The English Language

Name: The English Language
Website: www.englishlanguagemusic.com

What do you do?
We are The English Language: a three-piece Rock & Roll Super-Band inspired by our love of the greatest 20th century pop culture and music.  Kyle Langlois plays guitar and sings, Tristan Perotti plays bass and sings and Mark Danley hits the drums.

Where can we find your work?

www.englishlanguagemusic.com

https://www.facebook.com/EnglishLanguageMusic

www.reverbnation.com/theenglishlanguage

www.soundcloud.com/englishlanguagemusic

www.theenglishlanguage.bandcamp.com/

What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?

Inspiration comes from anything - not excluding nothing.  Rock & Roll is as vital   and universal as speaking English.  We've motivated by the overwhelming influence and cultural impact Rock & Roll has and will continue to have on Western civilization and the world.

What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
 All are equally important. Technique and process are essential to performance, both live and in the studio.  The finished products (recordings) allow us to demonstrate our musical aesthetic as ideally as possible. Content, both musical and lyrical, is always important in our music.

Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?
There are so many... We are heavily influenced by the 50s/60s/70s so our top three songwriting influences are: Ray Davies, John Lennon, and Brian Wilson though we draw influence from all types of music and culture. Anyone from Brahms, Joplin, and Vera Lynn to Elvis, Zappa, and Sublime.

If you could be any fictional character who would you be?

Jesus.

When do you get your best ideas?
The night time is the right time.

What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?

Anything that makes an interesting and, most importantly, appropriate sound. Everything from guitars, tambourines and microphones to jew harps, crotales, and even household objects.

Are you self taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?

The English Language is comprised of both self-taught and formally educated musicians. Having such varied musical backgrounds makes our band and our music more versatile and interesting. Our ears are open to all styles and sounds.

What would your creative work taste like?
Hamburger-milkshakes,beer and peyote.

When you are not creating what do you like to do?
Eat, sleep, drink and think.

How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience?
Talent is a fairy tale. Talent is when you work your ass off and someone notices.

What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures?    
Find out what you want to do and do it.  It's simple but challenging.

Megan Eckman

Name: Megan Eckman             
Website: http://www.studiomme.com
 

What do you do?
I’m a pen and ink illustrator who rekindles wonder by reminding people of the magic they felt as a child.  In my artwork, anything is possible and the unusual is the norm.  The magic exists in the everyday and it’s my job to help others see it again.

Where can we find your work?
You can find my work on my website at http://www.studiomme.com and several galleries and boutiques across the country.  A full list of shops is available on my site.

What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?
I’m constantly inspired by young adult books and the classic fairy tales.  I always get my best ideas when I go for a walk, however.  My mind begins to play with the possibilities of what could be.

     

What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
Content!  I’m a narrative artist and if the content doesn’t let me tell a story, it’s not going to grab my attention.   

Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?
My father used to read me the dark Grimms’ fairy tales before bed along with the work of Edward Gorey, especially his Gashlycrumb Tinies, an unfortunate alphabet book where 26 children meet untimely ends.  Max Ernst’s crazy engraving mishmashes really influenced me in art school as well.  

If you could be any fictional character who would you be?
Sophie Hatter from Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle.

When do you get your best ideas?
When I’m on a long, afternoon walk by myself.  It never fails!

What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?
Rapidograph pens and smooth Bristol paper.

Are you self taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?
Both!  I attended art school and received degrees in art with an emphasis in drawing and English with an emphasis in creative writing.  However, I taught myself most of my technique since pen and ink is only taught in the most basic forms nowadays in college.  The formal education was the best thing I ever received because it allowed me to learn the history of art and that really helped me put my work into the larger context of art history, art theory, and also English lit theory.

What would your creative work taste like?
Lemon poppyseed cake!  Sweet with just a hint of tartness.

When you are not creating what do you like to do?
Bike!  My boyfriend got me addicted to cycling a few months ago and now I love putting on those padded shorts and riding into the mountains.

How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience?
I grew up with a very supportive family who always pushed me to show off my work.  It took years to gain the confidence I have now but I still get nervous when I call gallery owners.  However, if I don’t share the work I make, then what’s the point of making it?  If I want it to have an effect on people, if I want to rekindle wonder in the magic that exists around us, I have to show everyone I meet!

What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures? 
I actually just wrote an article on this for DesignSponge! http://www.designsponge.com/2012/02/biz-ladies-how-to-be-part-of-the-10-percent.html

But to sum it up, it takes professionalism and ambition to be a self-supporting artist.  You have to present yourself as a real artist if you want to be taken seriously and you need to have the ambition to contact hundreds of shops and galleries so that a handful can say yes!

Deep Sea Dreamer

Troy Joseph Curtis

Name: Troy Joseph Curtis
Website: NuRoutesRecords.com

What do you do?
I play a handful of overlapping roles in the Downtown San Jose community and facilitate culture where I can be of some help. I am a poet, actor, journalist, songwriter, multi instrumentalist, producer, instructor and curator on the creative side. I am a small business owner entrepreneur and innovator on the business side and I am a community organizer, volunteer and provocateur on the local culture side. I am a working musician and currently run a music production, performance venue and gallery space called Nu Routes Studios located within The Citadel Artist Community in Downtown San Jose. I am about to launch Nu Routes Record, a San Jose focused DIY record label, sometime this fall. I also teach and create youth arts curriculum in schools, nonprofits and art studios.

