggers. What she was wearing, the way-

Tina: 00:06:46 And camp, her dad used to take her to, and it's a plane ride, a car ride, a ferry ride. He used to take her a week ahead of time and spend the week at the beach with her, so it all just ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:06:59 Oh, that makes such sense, doesn't it?

Tina: 00:07:01 Yeah. But she went last year, right after it happened. But the therapist said she just was in denial that it happened.

Tracy Sharp: 00:07:07 I get it.

Tina: 00:07:09 Right, me too. The whole thing made sense to me, but I was like-

Tracy Sharp: 00:07:11 I react that way in trauma. Initially, I'm fine.

Tina: 00:07:14 Right. I can take care of everything. I got it. And then when you're-

Tracy Sharp: 00:07:15 Yeah. I'm fine. And I always ... Do you want this?

Tina: 00:07:20 No. I don't need it. As long as mic is ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:07:22 And then when I process is when I go, "Oh," because you know, in the beginning, I'm always so stoic, like, "Look what I'm doing." And then all of a sudden I'm like, "I can't get out of bed."

Tina: 00:07:38 We're alike like that. I take care of all the business.

Tracy Sharp: 00:07:40 Oh, shit yeah. People just looking at me like, "Do you need any help?" I'm like, "No, I got it. I got it. I got it." And then all of a sudden I faceplant. And you would think at 50 I'd figure it out, but I'm like, "I think I really got it this time." [inaudible 00:07:55].

Tina: 00:07:58 That happened to me. Somebody explained this to me, and I thought it was great. She said it's kind of like a trap door. You're going along, and all of a sudden ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:08:02 Right.

Tina: 00:08:03 I'd be at Publix, and I'd be like, "He used to eat that cereal." Random things would ... And then for her, can you imagine being 11? All that shit. Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:08:16 Tina, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

Tina: 00:08:18 But what I'm trying to do is get her, strong woman-wise, to go, can't define you. Part of you, but can't be the defining thing that you are. You are not that. It happened to you, and you put it where it happened to you, and that's it. We're having those talks, and she's like, "Okay, Mom."

Tracy Sharp: 00:08:37 You know, as a result of all of this, as hard as it is to see her go through this, but she is going to have such skills. You know what I mean?

Tina: 00:08:50 I totally ... And she already has the ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:08:52 I hate it.

Tina: 00:08:53 She sees pain in other people like that.

Tracy Sharp: 00:08:55 Of course.

Tina: 00:08:56 Like the other kids in the waiting room were coming over, and she was, "Are you okay? Would you like to look at this?" She's got a thing. She's got a thing.

Tracy Sharp: 00:09:06 So empathetic and intuitive.

Tina: 00:09:08 But what the therapist said, I thought this was interesting, and then we'll get to you. The therapist said she does that to mask facing her own.

Tracy Sharp: 00:09:16 Of course. I do that.

Tina: 00:09:18 But it didn't hit me.

Tracy Sharp: 00:09:19 Yeah. I do that.

Tina: 00:09:21 And then sometimes do you get mad?

Tracy Sharp: 00:09:23 Let me help you with your stuff. Let me help you with your stuff, because it's avoidance.

Tina: 00:09:25 And then sometimes, do you feel like, where's my help?

Tracy Sharp: 00:09:28 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tina: 00:09:30 But quiet, no one else ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:09:33 Of course. Of course.

Tina: 00:09:33 So, let's use that as a transition, because I was reading your titles and your artist statement, or what the galleries have listed for you, and I noticed it's all either transformation, or rebirth. There's a lot of chrysalis and ... What were some of the other titles of strength?

Tracy Sharp: 00:09:59 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tina: 00:09:59 And I love it all seems like it's from something to form something more. So, I just wanted you to talk a little bit about that, because it's such a theme, or it seems to be. Maybe I misinterpreted it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:10:11 Right. No, it absolutely is, because I really came into painting in a huge transitional time for me, because I had just gone through a divorce, and I kind of just slingshotted into a career in real estate, which is bizarre, but I was really looking for security, because I was terrified. I was on my own with two kids.

Tina: 00:10:39 How old were you?

Tracy Sharp: 00:10:39 I was 38.

Tina: 00:10:43 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:10:45 So, two kids, on my own, and on my own for real.

Tina: 00:10:50 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:10:50 He was living in Bangkok. My ex-husband was living in Bangkok.

Tina: 00:10:57 I don't remember that part. Wow.

Tracy Sharp: 00:10:59 Yeah, so he was gone, gone.

Tina: 00:11:00 So, you were an only parent, for all intents and purposes?

Tracy Sharp: 00:11:03 Exactly. Exactly. And you know what that's like.

Tina: 00:11:06 I do.

Tracy Sharp: 00:11:10 So, I just immediately fell into real estate. It was a good time to be in real estate, and it was something that I could enter into quickly, because I had been a graphic designer previously, but stepped out of work when the kids were little. So, it had been two years since ...

Tina: 00:11:28 Which is a lifetime in the business-

Tracy Sharp: 00:11:30 A lifetime in design.

Tina: 00:11:32 Yeah, especially now with the technology changes like that.

Tracy Sharp: 00:11:36 Right. And I needed to ramp it up fast, plus I just wanted change. Like anything different. So, I immediately ran to that, and you know? It wasn't bad. I really, actually enjoyed it. Like I said, it was a good time to be in real estate, I enjoyed working with buyers, helping them find their little nest. And then I just kind of fell into painting. My son and I had done a small piece. It was not significant. My mother painted in her garage, so we would go over there and visit with her while she was painting. The kids had Big Wheels, and all this stuff in the garage to play with, and they literally would set up obstacle courses in the studio and out into the-

Tina: 00:12:23 While she was painting?

Tracy Sharp: 00:12:23 Oh yeah. Absolutely. And even drive over the canvases themselves, because if you talk to anyone, I'm sure they would tell you the hardest thing is white canvas. It's almost easier just to mess them up and then something happens.

Tina: 00:12:40 Paint over it versus this clean, white pristine ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:12:42 It's so intimidating. Something just stark white is haunting. What am I going to do? So, Max and I had done something, and I wish I had saved it. I had no idea it would be important, but Marianne Lambert who is a curator here in Atlanta came by the studio to pick up an auction piece of my mother's, and she saw this little doodle and inquired about. My mom said, "That's Tracy and Max," and she was like, "Oh, tell her to call me." So, I called her.

Tina: 00:13:16 And you were ... How long after the divorce?

Tracy Sharp: 00:13:18 It was two years.

Tina: 00:13:22 Okay.

Tracy Sharp: 00:13:22 It was two years. So, I called her. She invited me to do the small pieces show at the Swan Coach House, which was the perfect introduction, because if you've ever been to that show, it's like 100 artists. It's not intimidating at all, and all the pieces are tiny. They're under eight inches by eight inches.

Tina: 00:13:44 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:13:45 So, I was like, "I can do that. Eight by eight."

Tina: 00:13:45 Yep.

Tracy Sharp: 00:13:47 And in an ocean of amazing, so it was like, no fear there.

Tina: 00:13:52 Had you been to that show yourself before?

Tracy Sharp: 00:13:54 Yeah. My whole life, because my mom was a painter.

Tina: 00:13:57 Right. So, you knew it, you knew the format.

Tracy Sharp: 00:14:00 Yeah. I knew the format, I knew what the show was like, and I was honored to be a part of it. Marianne does a good job of kind of curating that show and that probably about half of it is established artists, and then the other half is just anybody.

Tracy Sharp: 00:14:19 So, I kind of jumped in. It was just four pieces. It was not that big a deal. I'd never painted before, ever. Even though my mother was an artist, and I grew up around it, I had just never painted. I went into graphic design, I was creative, but I had never painted anything in my life. So, I painted these four tiny little pieces, put them in the show, and during the time that the show was up, I was invited by Matre Gallery to join the gallery.

Tina: 00:14:49 Wow, from the four pieces?

Tracy Sharp: 00:14:52 From those four ... Well, the four pieces turned into 12, because they sold and then I replaced them and then I replaced them.

Tina: 00:14:57 I see. I see.

Tracy Sharp: 00:14:57 So, something happened. Something sort of sparked. It just kind of flowed from there. I joined Matre, and it was not long after that that they offered me a solo show. It was bizarre.

Tina: 00:15:18 So, like within a year?

Tracy Sharp: 00:15:20 It just happened. Within a year. Within a year.

Tina: 00:15:23 That is huge.

Tracy Sharp: 00:15:25 Yeah.

Tina: 00:15:25 So, it was meant to be. The path was, this is what you're going to do.

Tracy Sharp: 00:15:30 Right. You know when things just ... When you're in flow, when things just go, you don't stop. You don't question. You just-

Tina: 00:15:37 Were you still scared?

Tracy Sharp: 00:15:39 No. Because I was totally in flow. There was not time to get scared, you know what I mean?

Tina: 00:15:46 Yes, I do.

Tracy Sharp: 00:15:47 There were no pauses. Sometimes in life, whether it's art or anything that you're doing, this book for you, when it's flowing, you're not afraid, because it's moving so easily. When you're moving in ease, you don't have those pauses where you kind of get-

Tina: 00:16:06 You're exactly right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:16:06 ... Caught up in fear.

Tina: 00:16:07 You're exactly right, because it is amazing to me that I reached out to you all, who are established artists, and ... Do you want me to get it? [inaudible 00:16:16].

Tina: 00:16:20 Established artists all over the country, different galleries. We talked about the ... Scott.

Tracy Sharp: 00:16:26 Right.

Tina: 00:16:27 All those things keep happening.

Tracy Sharp: 00:16:28 How does that happen?

Tina: 00:16:29 How does that happen? And nobody said no. One person, Maggie Taylor, said no. And what's funny is, when I was interviewing Greg Noblin, she is his mentor.

Tracy Sharp: 00:16:41 Of course she is. Of course she is.

Tina: 00:16:44 Of course. Right. So now, when those things happen, I'm like ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:16:47 Yeah. I spoke to Thomas Dean today and I was telling him about you and this opportunity, and he was like, "That's amazing. Where did she find you?" I'm like, "In Nashville."

Tina: 00:16:56 [inaudible 00:16:56]. I had you written like I have to [crosstalk 00:17:00].

Tracy Sharp: 00:17:01 In my backyard. She found me in Nashville. So, it was like-

Tina: 00:17:06 I live like seven miles from you.

Tracy Sharp: 00:17:08 I know. I know.

Tina: 00:17:08 Because I thought I was going ... Well, Nashville is a four-hour drive, so I was mapping out San Francisco ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:17:13 Right. But when you are moving in flow like you are, everything comes together. And at this age, at 51 years old, it doesn't even surprise me anymore.

Tina: 00:17:26 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:17:26 You know what I mean?

Tina: 00:17:27 Right. Of course.

Tracy Sharp: 00:17:28 People say, "Oh my gosh, can you believe that this just happened to be here?" I'm like, "Yes."

Tina: 00:17:32 I can.

Tracy Sharp: 00:17:32 "I can totally believe, because I've had that experience now so many times."

Tina: 00:17:36 So many times. And if you're paying attention, it happens more than you think.

Tracy Sharp: 00:17:41 If you're aware. If you're aware.

Tina: 00:17:42 The little guy that's laying out the book was referred by a friend of mine. He's like, "Oh, this guy lays out books for people all over the country." [inaudible 00:17:49] I wrote him, and we've been going back and forth, and he laid out this little children's book I did, and I was like, "For this book, I'd like to meet you, because we're not going to do a bunch of words and a bunch of pictures. We're going to flow it together and pull out quotes and all of this, so I'd like to meet you. Where are you? I'd like to come ..." Marietta.

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:04 Of course. Right here.

Tina: 00:18:07 He used to live in-

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:08 Where am I flying?

Tina: 00:18:09 Marietta.

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:09 Marietta.

Tina: 00:18:11 In your car.

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:11 Right.

Tina: 00:18:12 I live on 3rd and Maxwell, he lived on 3rd and whatever, and they just moved up.

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:17 I know. It's just not a surprise.

Tina: 00:18:21 If you're on the right path. I think if you're fighting what you're supposed to be doing, then it's hard.

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:26 It's learning how to move with it.

Tina: 00:18:28 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:28 It's learning how to move with it.

Tina: 00:18:30 And to let go.

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:31 Yeah.

Tina: 00:18:32 Like, "Okay, that wasn't ... Okay."

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:35 It's trust. And that's the beauty, I think, of getting a little bit older.

Tina: 00:18:38 I totally agree.

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:40 I'll hear people say, "Oh, don't call yourself old." Because I'll say, "Oh, I'm so old." I'm like, "I love being old. Don't take that away from me."

