We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kara Adams a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kara, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Creativity for me is something that comes and goes with the day, time, or circumstance. I have to be honest and say that there are some days when I can’t seem to make a creative thought appear in my brain and then I have other days where I have so many thoughts that I can’t keep up with everything. I don’t have a one size fits all or instant cure for keeping creativity alive, but I am always searching for new forms of inspiration. Over the last year I have changed up how I approach life and therefore have discovered the things that inspire me. The first thing I have tried to make a real effort at over the last year is to have new experiences. Going to new places, seeing new things, and meeting new people has been great at sparking some creative ideas lately. These experiences can be anything from a trip out to the desert, a concert for a band that I haven’t seen live yet, or even just doing something familiar with someone new. Inspiration can come from anywhere, so I try to cast a wide net to attempt to capture a little bit of it here and there. I don’t know how many times I have gone on a short weekend trip or gone to a live show and come out of it newly energized both physically and mentally. Some of my best work and motivation comes from the adrenaline of doing something new.
The second thing I try to make an effort to do is relax and take down time. Sometimes I just need to take a day to rot on my couch. I watch movies, read a book, play a video game, or scroll through social media. The time that I spend in my own company and without any obligations is great for resetting my brain and opening up space for new ideas. I have had some amazing ideas and some of my most creative and successful project plans come out of a day where I did absolutely nothing productive. I also think that in a society where we are expected to rise and grind every single day, it can be refreshing to realize that the world won’t end if I take a day away and just exist in my own space. One of my favorite things to tell people when they ask me what I did over the weekend is “absolutely nothing” because it means I spent that time taking care of myself.
Thirdly, I try to channel my creativity through different outlets. Photography will always be my first and number one love, but I have other hobbies that help the creative juices flow. I work with resin out in my garage creating bookmarks, serving trays, coasters, and whatever I feel like creating that day. These pieces aren’t anything I sell and I am nowhere near an expert at working with the material but I love making gifts for others and things for my home. My other hobbies that I don’t pick up often but I enjoy when I do are embroidery, macrame, and scrapbooking. The thing I do the most to spark creativity, and to have a little fun is to bake or cook. I love cooking because it isn’t an exact science and I can throw things together to make something tasty. Baking is more exact and I love to do it when I need a little more structure in my life. I am always looking for ways to adjust my recipes and make them better. I am always working on improving my cookie recipes and using my husband or my friends to taste test when I make changes. Recently, I have been working on learning to cook and bake more recipes from Norway as that is my ancestry and I love experiencing things that have to do with where my family came from.
The last thing that I do to keep my creativity alive is to have friends from all walks of life. I have friends who live in different states all across the country and the beautiful thing about it is that no matter how far away we are, I still have the best support system. There is no way to talk about what inspires me without shouting out the amazing people who are my biggest cheerleaders, and will support me whether they live all the way back in the midwest or down the street from me. Many of my friends are creatives themselves or we share a love for a specific kind of art. When I have a new idea, I always know who I can turn to in order to workshop it. They inspire me every day with their resilience, creativity, and different outlooks on life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I first discovered photography as an art form and a way to express myself when I was in High School. I struggled to really get into school and I will be honest I was not the best student. I didn’t really have a love for school until my senior year when I was able to limit my classes to those centered around English and Art. I dabbled in drawing, painting, and even sculpture but photography was the art form that really spoke to me. It was a way for me to capture the real world and showcase how I saw it. This was what sparked my interest in photography as a college degree. I attended my first two years of college at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where I knocked out all of my general education classes before transferring to Santa Fe University of Art and Design where I completed my degree in photography. Living in Santa Fe was one of the best experiences of my life and I draw a lot of inspiration from my time there, eating local food, hiking in the mountains, and enjoying the immense art scene. I had the privilege to learn from great photographers and artists from other backgrounds, and broadened my horizons outside of the world of digital photography.
I moved to San Diego in 2014 and a lot has changed since then. Since moving to San Diego I have held a few different jobs in retail and food service, I’ve worked for a local museum, and for the last 4 years I have worked for a small nonprofit organization that helps seniors age independently in the homes they love. In 2020 I also earned my Masters in Nonprofit Administration and Management from North Park University. I chose this degree because I was taught from a young age the importance of community and how even a small act of kindness can go a long way. My current position, while allowing me the opportunity to help people, also provides me with the opportunity to be creative through photographing events, planning programs, designing marketing material, and working out new ways that the organization can grow.
My artwork outside of my day job is very different than the photos I take for events. I work with two different photographic styles, landscapes and portraits. I enjoy landscapes because they are an opportunity for a new journey, and to see a location from a wider view point. I take these landscape images in the panoramic format so that the viewer can see the entire view exactly as I saw it when I was there. Imagine for a second the photos you take on your smartphone. There is a panoramic feature but I would venture to guess that most of these photographs are taken in a one frame shot on the widest angle your lens will allow. Now imagine taking several images, stitching them together and then being able to print a large enough image that it could feel like you are really there, right down to the leaves on the ground or the cloud formations. There is something so magical about being able to recreate that memory or that scene for someone that wasn’t there with me.
