by Patrick Ogle

John Grande is a New York City-based painter being show at this year's Scope Miami Beach by noted Swiss Gallery/art, Licht Feld. Grand is a painter whose background informs his work in a way that is fairly unique. His one-time day job making C-prints influenced and influences his work in interesting ways. Many painters who discuss influence from photos are talking about mimicking reality or distorting it. Grande's view is broader.

"I started working at Beth Schiffer's Fine Art Printing Lab right after I graduated from School Of Visual Arts in Manhattan. My experience working as a high end C printer was like going back to school again. When I say 'influenced me' I am talking about knowledge  in the art of creating a successful image," he says. "From Color theory to Composition--being able to work side by side with these highly successful photographers I was taking it all in and applying this knowledge to my work and adding it to my foundation of painting."

Grande is creating paintings that are not quite photo realistic but if is aim was that they be that? They assuredly would be.The complex images he creates might be labelled "pop art" by some but that would be lazy. These complex images are more than mischievous morphing of popular culture. There is a subtly different artistic dialog here.

"This would be my dialogue of how I see and interpret the world around me. I see my self as a sort of visual journalist. A filter," says Grande. "Instead of words I use the the picture to create the story/idea i want to tell in each different body of work."

And the way Grande chooses to bring pop culture into his work is unique and intwined with how he visually builds and structures his paintings.
 
"Once again adding to the vocabulary of art. How do i take this thing "POP ART" and make it mine in a market that has become saturated with 'POP.' I hope that at the end of the day i am successful." he says.

On the Licht Feld website Grande's biography discuses the different ways he solves his conceptual problems. You see similar discussion from other artists. But each artist's contextual problems certainly vary.

"When I talk about the "contextual problems” I am referring to an idea and, how do I bringing the idea to conception with in the my photo representational style. Some one once told me 'Just because you can paint don’t paint for pomp and circumstance. Always find a way to add to the vocabulary of art'," he says. "This made me stop and really think about what I was painting and why. Every time I am starting a new This is what i mean by contextual problem. How do my ideas add to the vocabulary of art?"

Grande says the process in creating work is similar through his efforts, differing only in the deployment of that process.  

"I always find that there is something that i have done in previous work that i adopt and add it to my technique. My work has an even flow meaning that I through my process I discover new ways to create," says Grande. "I don’t believe in the Lightening bolt idea. I believe it is all about creating work."

The artists work hs been exhibited around the world. Exhibitions include shows in: The USA (New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Washington DC), Korea, Italy, India
and Canada). See his work during Miami Art Week 2017 at Scope Miami Beach.

Beth Thornley's latest EP, Septagon, is out now (you can listen to it below). The Los Angeles-based, Alabama born, singer songwriter admits a fondness for EPs despite one glaring drawback.

"I love EPs--it is hard to get people to review EPs though." says Thornley.

It is, of course, difficult to get people to review anything unless you've been anointed by the proper hipster authorities.

As a listener, however, an LP also has drawbacks. Thornley says she has a hard time digesting an entire album. There are too many songs to really absorb. With an EP?  The listener can check out the entire thing.

"I notice in digital download sites the first five songs are the most popular. The four songs on Septagon hook together well." she says.

This EP is a digital only release. Up until now Thornley has released physical product.

"The last was full of liner notes, an insert, lyrics and pictures. I still love holding a physical release--makes me sort of sad." says Thornley.

Whether the release is an EP or an LP, physical or digital, you have to create it first. Every songwriter has a process; what is Thornley's?

"In the beginning I wrote lyrics first. I always wanted to know what the song was about. Then lyrics would shift," she says. "I'd have an idea lyrically, that was where the feeling came from."

She could write the music without that feeling, without those lyrics.

"After I got the music down I would let the lyrics float in there. It almost never happens at the same time for me."

To avoid getting stuck in a rut she starts with music she has tried to change this up. In part she did this by thinking of all the instrumental music--going back hundreds of years--that is imbued with feeling with meaning. Ultimately, even when shaking things up, her work maintains the same focus.

"I think those people hear melodies in their head. I hear words." she says.

Septagon came together without a name.

"I started looking at songs and thought' these all relate'." she says.

Thornley was going through a period where she was trying to look at the world and her life in a different way. The songs were about seeing a different truth.

"One day driving through the Midwest, looking at farmland, there was a sign on the side of a truck that said "Septagon" and that was it," she says. "We did Iowa,

Nebraska, Illinois, I looked out the windows for miles and miles looking at little houses--but they were not really little. There is so much space."

