Calabasas Estate, Design by Tracy Sonka Stultz

Discover. Innovate. Emerge.

A CONVERSATION WITH ARTIST TRACY SONKA STULTZ

BY BRIAN G. THORNTON

Just who is Tracy Sonka Stultz? I met Tracy and her husband, Eric Stultz, at the global architectural firm Gensler in Washington, DC. Our mutual friendship developed when I spent years knowing Eric as the architect and Tracy as the interior designer. But this story is about none of the above….

In the twenty-seven years of friendship, experiencing life, cross-country moves, and reconnecting professionally in Las Vegas, I have missed a lot, it seems, about Sonka Stultz and the emerging artist’s affinity for technology, the unabashed embrace of AI [Artificial Intelligence], and all the benefits of a dual interior designer and artist career.

As a design professional, wife, and mother of two adult children, Sonka Stultz has never shied away from international travel for global projects or working for several design firms, including Hirsch Bedner Associates, Gesler, and her bespoke studio these days. She’s always had talents and skills in both interior design and art.

Chic Compass: How did you get started in interior design?

Sonka Stultz: I remember my feeling of accomplishment over my first oil painting at eight years old. From that point on, my only true passion was art. As a third-generation architectural designer and photographer, I started painting in oils as a young child and sculpting wood in my dad’s workshop through high school. In high school, I studied art and got an associate degree in art from the then-popular Art Instructions School.

Chic Compass: Delving into any creative’s background often reveals pivotal moments or events that shape them for life.

Sonka Stultz: As the youngest of six children, our family had limited financial resources, so when they agreed to pay for college-level art classes when I was 14 and three of my five siblings were already in college, I understood this was a significant sacrifice.

At seventeen, I asked my creative mentor Aunt Sugi, “What should I do?”

I wanted to be independent and support myself. Aunt Sugi suggested I study Interior Design to keep me in a creative field and allow me to make enough money to support myself. I applied for and attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and fell in love with interior design and the idiom “God is in the details.” I have been practicing residential and hospitality interior design for over three decades.

Chic Compass: Most people can barely do one task at a time; how did you discover you could do both – interior design and painting?

Sonka Stultz: Interior Design has bursts of creativity and creative problem-solving but also has phases in the project that are more technical and administrative. It was during these times that I was able to continue painting. I also enjoyed working with clients interested in having and commissioning original art for my projects. Great examples are Penny Pritzker, a client with a passion (and budget) for original art, and I worked together on a beautiful new construction multi-family high rise in Washington, DC.

Working with client Nita Ambani on her iconic 27-story home in Mumbai was revelational. The sheer volume and quality of her original art collection floored me. I toured her collection one day in Mumbai and will never forget it.”

Roger Thomas at Wynn Design, a great patron of the arts, always supported my desire to incorporate original art into our designs. He was very knowledgeable about local artists and helped realize the massive 30-foot crystal dragon sculpture we commissioned above the dining booths as the restaurant’s focal point. (This design was subsequently replicated at the Wynn Encore in Las Vegas.) The original Wing Lei Restaurant in Macau was an excellent example of our collaboration.

Wing Lei Restaurant Dining Room in Macau

While at Hirsh Bedner Associates, I worked with Roger Thomas and Steve Wynn on Wynn Macau and Las Vegas. I enjoyed the relationship so much that I seriously considered a significant offer from them.”

Chic Compass: Her crafting the pandemic into an opportunity to grow intrigued me. What helped to expand your creativity as an artist?

Sonka Stultz: During my thirty-five years as an Interior Designer, I would take the lulls in projects to paint. As COVID set in and non-essential construction was halted in Los Angeles, the pauses stretched out and stir craziness set in. We took a vacation up the western coast of the United States in a rented RV. This trip ended up being a catalyst for painting, as the immeasurable beauty of our coast inspired many new works.”

Sonka Stultz emphasizes, “From Sculpting with found stones and driftwood to modernizing the ancient encaustic medium by adding inks, oils, and at times burnt fabric, I am searching to create distinctly human pieces of art, all the while exploring how to collaborate with AI solution providers. I believe it is naive to think AI won’t replace most creative professionals in the foreseeable future. We can’t comprehend all the ways AI is changing the world RIGHT NOW. From military applications, medical, and diagnostics, to concept and schematic design for interior designers and architects, to dating (EG, the dating app SNACK allows my bots to talk to your bot before we ever converse).”

