The Art Districts: So how did 'Stories' become the name of this exhibit?

Tracey Halvorsen: Well, I was talking with my partner Jamie, and she's actually the one who came up with the name "Stories." Each painting is my own story on top of earlier stories, which may have been built on top of even earlier stories, and so on. And each page in the ledger book is also a story created on top of a prior story (albeit the prior story was the bookkeeping practices of a business), so I'm transforming a book of business record-keeping into a personal story of images. And just as all stories layer and morph over time, so does my work, and really so does everything. I'm always trying to capture that creative process within the painting; I want it to be felt and seen much like you hear the notes being played as you experience a piece of music over the time it takes you to listen to it. The story is the process, the journey, the ideas, and then, you know, I'm there as the creator, so part of me is in it.

So, I want you to talk about this ledger book that we have here, the importance of the ledger book itself, but also in relation to the story of this exhibit.

I started the first ledger painting sketchbook in undergrad, in part because you can take the binder off of it and you can pull the pages out. And I started gessoing over the pages and using them as a painting sketchbook. Then when I was at MICA working on my MFA, I was trying to find myself and my voice through the work so I started the second book. I remember going to the studio every morning and starting a new batch of paintings. By the end of the year, I had hundreds of paintings in this book. Then I graduated and needed to make a living and was swept up into the digital world and started my business and had really stopped painting. But within the last couple of years, I've been able to dive back into painting, and I did not realize how full circle this moment had become until I started looking back through the ledger books and seeing these early references from 25 years ago.

As we wrap up, I have one last question. Is there anything that you want people to take away from the show?

God, that's a good question. I think that, you know, just being alive is not easy.

​Everyone has their stories, and we're also living with this awareness of temporariness, and I think that's really hard. But there's something about art and painting that makes it all okay. It just makes it worth it, at least to me. I want people to feel what I feel when the paintings are being made; I can't explain it beyond that. It's a feeling of connection to something, a more universal kind of existence that I'm after, and that the most successful paintings capture. It's that first feeling that I felt at 16 years old when I thought to myself, I have to keep doing this. I want people to be able to go into that same kind of portal that I'm able to go into when I'm making the work. I hope people can step into that because it’s a beautiful place to be.