Thornley lives and works in L.A. but is originally from Alabama. Her second EP was about that move and the struggle that went with it.

"I left home, Alabama, to come out here. You work really hard but wonder if it was the right move," she says. "Sometimes I am melancholy or nostalgic for what I left behind."

But other times she feels she did the right thing. Her song, It Could Be, is about this transition.

"Of course in the song I don't answer the question. You present the picture. You hold up a mirror. I have no idea what the right thing for someone else to do is." she says.

Thornley, like many musicians, has to find ways to sell her music, to make a living. What is the best way?

"Television is the best thing. Every time my song has been on a TV show I see a bump." she says.

This "bump" is in online plays, sales and views on Youtube. Television placement is also the gift that keeps on giving; when a show re-airs she also sees a bump.

Lipsync Music represents her. She sends music and it gets into the hands of producers who need it.

"The biggest bump I ever got was from a show in Canada, Degrassi. It has a huge following among teenagers," says Thornley. "They are also going to pass it around and listen to it on Youtube."

Her biggest payout was a song used in the Steven Soderbergh film, Magic Mike.

"A film is going to pay more than a television show." she says.

She also saw big bumps in traffic from songs on Royal Pains and Hung.

Just because her music gets used, with some frequency, in television doesn't mean she tailors it to the medium.

"I actually thing I am writing about the common human condition and that is what my job is anyway." she says.

She also thinks "chasing it," trying to create songs you think will work for television or movies.

"It is a needle in a haystack anyway. The problem is you just never know. Writers sit down and write a dance song or a ballad. Then you are targeting a market but it is a broad goal."

Just write good music and hope it appeals to a music director.

What is next for Thornley?

"I've got two separate EP ideas in my head. I have two songs a piece for each. I am sort of writing and recording them at the same time." she says.

Her last release was in 2010. One reason for the years between that release and Septagon is that Thornley and producer/musician Rob Cairns wrote a musical, Bad Apples. It was produced in Los Angeles in 2013 and will be on stage in Seattle in the fall of 2014.

There is something relentlessly cheerful about Sarah Dooley. Whether it is having a conversation with her or listening to her music. A sense of fun is in the air with Dooley. Her first fully-realized record, Stupid Things, is out now with what may be the greatest LP cover ever.

Inside is a collection of songs written in the past year and while it may not be a “concept album” (thanks to all things holy) there is something that knits all the pieces here together.

“The songs do touch on similar themes. It’s about nostalgia, childhood, unrequited love and The Goonies.” says Dooley.

 “Watching Goonies at My House is a middle school love song about The Goonies.” she says.

Dooley goes on to explain how her family had a box of old VHS tapes, purchased used at Blockbuster. The videos there were all sort of random but one of those was The Goonies and it crept into her youthful consciousness. Everyone has a movie, usually movies, they watched with their friends, their first crushes and those memories stick.

Dooley wanted to write from an early age.

“I’ve always wanted to be a writer. When I was little I wanted to be a screenwriter. I’ve journaled my whole life and written little stories,” she says. “It wasn’t until high school that I realized I liked writing songs. They are like short stories, the shortest stories. “

The Valparaiso, Indiana native studied play writing. She says that this might well come through in her songwriting.

“I have characters and songs are great for character studies.” says Dooley.

Unlike some songwriters Dooley doesn’t start with a given topic and go from there. Her songwriting is more intuitive.

“I never set out to write a song about a particular subject when I do they turn out like garbage. I improvise.” she says.

She keeps it open and explores different voices in her songs.

“What I like about songwriting is it is sort of mysterious.” says Dooley.

As to the music she starts with the piano. It isn’t always all chipper and cheerful.

“I improvise on piano and get these depressing melodies,” she says. “I do write about sad stuff but I don’t want it to be a big dramatic emo rant. It isn’t me.”

Another interesting source of inspiration is her work.

“I am a nanny and I teach music to babies. I love being around kids. It also feeds into my work. They are little bundles of material. Obviously I make sure they don’t die. “she says.

She also is the Sarah behind the popular mockumentary style web series, And Sarah. Over 160,000 people have viewed the series on Youtube. This is a funny bit of writing Dooley created while studying at Barnard College.

Dooley’s most recent show at Le Poisson Rouge in New York on February 10 was done in a middle school dance theme with balloons, crepe paper and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  She mentions nothing of trying to pipe in that “high school gymnasium smell.”

Dooley hasn’t toured extensively but it is something that is a possibility.

Dooley is always writing. At the moment she is working on two screenplays. She says she wants to bring back the movie musical. Where is Gene Kelly when you really need him?