Deborah Mills Thackrey
It’s a rare day that Deborah Mills Thackrey leaves the house without her camera. “The muse will surely punish me,” she says. “I’ll see something amazing, but won’t be able to capture it.” Deborah focuses on the things most of us miss: a rusted scratch, cracks in the sidewalk, the light on water. The tiny things under a microscope and the huge things the Hubble telescope shows us fascinate her. Imperfections, the breakdown of structures, and the patina of age absorb Deborah’s attention.
Deborah Mills Thackrey is a fine art photographer, a graphic designer, and an art director. She manages to combine her practice in art photography and her work, often asking her husband to stop the car so she can hop out and photograph something she’s just seen. “He’s used to it,” she laughs. “He’s a photographer too.” The Thackreys are partners in work and life, having run their business, Willow Glen Productions, together for the past fifteen years. Their relationship is one of encouragement and support, even when they enter the same competitions. “If either of us win, we’re both happy,” says Deborah. “Having a spouse who understands what an artist’s life is like is vital.”
When Deborah was twelve years old, her parents gave her a Polaroid. “I didn’t like it. It wasn’t a ‘real’ camera.” However, that camera helped young Deborah land her first photography job: taking pictures of her grandmother at her funeral. “I got up on a chair and took some pictures, which I gave to my relatives.” When it occurred to her that she’d been photographing a dead person, she was disturbed and destroyed the remaining pictures. “Very unusual for me. I tend to keep everything.” Indeed, keeping up with the task of organizing the thousands of pictures Deborah has taken is an onerous task. If she could ask for one thing it would be for an assistant to help her label and catalog her negatives.
Although she was an art major in college, Deborah didn’t begin fine art photography until much later. During a trip to the town of San Juan Bautista, Deborah photographed the old mission and liked the results. A workshop with Edward Weston’s grandson, Kim Weston, led to her interest in photographing water: as the assembled photographers got ready to shoot, Kim Weston was on the roof of the studio, hosing down his skylight. The patterns of the water caught Deborah’s eye, and she took some pictures. She was offered a solo show on the strength of those shots a few months later. Water comes up often in Deborah’s photographs, specifically in her pictures done at Lake Union in Seattle. “My muse lives there,” she says.
Speaking of Edward Weston, Deborah admires the composition, skill and beauty of Weston and his son, Brett, whose work is more abstract and textural. Other influences include Jackson Pollock and Paul Klee. She also finds inspiration in graffiti, and aged and rusted surfaces. The photojournalism of the 1960s, which put photographers in some dangerous places, is an ongoing interest of Deborah’s. 
Freedom of the press is a very important part of her credo.
Deborah was the driving force in the creation of the newly formed artists group, Silicon Valley Artists Collaborative. The group consists of over forty artists, whose practices include photography, mixed-media, sculpture, digital art, painting, poetry, glass, fabric, film-making, and installations. The group had its first show in February at Art Object Gallery in San Jose’s historic Japantown. “I started the group as a way to reach out to other artists, and help them get more exposure,” she says. “I’d like us to find a way to do workshops with young people, maybe through school visits.” One member, Nancy Rice, has done classes for youth at San Jose Works. Deborah’s current project that encompasses members of Silicon Valley Artists Collaborative is hanging art in parts of the Axis high-rise condo building in downtown San Jose. She is also the curator for this exhibition.
A self-supporting free-lancer for most of her life, Deborah often feels over-committed, and admits that she enjoys the business part of her work the least. “There just isn’t enough time for everything,” she says. As far as advice to other artists, Deborah says. “Listen to your own voice. Don’t be afraid to create, even if it’s just for yourself.” Deborah has won many awards for her work, including a 2009 Arts Council Silicon Valley artist fellowship grant for visual arts. This was followed by a show at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara.
For more information about Deborah Mills Thackrey, visit her website at www.dmt-art.com.
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