Tina: 00:18:46 You say that like it's a-

Tracy Sharp: 00:18:49 Being old is amazing, because I don't question things anymore, and I don't hesitate, because like you said, as long as you're moving in flow. Everybody experiences it. It's universal. Flow belongs to everybody in different degrees. With you, your book has flowed. Athletes call it the zone. John Coltrane, Miles Davis, they called it being in the pocket. Everybody has had that experience of absolutely every door just opening.

Tina: 00:19:21 Yeah, without even cognizant thought. It just kind of ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:19:24 Right. Right.

Tina: 00:19:27 I'll just follow up on a hunch, and I'll be like, "Oh wow, perfect person."

Tracy Sharp: 00:19:31 I know. I know, and even this synchronicity of Scott and I.

Tina: 00:19:33 Yes.

Tracy Sharp: 00:19:34 For sure. You know?

Tina: 00:19:36 That was interesting. And then this stewardship between Matthew Taylor and ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:19:43 Yeah. The world is huge. How does that happen? You're looking at artists all over.

Tina: 00:19:49 And randomly. Randomly. Like cool artists. This gallery has a link to that. Just ferreting around.

Tracy Sharp: 00:19:58 But also, also, and a big part of your story, and a big part of my story is coming from that place of, unfortunately, this big transition. There's nothing like life's hard pieces to really open you up. And if you allow it, and if you keep your eyes open, open, there is always good stuff that will come to you. But it's a common thread as well. It's a common story. And a lot of people that kind of find themselves in this space of things just kind of happening and happening and happening and happening, a lot of times, it happens after hard.

Tina: 00:20:44 Right. You're right. Random Tuesday. No, it's ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:20:47 It usually comes from a place, because when you were coming out of that space, your heart is so open, you know what I mean?

Tina: 00:20:55 Whether it's wounded open or just hurt. Whatever it is.

Tracy Sharp: 00:21:02 Yeah.

Tina: 00:21:02 You're right about that. And you're not in that hamster wheel mind space.

Tracy Sharp: 00:21:07 No. No.

Tina: 00:21:07 You're in like, "Okay."

Tracy Sharp: 00:21:09 And you've already faced a bunch of fears and you've already climbed a bunch of mountains.

Tina: 00:21:14 And you've seen the worst that can happen. You're like, "That's worse than ..."

Tracy Sharp: 00:21:15 Right. Right. So, really, am I going to be worried about-

Tina: 00:21:20 What people think.

Tracy Sharp: 00:21:21 ... Starting this book and calling up people that I've ... Just going online. Is that going to stop you? Not anymore.

Tina: 00:21:29 And I think that's what the energy was in the exact words that were chosen in the people that I ... There was something that I didn't fight and I just went with it, and I have this amazing ... You guys are so different, yet there's been a thread. What's interesting is, as I'm interviewing, I'm about halfway done, someone came from their thing was a drugs background. They were healing from that. Somebody was coming from she had to raise her mother who was sick her whole life, so she's very maternal, because she had to ... And this other person has this social anxiety, so all of his pieces are from what the feelings were like. There's something that everyone else will be able to go, "Oh, that one. Oh, that one," or "I can get that."

Tina: 00:22:13 So, I love that there's all these different points of access, but to the same ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:22:17 Oh, I'm sure there's a lot of common ground.

Tina: 00:22:20 It's been the coolest thing I've done in my adult life is talk to you guys and just hear-

Tracy Sharp: 00:22:24 And us for you, too, because we all share something. We all share something. We all share this.

Tina: 00:22:31 It will be cool, the opening. Oh, and I talked to ... This is kind of interesting, too, I talked to somebody who-

Tracy Sharp: 00:22:36 And you are going to put yourself in it, right?

Tina: 00:22:39 Yeah. I think you have to put that thread.

Tracy Sharp: 00:22:42 Yeah. A bit of you and your process of creating this book, because it's the same. It's all the same.

Tina: 00:22:48 Everybody wants to know how it came about.

Tracy Sharp: 00:22:50 Right.

Tina: 00:22:50 And I think that's the ... I talked to this guy who is a sound editor, so he's going to take these ... I'm going to take the transcripts and clean them up, and then he's going to make soundbites, so if someone wants to come in and hear you. So, there will be a website that supports the book that ... I know, I'm excited about that. But all this stuff is just starting to come up as we go through.

Tina: 00:23:13 So, when we were talking about, especially this one I think personifies it, I'm looking at a painting in Tracy's space, remind myself. What we're talking about seems like what you capture. The energy of those things and the start of-

Tracy Sharp: 00:23:28 The transient moments.

Tina: 00:23:31 Yes.

Tracy Sharp: 00:23:31 Those transient moments.

Tina: 00:23:32 Because I'm looking through all your work and it's kind of there. And you talk about how thick they are and how many layers they are, and what you ... And you have coffee in some of them and lots of different wax in some of them.

Tracy Sharp: 00:23:44 Yeah, even down to the materials. It's the duality. It's the human experience. That balance between vulnerability and strength. You know what I mean?

Tina: 00:23:55 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Sometimes being vulnerable is showing strength.

Tracy Sharp: 00:23:59 Of course it is.

Tina: 00:24:01 Right. A lot of people don't see them as ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:24:02 Of course it is. Yeah. It takes a lot of courage to allow yourself to be vulnerable. And I think that's why the artist's story, the creative story, your story often follows one of those epic moments.

Tina: 00:24:17 I think you're right. I think you're right.

Tina: 00:24:19 So, when you ... Let's talk about the white canvas. When you see, do you have in your heart, head, body a feeling? Do you have it visually already in your head? Where does it come from that you get to this space? Or this space? Or this space?

Tracy Sharp: 00:24:38 I never have it visually in my head, I usually have a feeling. Like a feeling. These pieces, both of these pieces are mantra pieces. This is part of a new body of work that I've been working on. If you can look, you can see the words.

Tina: 00:24:56 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:24:56 Often times, I meditate every day and I will meditate on a mantra and sort of create and generate a certain type of feeling. And again, sort of tackling that white canvas. I'll scribble the mantra all over the white canvas, and then I'll start painting over it. And then I'll scribble it some more, and paint over it. Scribble and paint, scribble and paint. There's plaster on this one. And then, all of a sudden, shapes start to form. Shapes start to form. It's the same with these coffee pieces, because if you throw coffee on something, and then you throw acrylic or oil, because coffee mixes with nothing, all these accidents happen. All these accidental qualities happen. Everything starts to kind of separate. Even with the words here. The paint smears the words across the canvas. Words are dragged, and all of a sudden, you're creating these sort of muddy spaces and then these hard lines. Then something kind of comes together. You start seeing something. You know what I mean?

Tina: 00:26:01 Yes. I love what you're saying. Because that's what just happens, words have weight and a life once they're out.

Tracy Sharp: 00:26:07 Right. Right.

Tina: 00:26:08 And you're starting to give that movement to just a ... It's not just a word once it's said. It's got baggage and it effects the things. It's like a ripple effect.

Tracy Sharp: 00:26:17 Exactly.

Tina: 00:26:17 I love that.

Tracy Sharp: 00:26:18 And it is movement. So, as much as I can, I try not to think. As much as I can, when I'm working on a piece, I'm working pretty close to it, and I'm just trying to sort of react to what's going on.

Tina: 00:26:34 So, you're a vessel, not ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:26:35 Well, just intuitive. Just intuitive. And then you step back and you see what's happening, but putting too much thought in things for me, it can be the death of a piece.

Tina: 00:26:49 Too much control versus-

Tracy Sharp: 00:26:50 Too much control. Too much control. And for me, it's best to just move with it. To just try to flow with what's happening and the important thing, too, is to know when to just walk out the door. When to just leave it.

Tina: 00:27:05 Leave it not done, or leave it when it's finished, or both?

Tracy Sharp: 00:27:10 Just leave it. I don't know if a painting has ever been finished, to be honest. Sometimes you just have to walk away, and perhaps ...

Tina: 00:27:16 I think that's going to be the last line of the book. I love that.

Tracy Sharp: 00:27:16 I really ... Thank you.

Tina: 00:27:17 I never know if a painting is ever done. Sometimes you just have to walk away.

Tracy Sharp: 00:27:18 Yeah. It's never done.

Tina: 00:27:31 It's not about it being done, it's ... I love that.

Tracy Sharp: 00:27:34 Yeah. It's never done. It's never done. It's like life. It's never done. It just continues on. It's energy. But it is, it's the hardest thing in the world sometimes just to step away. And then you come back the next day, you see something completely different. You know what I mean? It's interesting.

Tina: 00:27:54 So, when you're at a show, one of your shows, when you have pieces in a show, or it's your show, and you are walking around, and maybe they don't know who you are, or you just are around and they haven't caught sight of you yet, and you hear people talking about your work, is it interesting to you what they see different from what you had in your head? Tell me about what it feels like when they're seeing something different or just ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:28:22 It's fascinating, really, because for all people that create, whether it's words, music, or art, it's just your expression, but the way people receive it is completely different. Like all things. My experience of absolutely everything is completely unique from yours, and from the next person, and from the next person. So, it is. It's interesting. For the longest time, I really resisted ever even titling pieces, because I feel ...

Tina: 00:28:53 Too heavy-handed-

Tracy Sharp: 00:28:54 I still struggle with it, because I feel like it sort of implies a meaning, and really, the meaning lies in you. Once it leaves me, it's my expression, but then it becomes something new. It sort of, again, it just transitions. It transitions into this experience with the viewer or the person that brings the piece into their home.

Tina: 00:29:19 Is it hard for you to let go of pieces?

Tracy Sharp: 00:29:24 Sometimes. Sometimes.

Tina: 00:29:27 Because of what they've been cathartic for you?

Tracy Sharp: 00:29:31 Exactly.

Tina: 00:29:32 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:29:32 Yeah. It depends. There are some pieces, because like anything where you're expressing yourself, you're getting things out, so some of them are kind of hard to let go. And preparing a show is interesting, because you're more or less kind of hoarding work, right? Like it's building and building, and you're kind of creating this thing. And then, in one instant, in one afternoon-

Tina: 00:29:59 It's pilfered.

Tracy Sharp: 00:30:00 ... It's gone.

Tina: 00:30:00 Right. Right. It's been like ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:30:04 It's like this tiny little death of like, "Uh, where did everything go?" You know what I mean? All at once. But again, and in the beginning, it was more difficult than it is now, but it's just that kind of letting go, like we do with everything. It's like the point where you publish your book. You're going to be letting it go. Giving it its own wings to go and do whatever it's going to do, and people are going to experience it in their own way.

Tina: 00:30:32 And there will be people that, I have to be used to this, there will be people that don't like it, or that poo it for some reason, or don't get anything out of it. And it's been ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:30:46 Really?

Tina: 00:30:47 I don't even know what she said. That was funny.

Tracy Sharp: 00:30:49 God? Are you talking to us? What's going on?

Tina: 00:30:54 Did I say Alexa or Siri? That happens at our house sometimes. We'll say something that begins with an A and Alexa will be like, "Hmm, I don't know that one," or "Let me tell you a limerick," and we're like, "What?"

Tina: 00:31:05 But yeah, it's been ... And you guys seem like you all know this, but I'm learning, it's been interesting to meet people ... "Well, what are you going to do with it when it's done?" I'm like, "I don't know. I don't care." That's not my objective, as you know. Or, I think a lot of people don't start things because they can't see the end. And I think it's interesting. I think there has to be this definitive, I'm going to sell it for this, or I'm going to put it here for that.

Tracy Sharp: 00:31:33 There's no end. It's never finished. Right.

Tina: 00:31:37 It's been interesting, because people are like, "Oh, so you're writing it, but you don't know what it's going to ..." I'm like, "Mm-mm (negative), I don't." Along the way, though, I've got a bazillion cool ideas for how to market it, because that's what I did for 25 years.

Tracy Sharp: 00:31:49 Right. Right.

Tina: 00:31:49 So, that's all coming out, and at the right time. But if I would have done a business plan, I think it would have hurt what it's going to be.

Tracy Sharp: 00:31:58 Right.

Tina: 00:31:58 And ultimately, hurt whatever the end state is.

Tracy Sharp: 00:32:00 Right. It's the same. It's like I was talking about, putting thought into it. If I'm thinking too much about it, I'm stopping the process. I'm stopping that flow. And the same for you. You just have to do, you have to trust, let go of your fear.

Tina: 00:32:17 Not easy for me.

Tracy Sharp: 00:32:18 For all of us. Right? Anyone that says they've got that, I don't know that they're really being fair, because it's tough for all of us to just trust, and to put ego aside and just to be with it, whatever the outcome. You never know if something is going to be received. You never know.

Tina: 00:32:45 Yeah. You never know. Or when.

