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were both younger. Instead of focusing on the setting of listening to her brother play the song over and over again, trying to imitate the famous guitarist, she remembered the swirl of colors it created.
“It was mostly a colorful memory ... I remember the pinks and the blues and kind of envisioning that as he’s playing it.” As a music lover, McCracken typically nds inspiration from simply listening to songs where she knows the painting as soon as the whirlpool of colors lls her head. McCracken does have her favorite artists
to paint, including Radiohead, Frank Ocean and James Blake, who she says create colorful music that excites her every time she listens.
To McCracken, different genres produce particular color palettes. She explains, “country music, for example, usually has earthier tones, like more browns and yellows and deep greens and musky blue-looking colors” But goes on to say that not every song or genre is tied to certain hues, with some genres such as hip-hop or electronic music going in different directions from song to song.
McCracken notes that the colors of some songs surprise her. She recalls a song by James Blake, “Our Love Comes Back,” and how during the “washy pink and cloudy colors” that formed,
a burst of a golden, pinkish orange color sparked out of nowhere, a new shock to her vision she had never experienced before, creating something she wasn’t too fond of.
With color comes texture, which many of her paintings have due to the use of oil paints
as her chosen medium. The “nice vibrancy and luster with them fare well with the music,” says McCracken, who goes on to say that “certain voices or certain instruments have speci c-looking textures to them, too.” When creating her works of art, McCracken keeps in mind that she is a voice for what these songs look like and strives
to accurately depict how it looks as the artwork comes to her mind.
Although she primarily paints music, sounds have shaped pieces of art. One of those sounds: her father’s voice. “I remember sitting on his lap when I was little and I was falling asleep when he was talking with some friends,” says McCracken. “I remember the vibration of his voice and how deep it was ... it was just a very vivid memory for me, so I painted that for him for his birthday one year.”
McCracken cherishes her family’s love and con dence in her career. During her rst gallery showing in Kansas City, Missouri, where she is
Little Wing is inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing and McCracken’s older brother’s version of it. This is her rst painting.
originally from, she recalls how it felt bringing everyone together. “It was so insane that anyone would even be there for anything that I had done,” says McCracken. “It’s one of the only times in
my life where I’ve gotten to have friends and family and people from past walks of life all come together just to stop by and say ‘hi.’ I love those nights so much, they’re special.”
During a transitional point in her career before one of her shows, McCracken created a piece on a whim that became an important one. The night before the show, McCracken stayed up and put together an 8-foot painting, which she titled “The In Between” based off “33 Gods” by Bon Iver. She went on to say that “as a painter, it kind of relinquished a lot of my inhibitions with painting.”
McCracken believes her work also
allows people to acknowledge and understand synesthesia, having others with the condition know it’s okay to have it. “I’ve gotten emails where
people are excited because, like me, they didn’t know that this was a thing.” She doesn’t look at the condition as a setback, but says it’s always welcoming to meet other synesthetes who relate to what she sees.
McCracken looks forward to the future of her career and how she can expand her creativity. ”I’m honestly excited to open my lens of how
to look at things,” she says. “I feel like in a lot
of respects, that it’s kind of my role ... to show people music differently, but I’m kind of ready to have those times be opened up to myself and try to challenge myself in ways to look at presenting art a little bit differently.”
Along with inspiring herself as an artist, McCracken also offered inspiring words to young artists and people who are just getting started in their careers, saying that the
best thing to do is not let the work become consuming. “I would say it’s a matter of, honestly, sticking to your guns with things