St. Vincent

St. Vincent is the musical project of multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter of Anne "Annie" Clark. Clark is known for creating creative and eclectic music that combines multiple musical genres and incorporates a wide range of influences. Her five currently released albums­­ have all been released to critical acclaim and has often been called the “Female David Bowie”. Her 2014 self-titled album won the Grammy that year for Best Alternative album, making her the first female artist to do so in two decades.

Annie Clark was born in 1982 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but grew up mostly in Dallas, Texas. She picked up guitar at the age of 12 and received some training some her Uncle who is the famous jazz guitarist Tuck Andress. After Highschool she attended Berklee School of Music for three years before dropping out to pursue her own career. She did work for the Group The Polyphonic Spree before forming St. Vincent in 2007.

St. Vincent employs a wide range of processes to feed her creative processes. For her third album Strange Mercy she holed herself away in Seattle for a month to create it, trying to find art in isolation. She has said in interviews when she is working on new music she keeps working even is she not feeling inspired and that constant production is a key part of the creative process. Additionally, she pulls inspiration from a wide variety of sources, citing things as diverse as the Memphis Design Movement of the 1980s and the works of Director Alejandro Jodorowsky, to the journals of Marilyn Monroe, the latter of which formed the inspiration for her song “Surgeon”.  

Clarke has stated that when she works, she gets into a hyper focused states where nothing else matters, “food becomes perfunctory” she is quoted as saying. This sounds quite similar to the psychological of concept of flow. In which an individual achieves a highly focused state in regards to whatever they are working on.

Sources:
https://www.vogue.com/article/st-vincent-annie-clark-vogue-october-issue-interview-2017
https://www.gq.com/story/st-vincent-luxembourg
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/st-vincent-mn0000574035/biography
https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/8661-st-vincent/