Tracy Sharp: 00:32:46 Yeah. And if you get-

Tina: 00:32:47 Look at these people who died penniless and then their art becomes ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:32:49 Right. And if you get caught up in that, you'll never move.

Tina: 00:32:54 Or you'll ruin what it would have been.

Tracy Sharp: 00:32:56 Yeah.

Tina: 00:32:56 Because it's funny, I went to the Winnie-the-Pooh exhibit at The High.

Tracy Sharp: 00:33:00 Is it great? I haven't been yet.

Tina: 00:33:04 For you, yes. I think there were a lot of people that were like, "Oh, it's just a bunch of drawings." I'm like, "Oh my God."

Tracy Sharp: 00:33:09 Drawings [crosstalk 00:33:10].

Tina: 00:33:10 It was how it came about. He just observed his son and started sketching, and they have the sketches. Wouldn't you want to see that rather than the plush toy? Wouldn't you want to see where it came from? Here's the bridge in Sussex where they look over. And that came ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:33:29 That's how it was born. Yeah.

Tina: 00:33:31 This dad and this illustrator, whose kids were friends ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:33:35 Oh really?

Tina: 00:33:36 Yes. Right, see, you're going to get how brilliant it is that it was just this dad's honest representation of his kids playing with his toys. And they showed the original toys, what they looked like, and the sketches. And then the illustrator, whoever, R.H. something, Milne I think, would hear ... They would talk, and then he would go and sketch what he heard. And they have the whole evolution of it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:34:05 That is so freaking amazing.

Tina: 00:34:07 Right, but there are a lot of people in there that are like, "I don't know, I thought it would be different." I'm like ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:34:14 What were they thinking it would be? Of course it would be that. Of course it would be evolution of the birth of Winnie the Pooh.

Tina: 00:34:24 But they had some of the original ... Right. Right. What did you think? It was a drawing. That's how it [inaudible 00:34:27].

Tracy Sharp: 00:34:27 That's amazing though, that they were friends. It's kind of like the parallel between the person who is designing the book for you, doing your book.

Tina: 00:34:33 Yes.

Tracy Sharp: 00:34:33 Because it's somebody that you already have a relationship with.

Tina: 00:34:37 Well, I want him to hear some of the interviews and stuff so he knows, when he's working with these words and these pictures, what's behind it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:34:44 Yeah.

Tina: 00:34:46 So he goes, "Oh, this has to be cared for. This isn't put ..." You know?

Tracy Sharp: 00:34:49 Yeah. Oh, he will. Oh, he will.

Tina: 00:34:52 He gets it. Oh, he gets it. Oh, he gets it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:34:53 Oh, he will. He's an illustrator. He gets it. He gets it.

Tina: 00:34:56 Oh, just from talking to him, too. You can tell how open someone is. Not judging, but just how open they are. How many times they've been around.

Tracy Sharp: 00:35:05 Right. Right. Right.

Tina: 00:35:09 So with you, I feel like we've explored you a little bit, but now I want to go way back, because I think this is interesting. You were around your mom, viable artist, your whole life. Never painted?

Tracy Sharp: 00:35:28 No.

Tina: 00:35:29 She never ... Talk to me a little bit about, never came in and said, "Hey, pick up a ..." because you painted with Max. Talk to me about that. Growing up with a mom artist, but never ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:35:40 We would do things together. We would do things together. More or less like projects, but it's a common thing, actually. Shadow issues, right? If you have a parent that is just super, super dynamic, a lot of times, it's the shadow and you do not want to go into it.

Tina: 00:36:03 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:36:05 With my kids, their father played professional tennis. They didn't play tennis, barely picked up a racket-

Tina: 00:36:12 Because you couldn't be the-

Tracy Sharp: 00:36:13 ... Until they were ... Yeah, until they were much, much older, because they didn't want the attention, they didn't want the expectations that come with that, with having that parent. So, yeah I never painted.

Tracy Sharp: 00:36:27 Now, of course, I would spend hours and hours in my mother's studio, and she has funny stories. I can barely remember, but she had something on an easel once and I was little, tiny, tiny, and she said that she had gone to fix lunch or something, and she came back and I had signed my name huge on one of her paintings. She was like, "What the heck, Tracy?"

Tina: 00:36:55 Actually, that's adorable, though.

Tracy Sharp: 00:36:56 Yeah, so she's got some funny stories, but I just ... It never even occurred to me, actually.

Tina: 00:37:03 Just asking. I'm reading into, and you tell me, was it ... There could be two things going on. One is, you kind of wanted to try it, but didn't want to, so you write your name. Or is it that, "Mom, I want you to see me, and not paint." Did she spend too much time painting?

Tracy Sharp: 00:37:17 No.

Tina: 00:37:18 Or was just, I feel like signing my name? It was just a silly [crosstalk 00:37:21].

Tracy Sharp: 00:37:22 I'm just going to sign my name and claim this work of beauty. No. She surrounded me with herself all the time.

Tina: 00:37:31 Yeah, you seem very close, because of ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:37:32 And I think a lot of times, too, with parents, you're trying to find your own path. You want your-

Tina: 00:37:39 You don't want to be ... Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:37:40 Right. You want your way, and you want to be independent. The hysterical thing is, I grew up with a mother that painted and she taught yoga, and I now, at 51, am a painter and teach yoga.

Tina: 00:37:56 You're your mother.

Tracy Sharp: 00:37:57 Exactly.

Tina: 00:37:57 You want to be your mom, you don't want to be your mom. You want to be your mom, you don't ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:38:07 Just like that. She's lovely, but it's just that, I think it's for all of us, we want that independence. We want to find our own way, and then all of a sudden, you look up and you go, "I'm right here. I'm home."

Tina: 00:38:22 Right. Right. Hi, Mom.

Tracy Sharp: 00:38:23 I did, and she's right there. I'm literally home. I see her every day. But it's just interesting how life happens. And I've talked to a lot of people that have had similar experiences in different things. How they kind of venture on their own way and then they just find. They look up and it's almost like, "How did this happen? I am my mother." You know?

Tina: 00:38:41 Right. Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:38:42 How did this happen?

Tina: 00:38:43 Same. I left my mom in Orlando, I'm going to go off and get in the business world and do other stuff.

Tracy Sharp: 00:38:48 Of course.

Tina: 00:38:48 She lives an hour from me on Lake Oconee, I see her all the time, we're both single, we like to travel. Starting [crosstalk 00:38:55].

Tracy Sharp: 00:38:55 Yeah, it's happening.

Tina: 00:38:57 But I'm embracing it, versus when you're a teenager, you're like, "I am my own."

Tracy Sharp: 00:39:00 Right. Right.

Tina: 00:39:02 So, when you and Max had done that painting and the gallery person said, "Call me," was mom like ...?

Tracy Sharp: 00:39:14 No, because I think she knew. My mother is pretty amazing, and I think she knew ... She understood flow and she understood what it meant to absolutely move forward without fear. She was very nonchalant about it. She said, "You ought to do it." She was so casual.

Tina: 00:39:32 But she knew better than to ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:39:33 Yeah, she knew how important it was to just ... She was completely almost non-reactive in the most loving way.

Tina: 00:39:41 In the best way.

Tracy Sharp: 00:39:42 Because she felt like, even then, and she's told me it was always my path. She said she always knew it was.

Tina: 00:39:50 Interesting. And you didn't until you were ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:39:56 No. Because I knew it was possible because she did it, but she was amazing. She is amazing, so I just could never allow myself to go there. So, when all of this is happening, and she's been so supportive throughout this whole process, there's no way I would do what I do without her, because all of this happened and all of a sudden, Matre had asked me to join the gallery, and then there was another dealer that was doing a show in Denver and wanted to take my work there. This is all happening right at the same time.

Tina: 00:40:33 Oh, right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:40:33 This wasn't even Aspen, this was before Aspen. So, she basically said, "Oh my goodness, I love these little," when you talk about sketches, "These little sketches. I would love to see them in paintings." Well, I've never done a painting, right? But she says she'd love to see them in a painting, and she says, "I'm going to a show in Denver in like three weeks." I can't remember. It was a very short amount of time for someone who had never painted anything. And even these pieces that I did for Swan Coach House, they were more like little drawings than they were paintings. And I had no space to paint. I did them on my dining room table.

Tracy Sharp: 00:41:17 So, I agreed to do that. That was my first big commitment, and my father was still living then. They were just amazing in terms of being really, really involved with my kids and they were like ... It was the first time that I was kind of like, "Oh, I've got to somehow fake it until I make, because I've got a short amount of time to do this body of work."

Tina: 00:41:39 And have been called out to do it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:41:41 Right.

Tina: 00:41:42 Right, yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:41:44 And I don't know. I wouldn't say that it was fear that crept in. There was a mild amount of anxiety about producing these ... I think it was-

Tina: 00:41:51 Logistically, or creatively, or both? Because of the timeframe.

Tracy Sharp: 00:41:56 It was really just logistically.

Tina: 00:41:59 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:41:59 It was really just logistically, because I've never done it before, so I couldn't anticipate, can I do this in three weeks? I have no experience whatsoever.

Tracy Sharp: 00:42:10 So, I ordered these boards and went and picked them up, and they were like five 36 by 36 boards. She loved portraits, so I was going to do some portraits. I love portraits. I love faces. So, I go and I pick up these boards, and my mom says, "You know what? Dad and I will take the kids, and you can use the studio and we'll go for like three or four days. You can do it." Again, like three or four days? What the heck? But Mama, wait.

Tina: 00:42:55 Wait. Wait. You know this stuff.

Tracy Sharp: 00:42:55 Wait. Wait. Wait. She's like, "You've got it," and they left. So, I barely slept.

Tina: 00:42:57 I'll bet.

Tracy Sharp: 00:42:59 Not because, oh my gosh, I've got to get this done, at all. I barely slept because I was like, "Oh my God, this is that? This is that? This is painting?" It felt so good. I barely slept.

Tina: 00:43:13 Yeah, so keep telling ... Because you couldn't wait to ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:43:19 I couldn't step away. It was like that first experience of really just moving around the room, not thinking about anything, and just doing. It was amazing.

Tina: 00:43:37 Was that like your-

Tracy Sharp: 00:43:37 Absolutely amazing. I was like, "Okay, this is what that is." I had no idea. I still don't have any idea. Don't get me wrong, I know nothing. I know absolutely nothing, and the older I get, the less I know.

Tina: 00:43:50 That's when you're wise. That's when you're wise.

Tracy Sharp: 00:43:50 Right? But in that moment, it was like, "Okay, this is that. This is painting, and I want to explore this. I want to do this." I never thought-

Tina: 00:44:06 But you didn't feel like, "I'm walking around in my mom's shoes and they're too big?"

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:09 No.

Tina: 00:44:09 You had your own experience [crosstalk 00:44:12]-

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:12 I just was doing.

Tina: 00:44:12 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:13 And I wasn't even thinking, "Oh, I'm going to be an artist." I was just like, "This is amazing and I want to do it more."

Tina: 00:44:19 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:20 I'm still practicing real estate. I'm just doing this as a little fun thing. I'm going to-

Tina: 00:44:27 But it's gaining momentum and it's starting to eat more of your [crosstalk 00:44:30]-

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:29 I'm unaware.

Tina: 00:44:30 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:30 I'm unaware.

Tina: 00:44:31 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:32 I'm unaware. I'm just doing and I'm not thinking, and things are happening. Things are happening, things are happening. And again, much like painting this painting, I haven't stepped back to look yet. I'm just doing, doing, doing, doing.

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:45 And then it really wasn't until that moment, I had been painting really for just about a year, and at this point, I had joined several galleries [crosstalk 00:44:55] mentioned Aspen is ...

Tina: 00:44:56 Right. Right. Right. Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:44:58 But things are still ... I still have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just doing it.

Tina: 00:45:03 You haven't stepped back yet. I love that. You haven't ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:45:05 No, I have no idea what's going on. I'm just moving through it.

Tina: 00:45:09 So, we haven't gotten to the point yet ... Remember the story you told me about there was the packet on the table?

Tracy Sharp: 00:45:14 No, this is it.

Tina: 00:45:15 Okay. Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:45:16 But it's just a year deep. How crazy is that? Like when I look back on it, I think that's impossible, but it was time. It was time for me to renew my license, I had done continuing education to certify for the extension, and the check, the envelope, it sat on the table. And it sat, and it sat, and it sat, and it was like three weeks of just going by it, looking at it. I just knew, Tina, I knew ... Like you know, sometimes you do know that if I tried to straddle that fence, that I wouldn't be giving anything all of my attention, and that the only way to really, really explore this would be to let go. I had to let go. I knew it.