Superhero 1 – Drift Wood and Metal, 18″ x 10″ x 5″

During the pandemic, a six-year ground-up construction on a 15,000 SF residential estate in Calabasas was winding down. I’d had my fingers in all aspects of planning, landscape, architecture, and interior design, and I needed to keep that creative energy flowing.
Chic Compass: Where do you find your inspiration?

Sonka Stultz: “I find my inspiration from many great artists. I follow Iniko’s music as they have a stunning fashion aesthetic and hypnotic musical style, AI architecture sites, Refik Anadol’s revolutionary digital art, techno-minimal-orientalism, science, astronomy, and geology. When I travel, I collect local artists’ jewelry and small items, but primarily memories are captured with my camera. I wish I had a bigger home to showcase all the artists I love.”

Chic Compass: How many places you’ve lived and traveled influenced your style?

Sonka Stultz: As a self-described ‘bi-coastal girl,’ Tracy says, “Growing up in the Laguna Mountains in the Cleveland National Forest east of San Diego and Maryland’s extraordinary weather events helped cement my love of capturing nature both on the canvas and with the camera.”

I have traveled extensively through Asia, Europe, and the Americas and enjoyed photographing nature in traditional and unusual ways. The photographic moments have greatly influenced the style and palettes of my paintings. My website has both an Abstract Photography section and a Landscape section.

Iceland – Photo by Tracy Sonka Stultz

Chic Compass: What does a day in your Studio look like?

Sonka Stultz: Every day, I try to start with a clean workspace, then crank up my music, and time flies, leaving chaos and destruction in my tidy world. And that’s ok. Sometimes I have no idea where the process will lead me, while at other times, I have a very clear image. I get completely absorbed and hyper-focused. Barry Kaufman is an author and educator who wrote about the” Messy Minds of Creative People.” A nonlinear thinking process leads to a lot of trial and error, but having a harmonious passion helps settle the complex contradictions in my brain to focus the output of each creative event.”

Chic Compass: How do you view your art?

Sonka Stultz: My art is a journey that is just emerging now, and I can’t foresee the opportunities ahead, but with an unquenchable thirst for innovation and growth, I am on a powerful journey to stay ahead of AI in the art world.”

“I paint by firing molten beeswax (mixed with damar resin) and adding India inks in a modern version of the ancient Greek encaustic technique using fire to apply and infuse pigments, and at times burnt fabric, into the wax. I first noticed an uptick in encaustic artists coming out of the UK and loved the depth and texture it allowed. Intrigued. I signed up for an extensive online course taught by many of the best encaustic artists in the world.”

Chic Compass: What about growth and future collections?

Sonka Stultz: “SCALE. I’d love to move into much larger encaustic works. The largest encaustics I have are 30 x 60, but I see a very large triptych in my future. Currently, the only large pieces I have are mixed media.”

I have a beautiful outdoor space adjacent to my studio that allows me to get really messy with my anthropomorphic sculptures. They incorporate driftwood, found stones, and mixed media. I can spend hours in front of a pile of wood playing with compositions before something clicks in my brain. Deep personal memories frequently inspire my work as well as the pieces themselves.

Tracy Sonka Stultz

Chic Compass: What comes next?

Sonka Stultz: “I have so many ideas in my head I can barely keep up, but I would love a custom commission for a hospitality or commercial lobby.”

I am currently working on my K-Series, which is somewhat influenced by Kandinsky and Klimt. AI will definitely influence my future series in some way. This tool is just too powerful to ignore entirely. As we start to understand the far-reaching implications of the apocalyptic avalanche of AI technology, my task as a human artist is to understand how to utilize this tool and differentiate between the potential and the peril. I don’t think AI will replace me, but I do believe artists working with AI may replace artists that don’t work with AI. I’ve spent many years designing a computer. Now I can design with it. Regarding shows, my ongoing anthropomorphic sculpture series was devised to complement my encaustic landscapes, and I hope to have a show to feature both within the following year.

Tracy Sonka Stultz is a multi-talented artist and interior designer with a long and impressive career in the industry. It’s fascinating to learn about the different aspects of her life and career that many may not have been aware of before, and this conversation was worth the discovery.