From Medicine to Art, Dr. Dan Tackett Makes a Bold Change

Sunday, 30 August 2009 07:58

 

Editor's Note: After a career in medicine, Dr. Dan Tackett recently took a hard look at "the dark side" of American medicine, and walked away...into a bold new adventure. Black Hills hart patrons have long admired Dr. Tackett's landscape photography, but he has recently returned to his childhood love of painting and drawing. He was interviewed recently by Black Hills artist and photographer Steve Babbitt.

Steve Babbitt: How did you get started taking photographs and doing paintings and drawings?

 

Dan Tackett: For as long as I can remember I have loved doing art work. I loved doodling and drawing when I was a child, and found it quite mysterious and magical. As I entered my junior high school years my family and I moved to Germany where for two years I had the great experience of being able to travel across Europe, and go to a number of world-renowned museums and see a large amount of incredible artwork.

 

At that point I became more serious about art. For the remainder of junior high and high school I took it up more seriously. Once I got to college I happened to come across some photo annuals that were just excellent compilations of a number of old and contemporary masters of photography. At that point I became quite fascinated by photography, and started to pursue that, seriously in the early 1970s. I worked for the school photo lab where I had the key to the darkroom at any time, and mostly free materials. That enabled me to experiment quite a bit with different techniques.

 

Steve Babbitt: Where did you go to college?

 

Dan Tackett: My undergraduate years were spent at Central State University in Oklahoma. It's now the University of Central Oklahoma. I majored in biology and commercial art simultaneously. I graduated first in biology (with a special interest in mammalogy). Then I attended medical school. I continued to draw throughout those years, and have ever since. I have been fascinated by art and science for as long as I can remember.

Steve Babbitt: Can you think of any artists who were particularly influential, either painters or photographers early on?

 

Dan Tackett: When I was in Europe I was really taken by the traditional masters of the Renaissance, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Durer, Bernini, Hals. Since that time, when I became interested in photography I think the key figures who stimulated me early on were people such as Ansel Adams, Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, William Garnett, Eliott Porter, Ernest Haas, and Wynn Bullock.

 

Steve Babbitt: You were a physician for twenty-five years? And recently left that all behind to become a full time artist. How's that transition going?

 

Dan Tackett: When I began my career in medicine I had a sense of regret that I could not pursue a simultaneous career in art. It just wasn't possible to do both full time. In my spare time I did make an effort to pursue art, and it was always in the back of my mind to switch careers while I still had eyesight, steady hands, and half a brain, which is debatable.

 

After serving a painful and eye opening year as Chief of Staff at the Hospital (Rapid City Regional) the choice became much easier. I was exposed to the dark side of medicine at that time. This, coupled with the stress of practicing medicine in general, and the tremendous stress of being a cancer physician, took a toll that led me to my decision.

 

Now, the transition to art is going very well. The nice thing about it is that it has enabled me to re-explore oil painting. I've always been fond of oil painting since junior high school. I've dabbled with it here and there. But I never felt that I gained really good skills or finesse with the medium. I've always wanted to explore it further, and more thoroughly. One of the nice things about retirement so far is that I have been able to spend quite a bit of time polishing my technique and discovering who I am from a painting standpoint.

Steve Babbitt: What are your biggest challenges that you are facing, and what are the greatest rewards you are finding?

 

Dan Tackett: The biggest challenge that I have with painting is in developing a technique that feels innate to me. Over the years I have admired a number of artist's work, who use a fairly broad range of techniques, but I have not had time to develop my own personality, if you will, in terms of painting. Also, I am in the process of developing technical expertise with painting that requires a lot of experimentation and hit and miss in many ways. It has been very time consuming, but pleasurable challenge to work through these issues. As time has gone on I have felt like I'm starting to grasp some of the issues, started to develop a bit of a personality in terms of painting. I also feel that I have a long way to go. I think the biggest challenge will be to get where I want to be in my remaining life span. I feel like to got started twenty or thirty years too late.

 

Steve Babbitt: What are your greatest rewards?

 

Dan Tackett: The greatest reward has been to work with the magic of the paint, the tactile quality of it, the tonality that can be achieved, the fact that you can work with deep, rich, brilliant hues. It's just a blast to try to develop dynamic compositions and color schemes that work.

 

Steve Babbitt: I noticed that among your recent paintings, there are a couple of different styles. Are you exploring? What are you doing?

 

Dan Tackett: Soul searching. Admittedly, there is quite a range of technique. I am just in the process of trying to find the technique that feels most comfortable to me. Although I doubt that I will finally settle on a single approach. Over time I will certainly narrow down, and sharpen my skills. Part of the battle for me has been the fact that in drawing I have always done photorealistic type work in extreme detail, minute detail. I feel that in painting I want to depart from that. I want to develop a looser style. At this point I'm not sure how loose. So it's a work in progress.

 

Steve Babbitt: Most people know you as a photographer. How has the evolution of digital imaging in photography changed the way your work as a photographer?

 

Dan Tackett: Well, first of all, when I first realized over a decade ago that digital photography was coming along from a technological standpoint, I was very curious and excited about it because I realized that there would be potential to obtain a greater level of creativity in producing imagery than with traditional silver-based photography. I thought that there would be a much better way to explore the range of highlights and shadows and to embellish or subdue details in images to a far greater degree than with standard silver-based imagery. And so, over the years, as digital photography evolved and digital printing became much more accessible I began to delve more and more into it to the point that I made a complete switch from film-based and silver-based photography to digital capture and printing.