Tina: 00:46:13 But you didn't have anybody to ... You were a single mom at this point, so it's even more ... It's not like you could say, "Hey, you're going to-

Tracy Sharp: 00:46:17 It's a bit decision.

Tina: 00:46:17 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:46:17 It's a big decision.

Tina: 00:46:21 I just wanted to make sure we drew that out, because that's a big deal. It makes it a bigger deal, because there are bigger implications.

Tracy Sharp: 00:46:26 Absolutely. My kids were young. Young, young. They were, let's see, four and nine. Yeah, that's young.

Tina: 00:46:41 Yes.

Tracy Sharp: 00:46:42 And just me. Literally just me.

Tina: 00:46:45 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:46:45 So, it was a big step, but at the time, I knew it was big, but again, it was just kind of moving with it.

Tina: 00:46:55 Big and right is okay.

Tracy Sharp: 00:46:56 Yeah. And I just ripped up the envelope, and I do remember every minute of that. Literally standing over the trashcan and just shredding that, and being like, "Okay, this is it."

Tina: 00:47:08 That was one of your ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:47:10 Yeah. Here we go. Here we go.

Tina: 00:47:12 And then what? What was it like? Trashcan lid closes, and now you're an artist.

Tracy Sharp: 00:47:19 Right.

Tina: 00:47:20 Talk to me about ... Were you exhilarated? Were you all of it?

Tracy Sharp: 00:47:24 You know, at that exact moment, I still ... It really just felt like I was moving with the current. I wasn't really ... I knew it was a big decision, and I knew I had a lot of responsibility with the kids, I knew that there were very, very ... There's very few female painters, with children, that are working artists, that are doing it. There's just not many. But I never questioned any of it. It just seemed, like with this book, it just seemed like things were happening and it was my path. It just felt like my path.

Tina: 00:48:07 Yeah, and once it starts, you might as well go, because you-

Tracy Sharp: 00:48:10 And at that point, Tina, I had some life behind me to know, like you were saying.

Tina: 00:48:18 Right. Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:48:19 If I fall flat on my face, I'll be fine.

Tina: 00:48:23 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:48:24 I'll be fine.

Tina: 00:48:24 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:48:25 I'll get up like I have before, and I'll move on, and something else will happen, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Tina: 00:48:31 And none the worse.

Tracy Sharp: 00:48:32 Right. And that's the beauty of ... Yeah, I was on my own and had kids, but I don't know that I could have made that decision in my 20s. Maybe I would have been heady about it.

Tina: 00:48:44 Right. You got in your own way. Everybody gets in your own way. That's what I think happens when you're young, you get in your own way.

Tracy Sharp: 00:48:49 You get in your own way. And it's fear, and not having that trust in situations. But when you live a little and you have things that happen, that come up that are hard and you move through them, you realize you've got this. And I don't mean you've got this like you're going to make it happen. Not everything does. But you've got it inside. You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine.

Tina: 00:49:14 Even if it doesn't work out [crosstalk 00:49:15].

Tracy Sharp: 00:49:15 Right.

Tina: 00:49:15 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm learning as I get older, too, to stop thinking about the end state or what does success look like? I don't know, but right now, today, it's sitting here with you.

Tracy Sharp: 00:49:27 Right.

Tina: 00:49:28 So today is a great day. I've had more great days since I've started this, because I'm like, "Today is great."

Tracy Sharp: 00:49:35 Presentness.

Tina: 00:49:35 Yes.

Tracy Sharp: 00:49:35 [crosstalk 00:49:35] present.

Tina: 00:49:37 That's what it is, and I'm not like, "Oh, at the release party a year from now ..."

Tracy Sharp: 00:49:41 Right.

Tina: 00:49:43 That may happen. It will be a great day then. For right now, this is success.

Tracy Sharp: 00:49:48 Right, because when we're projecting, when we're reflecting, we are missing what is right in front of us.

Tina: 00:49:53 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:49:56 And it's constantly pulling ourselves back into that space, because we do, as it's part of the human experience to sort of-

Tina: 00:50:06 You have to plan a little bit, so you have to kind of look ahead a little bit and kind of reflect and learn, and all that, but yeah you're right.

Tina: 00:50:10 So, we are at the trashcan, with a ripped up ... And we are ... And parents had taken ... All those things that weren't necessary, the parents took the kids and you had the four pieces to go to, or 12 pieces.

Tracy Sharp: 00:50:28 Yeah. That epic trashcan moment happens after all of that. I have a year of experiences. This thing in Denver happened and it was successful, it was like, "Oh my gosh, that's crazy. Something happened."

Tina: 00:50:42 What happened when Mom got back with kids and you had it done, or you had it somewhat-

Tracy Sharp: 00:50:46 It was on its way. It wasn't done, but it was on its way, and she was like ...

Tina: 00:50:51 Told you.

Tracy Sharp: 00:50:53 Yeah.

Tina: 00:50:53 Oh good. Oh good.

Tracy Sharp: 00:50:54 "You've got this Trace. You've got it. You've got it." She was so generous and she allowed me to use her studio. Eventually, once I made that transition and began working more, I moved my studio into my house, and then ultimately moved here.

Tina: 00:51:13 Well, it's interesting, or I love the thought of for her is that you were around when she painted anyway, so she's probably used to you and your energy and your [crosstalk 00:51:21] being around anyway, so it probably didn't disrupt.

Tracy Sharp: 00:51:25 Right. Well, she's like I am though. When she is painting, when she is in the real creative process, she's quiet. She's quiet. We both are. Painting is interesting. And it's different for everybody, but for me, it seems like it's 80%, maybe even more of just kind of doing, doing, doing, and then there's that 20% where you're just ... You know what I mean?

Tina: 00:51:58 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:51:58 Where things are really happening.

Tina: 00:52:00 Really happening. Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:52:01 So, there is. There's a lot of time, even when we were sharing space, we would kind of alternate being there, because in order to really get into that space, and to that ... It's really like meditation, honestly, it's in the space of really not having any reference of time, of what's going on. And who knows. It can be really brief. It can be three or four minutes.

Tina: 00:52:26 But it's an important three damn minutes.

Tracy Sharp: 00:52:26 But sometimes it's just that line, you know what I mean? Or that drip, and then you're like, "Oh." Something went from being nothing special at all, to oh my goodness, something just happened. You know what I mean?

Tina: 00:52:43 It happened. It got the [crosstalk 00:52:43]. Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:52:44 And it's, often times, at least for me, and I'm so curious, because you just don't know about other people. I'm interested to read your book.

Tina: 00:52:53 Well, I hope everyone is. But to me, I don't know how they couldn't be, because I ... And this is where this conversation has been evolving is, when we're three, four, five, they give you crayons and a big white piece of paper, and you can't wait to defile that piece ... Like red and green, and give me the blue.

Tracy Sharp: 00:53:15 Right. Just rip into it.

Tina: 00:53:16 Yeah. And it doesn't daunt you, because nobody taught you to be daunted yet. And everything you do is great, and what is it? Let's put it on the fridge and make a book of it, and all of that.

Tracy Sharp: 00:53:26 [crosstalk 00:53:26] kids are incredible.

Tina: 00:53:27 But, around seven, eight, nine, they take the crayons away and they're really not given back, ever, in the same way. It's either you study this and you do exactly this, or you ... There's not that like whatever you draw is what you draw, it's follow this technique.

Tina: 00:53:46 But later, as adults, we never get to do that anymore, because we've now made it where you can only do that if you're this. If you're an artist. It's interesting, the people that I'm talking to, half of them so far don't say "I'm an artist". But you're earning your living doing your ... But [inaudible 00:54:06] artist, because it's not-

Tracy Sharp: 00:54:07 I would never call myself an artist.

Tina: 00:54:08 Isn't it funny though?

Tracy Sharp: 00:54:09 Yeah.

Tina: 00:54:10 It's because of what we've done to that word.

Tracy Sharp: 00:54:14 I know, when people will ask me, "Well, what do you do?" I'm like, "I'm a painter."

Tina: 00:54:19 Do you do interiors?

Tracy Sharp: 00:54:21 I mean look at me.

Tina: 00:54:22 No, just trim work.

Tracy Sharp: 00:54:24 Could you give me a quote on my living room?

Tina: 00:54:26 I do walls this big.

Tracy Sharp: 00:54:27 Yeah. Yeah.

Tina: 00:54:29 But it's interesting why we're so, as an adult, afraid of that plain white piece of paper, or picking up a thing that has ... "Oh, I can't draw a stick figure." Everyone, that's the quote. "Oh, I can't draw."

Tracy Sharp: 00:54:45 Anyone can draw. Anyone can draw.

Tina: 00:54:48 Because we're so worried about end state, or what's the value of it. And it's that process of doing it that's the ... But we lose that.

Tracy Sharp: 00:54:56 Yeah.

Tina: 00:54:57 It's interesting how ... I was reading this study, the most creative people five. Five years old.

Tracy Sharp: 00:55:04 Oh, 100%.

Tina: 00:55:05 And then it goes like this.

Tracy Sharp: 00:55:06 100%. And we see it with our kids, right? They're incredible. And then, they want things to start looking like something. You know what I mean? Like I have that little drawing up there. That's Parker's. He was pretty little when he did that. And that piece right there, that sculpture-

Tina: 00:55:23 I love that, yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 00:55:23 ... That's Max's, and he did that with Donald Locke. You should look up Donald's work. Donald was just amazing. He's no longer living. And it was Picasso who said he spent his entire life trying to learn how to paint like a child.

Tina: 00:55:37 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 00:55:37 Trying to learn to go back, to go back, to go back. And it's basically just losing the ego.

Tina: 00:55:44 Yeah, you're right. Because what is everybody going to think? What's it for?

Tracy Sharp: 00:55:48 Right. Losing the ego of, it's got to be something or it's, same as your book, it's got to be what? Why does it have to be anything?

Tina: 00:55:55 Or it has to look like this or it has to be this quality or this ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:55:58 Right. Right.

Tina: 00:56:00 For who? Why? Well, it has to have value. It does. As soon as you touch it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:56:06 Right. The value is yours, it's within you.

Tina: 00:56:11 Right. And I just hope that one of the ... I think it actually was Scott, one of the people I talked to said his mother had a little table tucked upstairs with paints and paper. Never touched it her whole life. Interesting, right? But she had it up there because she wanted to, but never touched it. There was laundry, there was this, so I can't because I have ... So, it was probably the fear. It wasn't that stuff, because it was right there. Never touched it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:56:40 Does she paint now?

Tina: 00:56:42 Never touched it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:56:43 Wow.

Tina: 00:56:43 Right. So, I want to find those people and go, "Pick up the paint. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter."

Tracy Sharp: 00:56:48 Yeah.

Tina: 00:56:52 Because that's why I want to talk to you guys, not about-

Tracy Sharp: 00:56:54 And the best thing to do, because I've had people that have come in and I love painting with kids, too, because it's like letting go of that white canvas. Throw that jar of coffee on it, and then leave the room, and then come back the next day and then do something. Then do something. But yeah, anyone can paint. And people say, they'll tell me, "Oh, I don't have any skills. I can't draw a stick figure. I don't have space to paint. I don't have all the materials." And most of this stuff is from Home Depot, you know?

Tina: 00:57:31 All of it is the ... But it's that fear. I don't think it's the real reason, it's that I don't want to face the ...

Tracy Sharp: 00:57:37 Right.

Tina: 00:57:37 So, actually there's a question that made me think about it. When you started painting, you had no training?

Tracy Sharp: 00:57:45 Right.

Tina: 00:57:48 Except you grew up around it.

Tracy Sharp: 00:57:50 Right. And I still know so little. Like people, other painters, other artists will ask me questions, and I'm like, "I have no idea."

Tina: 00:58:01 The dots [inaudible 00:58:02].

Tracy Sharp: 00:58:01 I have no idea how to do what you're asking. Everyone at Binders, they just crack up. I have this friend of mine, [Linx 00:58:12], that I'm always like, "Linx, I need something. What is a material that I can do?" He's like, "Tracy."

Tina: 00:58:19 Hodgepodge.

Tracy Sharp: 00:58:23 Right. He's like, "How can you not know this?" I'm like, "I have no idea."

Tina: 00:58:24 Right, because that's not the thing. That's not a painter quality. It could be, but it's not a requirement.

Tracy Sharp: 00:58:32 Right. And I just know the materials that I work with, and then you explore. Accidents happen, and then sometimes you do things and you're like, "Oh, that isn't going to work at all." But for me, in a way it was great to not be formally trained or to have an education in art, in a way, because I didn't have all of that going on. And at least for the way that I paint, I'm better off if I'm not thinking about it. And I know everybody is [crosstalk 00:59:09].

Tina: 00:59:09 You're not constrained by what you know.

