Deborah Mills Thackrey

Photographer Deborah Mills Thackrey was born in the Texas Panhandle town of Amarillo in 1953. She joined her junior high yearbook staff in order to get her hands on her first camera. As the only photographer in high school journalism class she was left alone in the darkroom to develop her skills. This put her on the path of being self-taught and independent most of her career.

Thackrey moved to California at the age of 20, unable to get into regular art classes at San Francisco State she began to study theatrical design. Her skill at makeup and costuming is visible in her current projected nudes series. In the next phase of her life she began a career as a graphic designer which gave her an opportunity to work art directing top commercial photographers at major corporations such as Apple.

When her husband Tom returned to photography a decade ago, she picked up a camera again as well, after more than a 20 year absence. They spent time in the esteemed photographic community of Carmel beginning friendships with photographers such as Edward Weston's grandson Kim. Within a couple of years of serious immersion in photography, Thackrey was offered her first solo exhibit in Monterey at the Stefani Esta gallery in 2002. She began to regularly win prizes in juried shows in Los Gatos and Santa Clara with curators such as Philip Linares from the Oakland Museum and the Triton's George Rivera. Solo exhibits in Los Angeles and Palo Alto followed, as well as being included in at least 50 group shows ranging from the Texas Photographic Society, to galleries in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Monterey.

She also spent 30 years studying modern dance with a student of seminal modern dance pioneer Lester Horton. Upcoming projects include a third collaboration with dancer Ishika Seth at the Theatre Yugen in San Francisco projecting her textural photographs and videos onto dancers who will improvise to the content of the images.

Thackrey has recently become an activist for artists in the South Bay as one of the founders of the Silicon Valley Artists' Collaborative, with the goal of helping to create more opportunities for local artists. Her work is in private collections from New York to LA and Marin County, and in corporate collections such as Adobe.