 

However, I must say that this by no means suggests that I have abandoned my love for silver-based imagery and belief that it is a very beautiful medium and I have great respect for it. I will always admire well- made silver prints.

Steve Babbitt: Do you ever use film any more?

 

Dan Tackett: I never use film.

 

Steve Babbitt: You work both in color and black and white. What guides the decision to go one way or another?

 

Dan Tackett: It is very dependent on the subject before me. I have found that I often have a predilection in viewing a scene to print it as a black and white or color photograph. I just find that certain scenes are best suited to black and white and others are best suited to color. It's based on issues of contrast, color and detail, and the overall impression that I am trying to create.

 

Steve Babbitt: Regarding the evolution of digital photography, where do you think photography is headed?

 

Dan Tackett: It is primarily headed to be a digital medium. If not entirely, almost entirely, but I think there will always be a component to fine art printing and image capture that will rely on silver-process or other non digital processes, which I think is good and I hope to never see those processes die. I have really found digital photography to be the medium of choice for me, as it allows me greater creativity and input than I felt that I had with traditional capture and output. I do feel that digital photography is a very powerful medium that is easily abused and I have concerns about it being over-utilized and over-embellished in general.

 

Steve Babbitt: I noticed that your exhibition at Traditions contains a wide range of drawing, color, black and white photographs, oils, and acrylics. Is there a particular medium that you are more attracted to?

 

Dan Tackett: They are all media that I enjoy working in, and I enjoy them for different reasons. I gravitate toward oil painting in terms of approaching landscapes. I gravitate toward portraiture when I draw. I just find that I have a natural affinity for that. Photography, I find pleasure in exploring still lives and landscapes in particular. So I like the different media for different reasons, but I enjoy them all.

 

Steve Babbitt: I also find that your subject matter is fairly broad; still life, wildlife, landscape, portraiture. Do you gravitate towards one more than another?

 

Dan Tackett: No. The subject is somewhat medium dependent. Over time I intend to explore all of them more thoroughly.

 

Steve Babbitt: Given all this, what motivates you to make artwork?

 

Dan Tackett: That is a really difficult question to answer. It certainly isn't the money. I've been an artist for many, many years, and I've made some money at it, but overall the monetary rewards have been much less than minimum wage. So it is by far something way beyond that. I think that it is entirely internally driven. There is a mechanism within me that has been present for my entire life. I don't have to tell myself to do artwork. I have always wanted to do artwork. I am mystified by it. I find it magical and therapeutic. When I work with imagery whether it's with painting or photography or drawing, time completely melts away. I think that I could do art all my life, and not have anybody see the work and still be driven to do it. I think I am trying to say that it is about the process and the final product rather than what happens to it after that. However, it's always been my hope that others would enjoy viewing my work, and that they would gain pleasure or insight in the process.

Steve Babbitt: What are you working on now?

 

Dan Tackett: I am currently working on a fairly large painting of the foothills in the Lamar region of Yellowstone. I made a photograph of that several years ago, but in looking at it I thought I might be able to express it better in oil paint. It's a sunset, with a brilliant orange beam of light going across the upper part of the hill. There was really beautiful stuff going on in the shadows and foreground. I am just trying to bring out the luminosity of that image. That's been a real fun challenge. Otherwise I have continued to work in landscape photography, primarily in color work. I am doing some work in the Badlands and Black Hills, but also working on some images that I took recently when I was in the Utah, Arizona area.

 

Steve Babbitt: What do you hope to be focusing on for the next couple of years.

 

Dan Tackett: I haven't been doing much drawing in the last few years, and I am feeling the need to get back to that. I would really like to do more portraiture, drawn portraits. Hopefully, I would like to do commission work if anyone was interested. I want to work diligently in oil painting to polish my skills further. And I will work with landscapes. As far as photography is concerned, I will continue to explore the West, but I would like to develop a much larger portfolio of images of our area-southeastern Montana, and southern North Dakota and western South Dakota, and perhaps even parts of eastern South Dakota, Northern Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. We live in an extremely beautiful area and I realized long ago that there was probably far too much for me to try and capture in a lifetime, but I'll try.

 

Steve Babbitt: Given all the things that inspire you, does living in western South Dakota have an influence on your work?

 

Dan Tackett: Oh, yes. I moved here twenty-two years ago because I had previously lived in Sioux Falls for a year when I did my internship. I had come to the Black Hills on two occasions during my internship. I really fell in love with the Black Hills and Badlands. When I took a job here twenty-two years ago, other than the fact that I thought it was a good job and a good community, my main attraction was the region. I find that every time I go into the Black Hills, the Badlands, and the Plains, I am taken aback by the beauty of what's there. I don't believe I will ever get tired of it.

 

Steve Babbitt: Fifty years from now, what would you like to be remembered for?

 

Dan Tackett: It's a pleasant notion to me that in twenty or thirty or forty years that some people will still have some of my images around, and that they will look at them and get something positive out of them.

Written by Steve Babbitt You are reading From Medicine to Art, Dr. Dan Tackett Makes a Bold Change articles