Tracy Sharp: 00:59:11 For me, for me probably, probably it helps for me-

Tina: 00:59:16 No, I think that's very-

Tracy Sharp: 00:59:17 ... To not know.

Tina: 00:59:18 ... I think that's very astute, because one of my friends, I think I told you this when I started thinking about this, he said, "Have you ever written a book before?" I said, "No. I mean, I've been published in things, but I haven't taken on the task of cover to cover." And he said, "Oh, well you have to worry about ..." I was like, "No, I don't. I have to write, and then I worry about that."

Tracy Sharp: 00:59:38 Right. Right.

Tina: 00:59:39 "Well, there has to be a title page."

Tracy Sharp: 00:59:40 You're messing me up.

Tina: 00:59:45 Right. I don't want to know. That will happen, sure. There will be a copyright and there will be an ISBN number, I get that. Not right now. You only need that if you have a book, and guess what you have to do to get a book?

Tracy Sharp: 00:59:57 Right.

Tina: 00:59:59 So, it's funny-

Tracy Sharp: 01:00:00 Those technical pieces can come, and it's the same. I can figure out how I'm going to varnish it. I can figure out how I'm going to present it. I can figure all of those things out, but right now, you just have to do it.

Tina: 01:00:13 And that's where I want to get people to is, stop with all the "I don't know techniques, and is it this brush or a soft bristle?" Use your hand.

Tracy Sharp: 01:00:20 I mostly use my ... Look at this.

Tina: 01:00:22 I see your hands. I wish he was here to take pictures of them.

Tracy Sharp: 01:00:25 Every time. Oh, and this is nothing, because I literally, I got here two minutes before you and I was like, "Ugh, didn't like that." It's impossible to walk in here without touching something. But every time go get my nails done, they're like, "We can help you." I'm like-

Tina: 01:00:40 No, you can't.

Tracy Sharp: 01:00:41 There's no help. They'll look like this this afternoon. You're very kind.

Tina: 01:00:49 I don't even do mine.

Tracy Sharp: 01:00:49 You're very kind.

Tina: 01:00:49 Elizabeth has hers all done, and I just don't. I do my toes.

Tracy Sharp: 01:00:54 Yeah. I use rags a lot of times. Look at this, all full of ... And then these strings, I don't know.

Tina: 01:01:02 See, that's what I want, because sometimes, if you go into Binders or [inaudible 01:01:08] there's walls of brushes and walls of paints in different sizes and colors. It can be overwhelming.

Tracy Sharp: 01:01:16 I know. I mean, look at this, honestly. Seriously.

Tina: 01:01:22 Right. We will definitely get pictures of that.

Tracy Sharp: 01:01:26 Seriously so awful.

Tina: 01:01:27 That is a scraper.

Tracy Sharp: 01:01:31 These are like Home Depot and then-

Tina: 01:01:33 Right. A sturdy pack of ... Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:01:35 Yeah, and then when they get ... Because I mix materials all the time, and when you mix acrylic and oil-

Tina: 01:01:44 Like a shellac and a paint. Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:01:45 Yeah. And I'm the pits at cleaning up brushes, because like I said, if you're kind of lost in it, you're not thinking, "Oh, shoot, that paint is drying, I should do something." So, then you just cut them off and then they have this amazing accidental quality. You dip them in the water and you run it along, and then all of a sudden, you've got something that's not so predictable. You know what I mean?

Tina: 01:02:09 Right. Which gives it a whole different ... Yeah, Larry-

Tracy Sharp: 01:02:12 Yeah, it's just like all of this stuff is Home Depot.

Tina: 01:02:17 I love that. A trowel.

Tina: 01:02:19 When I was talking to Larry Anderson, when he started, he had to rake leaves or something. He had to do something like that, and he picked up this stick outside, and this was when he was going through his ... He was shaking a bit from his Parkinson's.

Tracy Sharp: 01:02:36 Oh gosh.

Tina: 01:02:36 But he had electrodes put in his head to stop the ... So he could paint again.

Tracy Sharp: 01:02:40 Cool.

Tina: 01:02:40 But while he had it, to your point, this is like a buried [inaudible 01:02:44], he picked up a stick while he was doing the leaves, and he started painting with the stick. He would dip the end of the stick in paint and paint with the stick, because he was painting things with fur, because he shook, so he said, "How do I incorporate this into what I'm doing?" So, he has this whole series of rabbits with the fur like this with the stick.

Tracy Sharp: 01:03:05 No way.

Tina: 01:03:06 Isn't that cool? I thought it was like ... That's a great example of ... And you with all this stuff. I've seen masons use those, and you cut your bristles off and ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:03:16 Right. And it works. Trowels and ...

Tina: 01:03:21 String.

Tracy Sharp: 01:03:22 And string. I used string behind that plaster there to create some texture.

Tina: 01:03:27 Oh that's one. Well, plaster, too.

Tracy Sharp: 01:03:28 And then this is just a stick? What the heck did it used to be? Probably a paint brush that everything came out of. But this is my lucky stick.

Tina: 01:03:36 It's your Harry Potter wand.

Tracy Sharp: 01:03:36 It's my lucky stick. Or even the end of the brush. The text that's in there, some of it is graphite, and then some of it is ink, because ink reacts differently. But if you're putting some ink on the canvas and brushing through it, you can scrape it off with the back.

Tina: 01:04:02 And you do that by doing it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:05 Just by doing.

Tina: 01:04:05 Not by learning first.

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:07 No.

Tina: 01:04:07 And that's, I think, the magic.

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:09 Right.

Tina: 01:04:11 You do it versus learn and try to emulate something perfect.

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:15 It just accidentally happens. It just happens. Like he was with the stick and going, "Oh my gosh, this is it. This works."

Tina: 01:04:22 This is going to be rabbit.

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:24 Yeah. Figuring it all out as you go.

Tina: 01:04:27 He said he did get in trouble for not finishing raking the leaves.

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:30 But that is-

Tina: 01:04:33 But that's right. That's right.

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:35 I hope that's one thing that people will get from your book, is just to do it. If you're curious about it, do it.

Tina: 01:04:44 Just get your hands dirty. I mean look what de Kooning did with the ... Who was it that ... Wasn't it him the paint brush never ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:53 That's Pollock.

Tina: 01:04:54 Yeah, Pollock.

Tracy Sharp: 01:04:55 He danced over it. Yeah. Danced over it. Just walked and danced and dripped. I know. How crazy is that? And all of those action painters. They were really just ground breaking in that. That they just moved and they had no thought at all about the outcome.

Tina: 01:05:18 What the hell? Yeah. And I love that. That, to me, and this is what I'm going for is you guys as the ... Those people, those great painters are you guys now, or whoever later, or whoever later, because they just started doing something.

Tracy Sharp: 01:05:34 That was an exceptional group of people.

Tina: 01:05:37 Right. Don't disagree. Don't disagree. However-

Tracy Sharp: 01:05:41 That is a really exceptional group of people.

Tina: 01:05:43 Don't disagree, but what I'm hoping is, by saying things like you just said about Pollock, it makes it more accessible. He was walking over canvas dripping paint. It's not like he went to a class and got an MFA with a specialty in dripping paint.

Tracy Sharp: 01:06:00 He stuck a stick in house paint buckets and just danced over those huge canvases.

Tina: 01:06:08 Yes. And that's what I'm ... By making him feel like a man who was experimenting with ... Just like you did with cutting your bristles off, or the end of a brush, or ... That's where it all comes from. It's not from following something someone told you. Or it may be, but with a variance or something. So, I just want all that to feel so accessible, because we've made it so precious.

Tracy Sharp: 01:06:32 Right.

Tina: 01:06:33 And what I think is-

Tracy Sharp: 01:06:33 Or people feel like they need to take a class, because I remember when I did those first pieces, and Matre had asked me to join the gallery, I had this feeling like, I need to know something. I know not one single thing, maybe I should take a little class. I don't know how to mix paint. I don't know how materials ... And my mother was like, "No. No. Do not take a class." She was the one that said, "Absolutely not," because I was like, "Mom, I could go to Atlanta College of Art and take just a little 101." She said, "No. Don't do it. You'll be better off if you don't."

Tina: 01:07:20 She knew. Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:07:22 "You'll be better off if you don't." And she did know, because honestly, and I always forget that I did this, but right after I had my first son, I took a little painting class, and it was supposed to be an eight or 10-week course. You meet once a week, there was a supply list. Each week there was assignment. I went to three classes, I think, and felt like such a failure. Felt like such a failure, because everything that I was trying to emulate, because that was that, and that was ... That was seven years before my divorce, nine years before I started painting, but I took this course right after having a baby. I was like, "I need something for myself." Took this course three weeks deep. I was like, "This is a disaster," because I had it in me. I was like, "Well, maybe there is a creative part of me that can paint. Maybe." And it was horrible. Everything I painted was absolute mud. They were doing these landscapes, and oh, Tina, it was a disaster.

Tina: 01:08:29 You paint a tractor pole?

Tracy Sharp: 01:08:32 Oh, it was so, so bad.

Tina: 01:08:35 Why do you think that is, though? That that was that experience, but then, did you need that life kick? Did you just need the freedom? What changed from disaster landscapes at painting class to, I got asked to do galleries from something I ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:08:52 It's hard to say.

Tina: 01:08:53 Because same woman.

Tracy Sharp: 01:08:55 It's hard to say why the experience was so different, and probably because in that course, we were studying masters and we were expected to sort of emulated them. There was a certain style, a certain way of doing things. And my only experience of painting was watching my mother, who's studio looks much like this. And here I am with this pad of watercolor paper and these materials, and I'm like, "I have no idea what I'm doing here." And I felt so frustrated and so out of step that I did not even remotely even make it to the halfway point of that class. I left just feeling like, "Well, check that one off the box." Really. I thought this is clearly not my thing.

Tina: 01:09:47 Wow. That's important, actually, I think.

Tracy Sharp: 01:09:51 It is important. It is important.

Tina: 01:09:56 It's funny, it reminds me of a story that my mom told me. Elizabeth, my daughter, is probably five or six and she wants to go to one of those wired and fired places, where you get pottery and you paint it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:10:06 Yeah.

Tina: 01:10:07 So, myself, my mom, and Elizabeth go, and we're going to paint a coffee cup, or plate, or [crosstalk 01:10:13].

Tracy Sharp: 01:10:13 Yeah, something.

Tina: 01:10:13 So, I picked something, Elizabeth picked something, and my mom is like, "I don't want to paint." I'm like, "Mom, you're here with your granddaughter. Get a damn plate. Paint a salt shaker. Just grab something." She said, "I don't want to paint."

Tracy Sharp: 01:10:24 Why?

Tina: 01:10:26 Right. And I'm like-

Tracy Sharp: 01:10:27 Paint stripes. Do something.

Tina: 01:10:28 I'm kind of mad, because I'm like, "What the fuck? Just paint a cup." And she sits there and she's watching us, and I can see ... What's weird is, I can see pain on her face.

Tracy Sharp: 01:10:38 Awe. Why didn't she want to paint?

Tina: 01:10:41 And Elizabeth went up to talk to the ... Get purple or something, I don't know. And I'm like, "Mom, now that she's not here, what's going on?" And she tells me this story. She's holding her purse on her lap, so she's like ... And I'm like, "Mom, now I'm not mad at you. What happened?" And she said ... She lives in a Del Webb community in one of those retirement places, and they brought a painter in, a well-known, Georgia painter, to teach a class. Teaching a class, and she paints this thing, and he comes by and he turns it around and he says, "There's no help for what you did."

Tracy Sharp: 01:11:19 Where is he?

Tina: 01:11:20 I did the same thing. She wouldn't tell me, because she knew I would call his ass. I called Del Webb-

Tracy Sharp: 01:11:28 Who says that?

Tina: 01:11:28 ... And I tried to find out. I was like, "My mom took a painting class, I'm interested in buying one of his ..." I made up some bullshit and they wouldn't tell me. Because I was trying to find him to go, "Hey dude, she won't do anything artistic now."

Tracy Sharp: 01:11:41 Well, the woman who taught this class was lovely, but it was just me.

Tina: 01:11:45 Right. Right. But I mean, it reminded me ... An experience like that though can keep you from ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:11:51 It's so funny though. I barely even remember it. I think A) Because I just had a baby, and I was distracted doing other things.

Tina: 01:11:57 You weren't ready yet, or I don't know what it was.

Tracy Sharp: 01:11:59 Yeah. It was three classes or something, and I just tossed the materials. I was like, "This is not for me. I kind of wondered if maybe I have this in me. My mother did it." And I was like, "I don't."

Tina: 01:12:14 So, you were thinking you didn't?

Tracy Sharp: 01:12:16 Yeah. Clearly. Clearly I didn't. It was awful.

