Art of Creation
CARMICHAEL PSYCHOLOGIST LEARNS ABOUT HERSELF THROUGH PAINTING
T
racy Tayama Brady lives by a maxim from one of her favorite writers, Elizabeth Gilbert: “Art is not one magical thing—it’s the act of creating.”
JL By Jessica Laskey Open Studio
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Though Tayama (who uses her maiden name as an artist) has made art since she can remember, it’s only now with two kids and a career as a child psychologist that she’s in a place to understand what it means to be an artist. “I’m revamping my relationship with my art,” says Tayama, who lives in her childhood home in Carmichael. “When I was younger, I’d look at something and replicate it pretty decently and people would say, ‘Wow, you’re a good artist.’ It was satisfying,
so that became my process: I’d find a picture I liked and then I’d spend hours into the night replicating it.” When Tayama enrolled at UC San Diego, she minored in studio art and majored in psychology after deciding she wanted to be a child psychologist. The career path was mostly inspired by her relationship with her father, a Japanese American man 50 years her senior who, she says, “did everything for his kids but had a very difficult time with the emotional
side and showing love in more conventional ways.” Tayama felt her upbringing would provide the ability to connect with young children and their families through empathy and patience. “That connection comes out in the way I construct, view and have a relationship with art,” she says. “There’s a lot of feeling behind it.” After earning her bachelor’s degree, Tayama gave herself a year off to reconnect with her artistic side. She returned to her family’s roots—