The portrait work I do is very different. I like to use portraits as a way to interpret stories. I think that every photograph tells a story on its own but to depict a specific story and tell it from my point of view and my understanding is something that brings me immense joy as an artist. I am currently working on two projects involving portraiture. I hope to have them competed by the end of 2024 but given my busy schedule I try to be realistic with my expectations. One project that I am excited about is the depiction of Greek Goddesses as a way of empowering women and showing that there is something truly special and powerful about everyday women. The other project that is a work in progress is something that is near and dear to my heart but can be a difficult and sometimes an uncomfortable thing to talk about. This project is a depiction of my own personal struggles with mental health. I think almost everyone struggles with mental health in some capacity. I felt that by depicting my past and even current mental health struggles and barriers, that it would show others that they aren’t alone, especially when they feel like they shouldn’t be struggling because others have it worse.
Outside of my photography, I am working on several other personal projects that I have committed to because they keep the creative juices flowing. I am working on a cookbook so that I have all of my recipes in one place instead of in 4 different notebooks scattered throughout my house. I’m also working on some different resin tray and coaster ideas to decorate my home, and other projects that I can gift to my friends and family. These little projects will help to break up the creative blocks I get when trying to complete one large project.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think there are a lot of qualities and skills that I have acquired that have helped me on my journey so it is hard to just pick three. I think there are some things that I have learned recently that have really helped me continue my journey towards being successful in my field as a nonprofit worker and as an artist. The first thing I learned was that I won’t always get things right the first time. I have tried many different crafts and hobbies and have had to accept that I will not be perfect at everything I try right away. This is one of my biggest set backs because when I am not instantly good at something, I sometimes feel a little defeated and will want to move on to the next thing. There comes a point when you just need to keep trying and when you fall or fail, you get back up and try again. I haven’t loved every single one of my photography projects, and there have been many projects that I plan out and then realize that logistically I can’t make that work. Instead of scrapping everything, I look for a way to make it work and I keep trying until I come out with something that I am proud of.
The second thing I have learned is that you can’t do anything without some form of a support system. I have lived in San Diego for nearly ten years now and although I have a support system made up of my friends and family from all over the country I didn’t really have much of one here for a long time outside of my husband. Over the last 5-6 years in this city I have gained a beautiful support system of people from different backgrounds, and of differing thoughts and opinions. With the support of the people I love both nearby and far away I have been able to stay motivated and also grounded. I know exactly who I can call if I need a little inspiration, feel a little down, or really just need to bounce an idea off of someone. I couldn’t achieve half of what I do without the loving and wonderful people that I call my friends and family.
The last thing that has been very important for me to learn is that it is ok to take a break. I have talked a lot in previous interviews, and on social media about how I was really struck with burnout a few years back and it felt like I was just treading water for a long time. This is because I never knew the meaning of giving myself a break or taking time for myself. I was always doing something involving working or creating. I always wanted to be out and experiencing the world and I didn’t realize that by being consistently on the go, I was wearing myself out. It is a skill to know when to give your mind and body a break because so many people don’t know how to do it and were never taught the importance of escaping from the expectation that we should always be productive. Some of my best creative thoughts and plans come from sitting down to read a fiction book, watch a TV show, play a video game, or just listen to music. Slowing down is good for the brain and gives it time to process everything. This also helps me to appreciate when I am out in the world experiencing what life has to offer and lets me live in the moment instead of always looking to move on to the next thing.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I think it depends on the situation. When I am working at my day job I often play to my strengths because that is how I get things done in an efficient manner so that the organization I work for helps the most amount of people possible. However, when it comes to creative endeavors I think that investing effort into improving areas you aren’t as strong in is so important for the creative process. As a photographer I know I have certain skill sets that I would consider my specialty, but then there are many others that I have yet to master. These skills that aren’t part of my tool belt could come in handy one day while working on a project and so I don’t see the harm in learning how to do them at least on a basic level so that I can pull them out when needed. An example of this is my graphic design skills as a whole. I have never been the best at graphic design and although I can utilize photoshop for my specific forms of photography, I still have a lot to learn. When I was working on my Value of Nothing project in 2014 I could not figure out how to capture an image for the Pandora portion of the project that involved smoke coming out of the box I was photographing. Everything I tried during the shoot didn’t seem to translate on camera and so I decided that I would try to make this happen in post. Once I uploaded the photos I spent hours researching the best way to create smoke in photoshop and tried many different strategies until I finally found one that worked the way I wanted it to. This is now a skill I have worked on for years so that I can adapt it to my needs in other images. An example of one of these images is my Theia, Goddess of Light image. I had to use these strategies of creating something out of nothing to form light rays around the model in the image to show that she was projecting light outward towards the viewer of the photo.
Another reason to continue improving in areas where you aren’t as strong is to keep your brain working on a creative level. Trying new things or working on a problem that you haven’t yet solved helps you think differently than you normally would and will help with your ability to look at things from a different angle. There is also something so rewarding about finally achieving a task that you have been struggling with for a long time. Recently I taught myself how to crystalize flowers and each year around the holidays I try to make one or two new baking recipes. There is something so wonderful about learning a new skill or mastering a skill that you have been working on for a long period of time.
Contact Info:
- Website: karatjphoto.com
- Instagram: kara.tjelmeland
- Facebook: Kara Tjelmeland Photography