Tina: 01:12:21 That's interesting. So, you had a moment in your life where you thought-

Tracy Sharp: 01:12:24 But it wasn't so epic, because I had this baby, and I was just like ... Check that one off.

Tina: 01:12:29 Right. I can't play chess, I can't paint [crosstalk 01:12:33].

Tracy Sharp: 01:12:33 Right. Right. Right. Right.

Tina: 01:12:34 But I can do this [crosstalk 01:12:35].

Tracy Sharp: 01:12:34 Onward.

Tina: 01:12:34 Right. Not a big deal.

Tracy Sharp: 01:12:35 Onward. Not a big deal.

Tina: 01:12:36 It wasn't like ... Right. You didn't feel this-

Tracy Sharp: 01:12:39 No. I didn't feel wounded. I didn't-

Tina: 01:12:41 Not like my mom.

Tracy Sharp: 01:12:42 No, no, no, no, no, no. It barely affected me. Max was just born, it was like, "Wow, that's just not for me. It's not for me."

Tina: 01:12:52 But then later, totally the right ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:12:55 Yeah. And I didn't even think about that class or anything.

Tina: 01:12:59 Yeah. I wonder if it was that life thing that opened ... Or the freedom of-

Tracy Sharp: 01:13:04 I never considered it. I never considered it. And I think it's primarily because my mother, she's just so wonderful, she was just like ... You know, because when Marianne asked me to do the thing, I was like, "Mom, based on this? She wants me to do ..." And she's like, "Tracy, it's 100 people. Whatever. It's eight by eight."

Tina: 01:13:23 So, she was talking you ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:13:25 Yeah, she's like, "It doesn't matter. Just do anything. It will be fun. It will be fun."

Tina: 01:13:28 It will be fun. Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:13:29 Yeah. It will be fun. And it was. It was fun, and I wasn't heavy about it, because it was 100 people. Literally that show, if you haven't been, you should go.

Tina: 01:13:43 I haven't been. Yeah. Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:13:44 Elizabeth would love it, because it's just the hanging of the show is amazing.

Tina: 01:13:47 Oh, she'd go home and start painting. Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:13:51 Because it takes them a week to hang it, because it's all these teeny tiny pieces, and the gallery is not that big.

Tina: 01:13:58 And it's at Swan House?

Tracy Sharp: 01:13:58 It's at Swan House.

Tina: 01:13:59 Oh, she would love that. Actually, that's a great idea.

Tracy Sharp: 01:14:01 She would love it. It's during the holidays and I will reach out to you.

Tina: 01:14:07 Oh, perfect. Yeah, that would be great.

Tina: 01:14:10 So, people reading, listening, whatever they're doing and they're thinking, "Well, maybe I want to try clay or wood or paint or watercolor, whatever-

Tracy Sharp: 01:14:20 Do it.

Tina: 01:14:21 And that has been everybody's-

Tracy Sharp: 01:14:22 Just do it.

Tina: 01:14:23 Just start it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:14:25 Yeah, just do it. What's the harm? Two hours of your life? Who cares?

Tina: 01:14:30 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 01:14:30 And $20 in materials?

Tina: 01:14:35 Why not? Why not?

Tracy Sharp: 01:14:35 Yeah.

Tina: 01:14:37 Because that's another thing I was noticing. Going back to that thing about, they take the crayons away and they never really get given back, but if you go in any office, any home, any space where people are, there's art. There's statues in the middle of cities, there's art all over the business ... Businesses buy art all the time. Coca-Cola has a museum of art.

Tracy Sharp: 01:14:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Tina: 01:14:58 There's something.

Tracy Sharp: 01:14:59 Right.

Tina: 01:15:00 Doesn't matter what it is or isn't, or it might be different from you and me, but there's something in it that has never gone out of popularity. It's [inaudible 01:15:09].

Tracy Sharp: 01:15:09 Right. Well, and I think it's more accessible now. I think street artists have made it more accessible. You see these people doing these [inaudible 01:15:18] stuff on places. Young people. Your daughter can look and see, and look and touch and experience it in a different way. There's a lot more installations. There's a lot of artists out there just kind of busting open doors with all kinds of crazy things that make you think of things in a whole new way.

Tina: 01:15:38 Yeah. And isn't that always ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:15:40 So, hopefully it will just kind of continue in that direction of being more accessible. And I think there's a lot of effort in making it more accessible. Like you said, you have a place in your house. You have a place in your house. It's like the messy room. My mother had a place in her house, this studio, and the kids would get on a six foot ladder, even when they were little, and they had these sky scrapers that went all the way up to the ceiling.

Tina: 01:16:07 Cool.

Tracy Sharp: 01:16:08 I know. I'll send you some pictures of it. It was amazing.

Tina: 01:16:10 Oh, I would love to see that. I love stuff like that.

Tracy Sharp: 01:16:13 Yeah.

Tina: 01:16:14 I think you're right about that. It is more ... Like the BeltLine. It's basically an art ... There's stuff all over. And as a matter of fact, one of our artists is Dorothy O'Connor, and she's an installation artist.

Tracy Sharp: 01:16:27 Oh, cool.

Tina: 01:16:27 Right, so I wanted to have ... I was like, "Oh, I don't have that." And somebody said, "Oh, you should look at her work," and she's done some BeltLine installations-

Tracy Sharp: 01:16:33 That's fantastic.

Tina: 01:16:34 Right. What's funny is, though, her and somebody else named Joe Mannis, who I'm interviewing Friday, he doesn't have a space. He's like, "The world is kind of my studio. I'm more of a thought person, then it comes out wherever it comes out." So, we're going out on a boat to do our interview.

Tracy Sharp: 01:16:49 Cool. Can I come?

Tina: 01:16:52 Right? Right?

Tracy Sharp: 01:16:53 Where?

Tina: 01:16:54 I can't remember. I have it in my ... But it's a ... I'll Tourettes it out in a minute, but it's an hour drive, and it's dock 11 and I just show up and get on the ... And he's going to pick me up and we're going to ... So, it'll be interesting. I can't drop mic in the water.

Tracy Sharp: 01:17:10 Oh gosh.

Tina: 01:17:11 And then she is the same way. She's like, here's what you'll need to come to where I work: Bug spray ... And I'm like ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:17:17 Right. She does murals and installations.

Tina: 01:17:19 Outside though. And sometimes people are in them. Like performance installation.

Tracy Sharp: 01:17:25 Oh, cool.

Tina: 01:17:26 So, it will be interesting to ... That's why I can't wait. I can't wait. There will be a party where we all get together.

Tracy Sharp: 01:17:32 Be ready to jump in there.

Tina: 01:17:33 Right?

Tracy Sharp: 01:17:33 Exactly.

Tina: 01:17:37 But I can't wait for all of us, at the end of this, to get together.

Tracy Sharp: 01:17:41 Yeah.

Tina: 01:17:41 And be like, "Oh you-

Tracy Sharp: 01:17:43 I would love to meet everybody.

Tina: 01:17:43 You're going to. There will be a venue for that for sure. Actually, Jay, the guy who painted this ... The bear guy, his wife does events. She did his opening at the Solarium.

Tracy Sharp: 01:17:57 Oh, right.

Tina: 01:17:57 So, I think I'm going to see if I can get the Solarium and everybody-

Tracy Sharp: 01:18:00 That would be perfect. That would be perfect.

Tina: 01:18:00 Right. I think so, too.

Tracy Sharp: 01:18:00 Yeah. And as it turns out, you've got a handful that are here in Atlanta.

Tina: 01:18:08 Yes. You, Dorothy, Greg ... Actually, over half of you are. Which I thought you were in ... That's funny, right?

Tracy Sharp: 01:18:19 Where did you think I was again? In Arizona?

Tina: 01:18:20 [crosstalk 01:18:20]. One of your galleries. Oh, I thought maybe you were ... It was somewhere out west, because remember, I called you on the way to Hawaii from the west coast thinking, "Oh, I'll catch her at a decent hour," and it's 6:00 AM.

Tracy Sharp: 01:18:36 Right.

Tina: 01:18:37 And then you're like, "Yeah, I live in Atlanta." I'm like, "What?"

Tracy Sharp: 01:18:41 How can you live in Atlanta?

Tina: 01:18:41 Right. And then I was like, "Of course you do. And of course you know Scott Hill."

Tracy Sharp: 01:18:45 Yes.

Tina: 01:18:45 Who lives in [inaudible 01:18:47] something ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:18:47 I know. I want to see his space. Was it incredible?

Tina: 01:18:52 It's interesting, because it's up in the mountains. There are deer and you see stuff, and it's isolated, but then you go inside the house, and his is like a little loft upstairs, about ... And that's where he works.

Tracy Sharp: 01:19:05 Is it space like this? This small? Really?

Tina: 01:19:07 It's about, maybe a little longer, but it's just a little loft place, and it's very ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:19:15 Is it organized?

Tina: 01:19:16 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tracy Sharp: 01:19:16 I would imagine him to be organized.

Tina: 01:19:19 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:19:21 It's so funny, because my mentor, Gino Hollander, who passed away, he was asked by Norman Rockwell to come and paint with him. Because Gino is so loose. There is stuff everywhere. He's slinging paint. I think I told you, like taking buckets of oil and acrylic and throwing them across these huge, 10-foot-long tables. I'll show you pictures from working in his studio.

Tina: 01:19:58 Yeah, I would love to.

Tracy Sharp: 01:19:58 But Norman Rockwell asked him to paint with him.

Tina: 01:20:02 Which is interesting.

Tracy Sharp: 01:20:03 Right, because he was curious about this process. And Gino said he walked in, and it was this completely clean space. Pristine floor.

Tina: 01:20:12 I can see it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:20:13 Easel, table, all the brushes-

Tina: 01:20:17 By size, probably.

Tracy Sharp: 01:20:19 Yeah. I look like a neat Nellie compared to Gino. And he's like, "We are going to have to really cover this space up, because I'm going to make a mess."

Tina: 01:20:32 Did he do it?

Tracy Sharp: 01:20:33 Yeah. And he said he had an assistant and that they laid newspaper and tarps and everything all over the floor. But isn't that hysterical? It's so interesting how different people work, like these artists are talking about. You're going out on a boat.

Tina: 01:20:51 Yes. Yes. Because he doesn't have a ... And then Greg Noblin works up ... He turned one bedroom into this photo booth and it's all black and there's a camera in the middle. Like you go into the bedroom and you're like, "Okay, weird shit happens [inaudible 01:21:04]."

Tracy Sharp: 01:21:03 I'm a little bit uncomfortable.

Tina: 01:21:05 But he's really just taking pictures of little animals. Animal models that look real, photo real, because that's what he does. And then he blows them up in the ... So, he's got one room that's a photo, and then he's got the paint room in the garage where he constructs the canvas. That's kind of a [inaudible 01:21:19]. So, he's got a whole-

Tracy Sharp: 01:21:22 And who is this?

Tina: 01:21:22 Greg Noblin.

Tracy Sharp: 01:21:24 Okay.

Tina: 01:21:24 He's that-

Tracy Sharp: 01:21:24 Oh, I can't wait to see all these people.

Tina: 01:21:27 Kai Lin.

Tracy Sharp: 01:21:28 Yeah. Yeah.

Tina: 01:21:29 That's where he is. Yeah, it will be interesting. He gave me the elephant. I have one of his paintings, and he gave me the elephant that he used for it. It's this big, and the elephant in the painting is like this big.

Tracy Sharp: 01:21:39 No way.

Tina: 01:21:40 Yeah, he gave me the little one. I was like, "Thank you, this means a lot to me. It means a lot to me." It's just a little thing you can get at Michael's, but because it's the one in my ... I put it at the top corner of the painting like ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:21:52 Yeah. It was his inspiration. That's crazy.

Tina: 01:21:57 But that's why I said, this is what's been happening is, I want people to feel like I feel when I'm sitting in front of you, like I could go and try.

Tracy Sharp: 01:22:09 Right. Let's do this.

Tina: 01:22:10 And an artist, sorry to attribute, a painter says it's okay. So, somebody that I can see in a gallery and go to their website, and read their artist bio, who has been treated as over here, is accessible, and says it's okay. So, by the end of this book, I will have 11 people that are legitimate artists say-

Tracy Sharp: 01:22:35 Do it. Do it.

Tina: 01:22:35 And that's going to be a thread-

Tracy Sharp: 01:22:38 Don't think about it. Just do it.

Tina: 01:22:39 Right. And that's what everybody ... And here's one question I'm going to ask-

Tracy Sharp: 01:22:42 I do and fail all the time. I do and fail all the time.

Tina: 01:22:46 Yes.

Tracy Sharp: 01:22:48 I do and fail all the time. I have all these butterflies up on the ledge here, and I had just ... What is today? Wednesday. The beginning of this week, that canvas, I had sewed all these white butterflies all over that canvas, and at the end of the day, I was like ... Pulled them all off. I was like, "That didn't work." But just, you never know. You never know.

Tina: 01:23:11 And I think that's part of the ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:23:13 Right. It's part of the journey. It's part of the journey. It's just doing. Because all great things come from that place of vulnerability, right?

Tina: 01:23:22 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:23:23 When you allow yourself to be vulnerable. I don't know if it's going to work. And that is the metaphor for life.

Tina: 01:23:30 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 01:23:31 I don't know if this relationship is going to work. I don't know if ... We don't know.

Tina: 01:23:36 Birth is messy. Birth is painful. It's disgusting. Shit comes out.

Tracy Sharp: 01:23:41 Right. Yes.

Tina: 01:23:45 But also, with all of that, comes ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:23:46 Right. Right. So, when you allow yourself to be vulnerable, when you allow yourself to take risks ... I mean, what's the alternative?

Tina: 01:23:54 Hamster wheel.

Tracy Sharp: 01:23:56 Staying safe. I talk to people all the time that are like, "Wow, it must be nice." I'm like, "Do it. Do it. Come spend a day with me."

Tina: 01:24:09 I think that's why we surround ourselves with art.

Tracy Sharp: 01:24:09 Come spend a day with me. Do it.

Tina: 01:24:11 Is because we see like, "Oh, at least I see it's there. I know it's there."

Tracy Sharp: 01:24:16 Mm-hmm (affirmative). I'm doing all these plaster castings, and I asked this friend of mine who is like my childhood bestie, and I'm just like, "Can you just come and cast my head, my torso? Can you do that for me?" She's like, "Me? Don't you think you need an artist?" I was like, "Why?"

Tina: 01:24:32 Plaster is [crosstalk 01:24:33].

Tracy Sharp: 01:24:33 I know you so I'm a lot more comfortable with you plastering my stuff than ... I'm like, "Come on."

Tina: 01:24:43 Plaster my junk.

Tracy Sharp: 01:24:44 [inaudible 01:24:44]. Just come plaster me. But she was ... It was so funny, her reaction. And then, when she got there and she started doing it, she's like, "This is amazing." She was having such a good time, and it was because I felt so bad asking her, because I knew it was going to be time-consuming and it was going to be incredibly messy. And she wound up having the best time. She kept texting me the next day, "Well, what about if you do this?" I'm like, "Thanks. That's a great idea."

Tina: 01:25:08 That's it. That's it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:25:11 Yeah.

Tina: 01:25:11 That's it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:25:11 So, I'm collaborating with a friend of mine who is an executive at Home Depot.

Tina: 01:25:19 I would love to come across that conversation. "So, I want to put the plaster from head to toe," and having that soundbite with a guy that's a mason, standing behind you going ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:25:28 Right. [inaudible 01:25:31].

Tina: 01:25:32 But then stands forward and says, "Actually, if you mix it with ..."

Tracy Sharp: 01:25:34 Right. Right.

Tina: 01:25:36 I think that's what people want is that little bit of, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Tuesday, I covered my friend with plaster. Great.

Tracy Sharp: 01:25:50 We did it on Saturday night. She was like, "This is the best," when she got home, she was like, "That was the best Saturday night ever," because I was like, "I hate to ask you to come and do this on the weekend," but she's busy during the week. And I was like, "It could take an hour, it could take three. I have no idea, because I've never done it before. No idea what I'm doing." I went to this crazy place down past the airport, and they do masks and all these weird things. So, my only instruction is from the guy who works there who kind of knows these materials, and he's like, "Well, this is what you need."

Tina: 01:26:28 Go.

Tracy Sharp: 01:26:28 I'm like, "Okay. We got it."

Tina: 01:26:32 I love that.

Tracy Sharp: 01:26:34 And it might fail. I'll show you the picture. I have the cast, but I haven't poured. So, we'll see what happens. And again, you just don't know.

Tina: 01:26:44 But again, I shouldn't even say this, because it's on a greeting card, but it's the journey that's the ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:26:50 It's just the journey. It's just now.

Tina: 01:26:51 It's not where you end up with it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:26:54 Right. It's now, and now, and now, and now, and just keep bringing yourself back to now.

Tina: 01:26:59 To now. Yes.

Tracy Sharp: 01:27:00 Right. Because if all of this failed, who cares? It's just-

Tina: 01:27:05 And the failure is only in that moment.

Tracy Sharp: 01:27:07 And there's no fail.

Tina: 01:27:09 [crosstalk 01:27:09]. That's what I mean.

Tracy Sharp: 01:27:11 There is no fail. There's part of the plaster.

Tina: 01:27:16 The cod piece?

Tracy Sharp: 01:27:16 Yeah. Exactly. Hold on, let's see. This was hilarious. And we learned a lot when we were doing it.

Tina: 01:27:26 That's the [inaudible 01:27:27].

Tracy Sharp: 01:27:31 Isn't that attractive?

Tina: 01:27:33 That's hilarious. Is that you?

Tracy Sharp: 01:27:34 That's me doing a little yoga with my trash bag on in my kitchen.

Tina: 01:27:40 That's funny. How long did you have to leave that on?

Tracy Sharp: 01:27:45 It was sort of a two-part process. It wasn't ... I think it's fine. We did this, I'm trying to think of what the material was called. I guess it was like a silicone. Silicone first, and then plaster bandages. Plaster bandages.

Tina: 01:28:06 Right. Right. Right.

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:08 And then you peel it off and you have to do it in two parts, two pieces, and then you peel it off, you cut out the back, and then you have this mold.

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:18 And like I said, nothing may come of that at all.

Tina: 01:28:23 Right. But ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:23 I do stuff like that all the time. Nothing-

Tina: 01:28:25 Oh, I can see this ending up in a piece, like that actual thing.

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:29 You never know.

Tina: 01:28:31 You do never know. When I had my tumor, I had to go get radiation.

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:36 You had a tumor?

Tina: 01:28:36 Mm-hmm (affirmative). In '07 when I was pregnant, I had a brain tumor. Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:42 My friend that had surgery yesterday has a brain tumor.

Tina: 01:28:44 Is that what the ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:45 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tina: 01:28:46 What kind? And where did she get her surgery?

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:50 [inaudible 01:28:50].

Tina: 01:28:52 It's fine. It might be a little one.

Tracy Sharp: 01:28:55 It wasn't little. It was two centimeters.

Tina: 01:29:00 Outside, or inside?

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:01 It was inside. It was the part of her brain that affects her speech. So, on Saturday, she was talking to her daughter who is six, and she couldn't form words, and then she blacked out. She had a seizure, and that's what led to ...

Tina: 01:29:17 At least they found it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:18 Yeah, they found it and she is ... The surgery was yesterday. She came out, she's able to talk. So, my communication-

Tina: 01:29:29 Practical surgery, then.

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:30 What's that?

Tina: 01:29:31 Practical surgery, then. They removed it, not radiation to-

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:34 Not yet.

Tina: 01:29:35 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:35 Not yet.

Tina: 01:29:36 Mine grew back a year later, that's why I had to get the radiation. But don't tell her that.

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:40 Yeah.

Tina: 01:29:40 Jesus, don't tell her that.

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:41 Yeah.

Tina: 01:29:42 But I had to go to Duke. It was at the brainstem. It was very tricky. It was touch and go.

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:45 Wow.

Tina: 01:29:46 I had to sign forms.

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:47 And you were pregnant?

Tina: 01:29:47 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:47 How did you find out?

Tina: 01:29:53 It was a race. Well, that same way. You've been pregnant, right?

Tracy Sharp: 01:29:59 Right.

Tina: 01:30:01 Well, this is what I was going to tell you. This is what I want to give to you from that, because I think it's cool. When you're getting radiation on your head, they put this stuff over your face and then it molds to your ... Because you cannot move your head a little bit, because there's seven lasers to get this one spot in your head. So, they put this thing on you, and it molds to your face and you have to use that same mask every time, and they lock it so that your head is in exactly the same position. So, when we're all done with our radiation, what do we do? Cut up our molds. But that material might be cool for you, is what I'm thinking.

Tracy Sharp: 01:30:36 Yeah.

Tina: 01:30:38 Because it's like a grid cloth when you put it on, and then it comes off exactly like your face in like 15 seconds.

Tracy Sharp: 01:30:45 Ooh.

Tina: 01:30:51 Right. So, I'm thinking, "Oh, this is a good-

Tracy Sharp: 01:30:51 I'll have to ask my doctor friends. Yeah.

Tina: 01:30:51 Yeah. Or I could just drive up to Emory and ask them what the hell it was, because they would tell you because they do it all the time.

Tracy Sharp: 01:30:56 Wow.

Tina: 01:30:57 But yeah, it was a race against ... She had to come ... I couldn't have surgery before she came.

Tracy Sharp: 01:31:03 How far in your pregnancy when you discovered it?

Tina: 01:31:06 She was six weeks early. Oh, right at ... So, you've been pregnant? Tired, dizzy, nauseous.

Tracy Sharp: 01:31:12 Right. You suspected nothing.

Tina: 01:31:14 And my mom is like, "Oh my God, would you stop complaining?" I'm like, "Mom, I really have no energy [inaudible 01:31:19]." But I woke up one morning and my eye was stuck in, like cross-eyed in, and I couldn't ... So, I called and they're like, "Hmm, that's not a pregnancy symptom." So, they did and they found it. It was at the brainstem and it was wrapped around all these nerves, so I had facial palsy, I couldn't talk, my eye was stuck in.

Tracy Sharp: 01:31:34 No.

Tina: 01:31:35 So, it was shutting down all my ... Because it was at the stem of my brain, inside. And they said, "Well, what do you want to do here? Save her? Save you?" I was like, "Save her." So, let her develop until ... And she came early. She came six weeks early. Had she gone to term, it would have cut off the blood supply and they would have had to save her. But she came six weeks early, saved me.

Tracy Sharp: 01:32:00 Just as she should. Yeah.

Tina: 01:32:02 And she reminds me of that all the time. "Can I have ice cream? I saved you."

Tracy Sharp: 01:32:07 I saved you, Mom.

Tina: 01:32:07 I said, "It's only going to work for a little while, because you're still young and cute." Yeah, so she came, thank God.

Tracy Sharp: 01:32:15 Wow. You've had a road. No wonder you're afraid of nothing.

Tina: 01:32:18 Yeah, no nothing. So, then six weeks ... Eight weeks, because you have to anesthesia her, I had to get a C-section and they had to have her out in 30 seconds, because the anesthesia couldn't reach her and I had to be all the way out, so it was like a ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:32:35 Wow.

Tina: 01:32:35 That was a thing in and of itself. But anyway, then I went up and had surgery, and that was eight months of recovery. Feeding tube.

Tracy Sharp: 01:32:42 All the while with an infant.

Tina: 01:32:44 Learn to talk again. With a newborn. So, my mom moved up here. That's how she got up here. She moved up here and lived with me for eight months to take care of this preemie.

Tina: 01:32:54 So, that's where that ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:32:55 I don't even know what to say.

Tina: 01:32:57 Well, that material. I want to get you that material, because I think that would be ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:33:00 Just ...

Tina: 01:33:01 But you could lay it over and pick it back up in like-

Tracy Sharp: 01:33:04 15 seconds is very appealing, because let me tell you, this was not.

Tina: 01:33:08 At the most it was like five minutes. I laid there, I laid there, I laid there and it's like, "Oh, you're done." And that was what they used for the eight weeks of radiation every time, so that your head would be in exactly the same position.

Tracy Sharp: 01:33:18 Wow.

Tina: 01:33:21 But it was pretty contoured, too, so I think you'd like it, because it would get the ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:33:26 Yeah, well, the details don't even matter, because I think I accidentally spilled some linseed oil into plaster. I work with plaster a lot, and it ... Everything separated and I was like, "This is so cool." I start staring around and I'm watching it separate. And I'm like, "Oh, I've got to do something with this," because it just pocked the plaster.

Tina: 01:34:02 Oh, cool. So it gave it a ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:34:03 Yeah, and as it was drying, it just ... So, my thought is to do something with that. To just mix up some goo and then pour it in there and see what happens. But again, it could ...

Tina: 01:34:11 So, back to, all of this stuff ... And that's what we just put together, if I could find out what that material, even experimenting would be fun.

Tracy Sharp: 01:34:19 Yeah. Yeah.

Tina: 01:34:23 I'm not trained, you're not trained.

Tracy Sharp: 01:34:24 No. But let's do it.

Tina: 01:34:26 Right.

Tracy Sharp: 01:34:27 Yeah. Let's see what happens.

Tina: 01:34:28 Let's mold things on Saturday night.

Tracy Sharp: 01:34:33 Exactly. That's exactly what we did.

Tina: 01:34:37 And then going back to, again, no deference to them, but Pollock and all those people, they probably had similar ... "I don't know, let's just drip it and see what happens. Let's not even touch the ..."

Tracy Sharp: 01:34:49 Yeah. Or they probably didn't even talk about it. He probably dipped his stick in something and realized that he had drug it across the room and was like, " Wow." And even though there are few working painters that have kids and so forth, kids help you to stay playful.

Tina: 01:35:11 She does.

Tracy Sharp: 01:35:12 Because they're constantly like, "Oh my gosh, look."

Tina: 01:35:16 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:35:17 They just give you that ...

Tina: 01:35:18 What is that? "Well, I took my macaroni and cheese and I let it dry on my ..."

Tracy Sharp: 01:35:21 Right. And it's spectacular. It is. They're right. It's incredible.

Tina: 01:35:26 She reminds me all the time, funny, like the other day, she came in ... She's 11, so she's kind of fashion conscious now. She went to go to bed, and she had on this old nightgown, or like a robe, and it's a monster head. It was too small for her and everything, and I'm like, "Why are you wearing that?" She goes, "Because it's funny."

Tracy Sharp: 01:35:45 She is a cool kid.

Tina: 01:35:47 That's the best answer in the world. And she slept in it with this monster head hood.

Tracy Sharp: 01:35:52 She's amazing.

Tina: 01:35:53 And I was like, "Thank you for reminding me of that."

Tracy Sharp: 01:35:56 Yeah.

Tina: 01:35:57 Because it's funny. That's the right reason.

Tracy Sharp: 01:35:59 It is a perfect reason. We should wear it every day.

Tina: 01:36:02 To the grocery store.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:03 Yeah.

Tina: 01:36:03 Yes.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:04 We should wear it every day. Can I borrow it? Yeah.

Tina: 01:36:09 That's another thing. It's funny that we were talking about that. This is another thing when we are little, we dress up a lot. And when we get older, it's weird to dress up.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:17 Why?

Tina: 01:36:18 Why? It's so much fun.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:19 I know, I want occasions to dress up. [inaudible 01:36:21].

Tina: 01:36:20 Harry Potter movies.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:20 I mean, give me an occasion. Give me any occasion. I'm all over it.

Tina: 01:36:29 But everyone is like that.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:30 Yeah.

Tina: 01:36:31 Halloween?

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:32 Yeah.

Tina: 01:36:32 You can't find a ... People love that. It's fun.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:36 I know.

Tina: 01:36:36 More, more, more.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:37 I know. I know. Because why not?

Tina: 01:36:40 Because why not? That's so funny you said that. That's been my mantra for this whole summer.

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:45 Why not?

Tina: 01:36:45 It's not why? It's why not?

Tracy Sharp: 01:36:48 Awe. That's so awesome.

Tina: 01:36:50 Is there anything else you can think of as a painter, artist, painter, that is a near and dear, a why not? or a just because, or is there anything that is like a Tracy mantra or practice that you would impart, or that kind of defines you? I know that's kind of a heavy question, so you can ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:37:20 Well, and there's layers to that question, right? Everybody has to find their path to creativity, and I'm sure it looks really different for different people.

Tina: 01:37:30 Thankfully.

Tracy Sharp: 01:37:31 Yeah. I'm pretty ritualistic. I practice yoga. I walk in the woods with my dog. I do these things that help me connect. Help me connect to energy. To source. To kind of clearing the ground. To allow creativity in. Is that kind of where you're going with the question?

Tina: 01:37:55 No, what you're saying, I think, is exactly what ... Because we get so stuck ... And that's when I say things like hamster wheel, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

Tracy Sharp: 01:38:03 Right.

Tina: 01:38:03 And coupons, and Target, and grocery runs, and that practicality that we get immersed in. It's not bad, it's just if you don't have, what you're saying, the other part of it, I think part of you goes dormant, and it's an important part of you that goes dormant. So, that's why I'm asking. Like Jay gets up at 4:00 because he has practical life the rest of the time.

Tracy Sharp: 01:38:26 It's quiet.

Tina: 01:38:26 4:00 to 6:00.

Tracy Sharp: 01:38:26 It's quiet.

Tina: 01:38:26 That's when he paints. 4:00 to 6:00.

Tracy Sharp: 01:38:26 Yeah. And I bet it's bliss.

Tina: 01:38:32 Scott lives out because of that. Bruce Chapin in New York lives way out to stay away from-

Tracy Sharp: 01:38:39 And there's something about the quiet. There's something about getting back to nature. I walk in the woods every day with Lester.

Tina: 01:38:45 Do you?

Tracy Sharp: 01:38:45 Yeah.

Tina: 01:38:45 With Lester.

Tracy Sharp: 01:38:46 Yeah. And we walk. It kind of clears your mind. It clears your mind. It clears the pathways. Resisting those habits of checking email, or trying to fit things into a box. It's interesting, because people that have studied flow, being in that state of mind, being in flow, they used to think that people that were in flow, that they were activating all these parts of their brain that you weren't able to activate otherwise. What they realized, as technology improved and they were able to sort of study specific parts of the brain, is it's less. It's minimal. You're using less, so it's like instead of things opening up, it's like everything is kind of narrowed so that you can focus.

Tracy Sharp: 01:39:39 So, I do things that kind of help me just get centered, get grounded. I meditate. I practice yoga.

Tina: 01:39:48 You stay in touch with ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:39:50 Yeah.

Tina: 01:39:51 Because Elizabeth Frank, in Arizona, she goes on a pilgrimage to find the wood ... She works with wood. She goes out in the woods and she finds the downed trees, and that's what she ... It's the same kind ... That's her thing. She goes and feels [inaudible 01:40:08] this piece, and that one, and that one, and that's her ... So, she has them all in this space and she goes in there to kind of remember. That's her place to go back to touch that pilgrimage that she does.

Tina: 01:40:21 But I feel like everyone I've talked to has a way to get into their space.

Tracy Sharp: 01:40:29 In that space. In the head space.

Tina: 01:40:30 And not just ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:40:34 Right. Because again, it's like taking thought out of it. Just get into a place where you're able to receive, you know what I mean?

Tina: 01:40:39 Yeah. I do.

Tracy Sharp: 01:40:42 Where you're able to receive. Where you're able to open yourself up and just allow.

Tina: 01:40:54 Do you, and this is, as you know, some of the conversations have been ... Do you work through things that are vexing you or making you happy, or whatever? Do you feel like those things come up, too?

Tracy Sharp: 01:41:12 Absolutely. A lot of times I'm not conscious of it, but then you look back. And that's like, in the beginning when we were talking about is it hard sometimes to let go of things? Sure. Because sometimes at the end of it, you're like, "Wow." Like the body of work that I did right after my father passed, it was a hard body to let go.

Tina: 01:41:30 Because you were letting go of that.

Tracy Sharp: 01:41:36 Yeah.

Tina: 01:41:36 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:41:36 It was letting go. It was letting go.

Tracy Sharp: 01:41:38 So, it definitely affects ... I'm inspired, affected, whatever you want to call it, by everything that's around me and everything that's going on. We all are. This process with you and your book.

Tina: 01:41:50 Mm-hmm (affirmative). There's something, you're right.

Tracy Sharp: 01:41:52 Yeah. Yeah.

Tina: 01:41:55 It's a lot. Because I've never ... And maybe that's where I am a neophyte is, I don't have a regular, cathartic activity. I used to think it was exercise, but that's just sweat, like immediate emotion. I don't have that regular touch, and so I think this first purge is going to be like ... Right. I think I'm going to feel like I just had to a really big kind of ... And I can feel it.

Tracy Sharp: 01:42:22 I bet.

Tina: 01:42:24 I can feel like the, "Oh, this is stuff that happened ..." My real dad, he just passed and I didn't go to the funeral. There's stuff I can feel.

Tracy Sharp: 01:42:34 Did your dad just pass, too?

Tina: 01:42:35 Yeah. And I haven't talked to him since college, but it still feels weird.

Tracy Sharp: 01:42:41 Of course.

Tina: 01:42:41 Because he's not in the world anymore. And I didn't go to the service.

Tracy Sharp: 01:42:42 Of course.

Tina: 01:42:42 I just didn't go.

Tracy Sharp: 01:42:43 Of course.

Tina: 01:42:48 But it's almost like your first album. If you're a big band, your first album is like all your years into that first one.

Tracy Sharp: 01:42:55 Yeah.

Tina: 01:42:56 That's what I feel like. This is like this first ... I can see the head.

Tracy Sharp: 01:43:01 It's coming.

Tina: 01:43:04 It's the shoulders that hurt.

Tracy Sharp: 01:43:06 Oh yeah. Do they ever. Oh my God. Yeah. Wow. You've had an intense, intense, intense year.

Tina: 01:43:15 You know, I met a fortune teller person in New Orleans one time a long time ago, and she looked at my hand and she went ... A palm reader. She was a palm reader. She looked at my hand and she goes, "Oh, you have a really short life." I did the same thing. I was like, "What?" She goes, "Or, it just turns into a different life. But it's very strange. I can't read your palm, but you're either going to die, or recreate yourself."

Tracy Sharp: 01:43:43 You're reborn. You're being reborn right now.

Tina: 01:43:46 Yeah, I thought it was interesting. But I was like 20 when she said ... And I was like, "You could have made something up better than that." She even made me pay her.

Tracy Sharp: 01:43:53 What?

Tina: 01:43:54 She was like, "I can't." I know. She's like, "I can't." She goes, "And you have a broken lifeline." I was like ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:04 Thanks.

Tina: 01:44:05 [inaudible 01:44:05]. I'm going to go eat 16 beignets.

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:08 Doubt.

Tina: 01:44:08 But I've remembered that [crosstalk 01:44:10].

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:10 But it makes sense.

Tina: 01:44:11 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:11 It makes sense, because you are starting a brand new life.

Tina: 01:44:14 Oh, I was close to ... With the tumor thing, too in '07. It was '07.

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:20 Yeah. Yeah.

Tina: 01:44:21 It's crazy.

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:22 No. You have a brand new life. A brand new path.

Tina: 01:44:25 You had a path break. Everybody has had a ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:27 Oh yeah, huge. It was epic.

Tina: 01:44:29 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:29 It was epic.

Tina: 01:44:31 Ripping up that ... I love that scenario. You told me that when we first met, but I love that story of you just ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:37 Oh, I was ripping up my past life.

Tina: 01:44:40 And it wasn't like a, "Okay, bye." It was-

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:43 Oh, no. I am ripping it up. I could have caught it on fire.

Tina: 01:44:48 Right. Because it was what you did out of necessity from that other thing.

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:52 Yeah.

Tina: 01:44:53 And then you discovered what you ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:53 Yeah.

Tina: 01:44:53 Love that.

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:53 Yeah.

Tina: 01:44:53 I've clung onto that. I love that story.

Tracy Sharp: 01:44:58 Yeah. You're doing it, right now.

Tina: 01:44:59 Yeah. We'll see.

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:00 You're doing it right now. Things are really shifting and changing for you, and even just-

Tina: 01:45:05 Tectonics.

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:06 And you are purging, metaphorically and literally purging so much.

Tina: 01:45:14 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:15 That's intense. Even you had a relationship that just recently ended, right?

Tina: 01:45:20 Yeah. He went back to rehab.

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:30 Oh, did he really?

Tina: 01:45:31 [inaudible 01:45:31].

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:31 God. Thank God.

Tina: 01:45:31 Right?

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:31 Thank God.

Tina: 01:45:34 I'm going to go play the lottery, because I feel [crosstalk 01:45:35].

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:38 Oh my God. Wow.

Tina: 01:45:39 Let me see if Elizabeth has called, and then I think we're in a good space to ...

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:43 Yeah, and if you need anything, you know you can just call me.

Tina: 01:45:46 Yeah.

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:46 You can ask me.

Tina: 01:45:47 That's the great thing is-

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:49 Or you can come back [crosstalk 01:45:51].

Tina: 01:45:50 Yeah, I can ... Okay. Great.

Tracy Sharp: 01:45:55 You know, if you get home and you're like, "Oh, I forgot."

Tina: 01:45:59 Yeah. And that's the good thing about this is, I'm going to cut all this stuff out. Any recipes you told me or anything.

Tracy Sharp: 01:46:08 Because that's what we did. We exchanged recipes.

Tina: 01:46:12 No, this is good for the soul. This is good for the spirit.

Tracy Sharp: 01:46:17 Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

Tina: 01:46:17 Oh, I love to see that red light on mic. I love this thing.

Tracy Sharp: 01:46:21 That's awesome.