Where can we find your work?
Music:
Nu Routes Records
www.nuroutesrecords.com

Nu Routes Studios
www.facebook.com/NuRoutes

Youth and Community Service:

I am the art instructor for a fantastic non profit that creates family resource fairs at Downtown San Jose elementary schools named Sunday Friends. Volunteer and you can make some really fun art projects with great kids.
http://www.sundayfriends.org/

volunteers/index.html

What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?
I am truly inspired by the wealth of talented artists and artisans of all kinds that surround me here in Downtown San Jose. From musicians to urban farmers, makers to visual artists there are so many gifted people sharing inspiring art and culture. Personally mentoring and educating youth is the best cure for when things get challenging. No matter what's happening in my world, I can set it aside and focus on exploring another world with these young artists and it usually gives me new perspective on what ever I’m stuck on.

What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
I go around and around with this one. My content follows my technique and my process chases my finished product. I tend to get more hung up on content/finished product but I am a deconstructionist at heart so no matter how much technique I learn or what process I apply I am always secretly or not so secretly taking things apart so the whole thing is a set up. I write a piece of music, play the snatch of music relentlessly until the overtones ring in my head. Create a vocal melody from that, let the melody stir up what ever is lurking in my sub conscience...formulate that into a coherent rough draft of a song, take it all apart and rebuild it with stronger more technical parts and less personal neurosis.

Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?
There are a lot of well known artists and humanitarians I have been inspired and influenced by but it’s the people around me that are trying to live their dreams and overcome the adversities of everyday life that truly influences, motivates and inspires me. Three such examples of people that have an influence impact on me and inspire my work.
-Brian Eder & Cherri Lakey- Owners of Two Fish designs as well as Gallery AD, Kaleid and the Phantom Galleries downtown, Hosts of the annual DIY art & Culture festival SubZERO held in the SOFA district downtown.
www.galleryad.com  www.kaleidgallery.com  www.subzerofestival.com
These two gallery owners have mentored me for years. I couldn’t say enough about the culture, community, creativity and balance they have inspired in me. I learn from them on a weekly basis. We share a vision of San Jose as an Art Metropolis and it is their passion and fearlessness that fuels my own creative desire.

-Eric Lichter
www.facebook.com/
dirtfloorstudio ericlichter.blogspot.com/
Eric and I began talking about music and recording online a few years ago. He is musician and owner of Dirt Floor Studio in my home state of CT. We both have a passion for old school analog recording and American music. The work he’s doing and the bands he’s working with are a big part of my inspiration for starting a local record label. I feel if Eric can Start a thriving music community in a barn in the backwoods of New England than I have a shot at getting something started in the 10th largest city in the country.

-Erin Salazar
www.salazarcustoms.tumblr.com/

Erin and I are friends and neighbors at The Citadel Artist Community. Erin is a visual artist and recent graduate of SJSU. I am most inspired by her undying passion to create in the face of school debt, family illness and the overall lack of opportunity for artists in San Jose. It has been a big motivation to watch Erin set up her studio, start a small business and create unique, dynamic work from her large pin-striping inspired paintings to the murals she paints for local businesses throughout the downtown.

If you could be any fictional character who would you be?
Kilgore Trout

When do you get your best ideas?
In bed, usually early in the morning, when I’m just about to wake up or go to sleep.

What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?
Guitar, Bass, keyboards, Vox, records, Sp 404, pen & paper, Kazoo, smartphone, craft beer, Coffee

Are you self taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?
My uncle gave me my first guitar when I was five. It was an old Harmony with three strings that he had pulled out of a dumpster. I beat on that thing for years before I grasped the concept of tuning it or having all six strings. Growing up we didn’t have a lot so we made the most out of what we had. I think that informs my style and approach. We never had money for lessons but my mother got me a wurlitzer piano when I was ten and my father got me my first electric guitar when I was twelve both on the condition I would continue to teach myself. As I grow technically as a musician I see elements of my untrained style still come through. It gives me a feeling of uniqueness.

What would your creative work taste like?
Coffee & Flap Cats (cornbread pancakes)

When you are not creating what do you like to do?
I’ve always been into movies, documentaries, cult and foreign films mostly. I enjoy woodworking and refinishing furniture as well as building and riding bikes.

How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience?
I was a really painfully shy child who rarely spoke. I started writing music and poetry in middle school but only as a creative or emotional outlet. I slowly began reading poetry at bookstores and coffee shops around New England and started getting into slam poetry. In high school I had a Theater teacher named Maggie Kline. She was a passionate renegade English Teacher who grew up right here in San Jose. She was one of the first Americorps volunteers in the country back in the late 60’s and she became my high school mentor. I quit the football team and become Romeo in the school play. By the end of High School I had the opportunity to develop as a person and an artist as well as perform poetry, theater and music in front of thousands of people.

What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures?
I have worked with young artists at the beginning of their creative adventures for almost a decade now. As an Instructor I believe I’m there to inspire and inform. In my classes I tell my youth not to limit yourself, or let other people put limits on them. Experiment, explore and gain experience. Don’t wait for someone to tell you what to do or how to do it. Find your passion and answer your own questions.

Jenifer J Renzel

Name: Jenifer J Renzel
Website: http://bugatha1.deviantart.com/

What do you do?

Full time technical writer, part time artist.

Where can we find your work?
 Kaleid Gallery (downtown SJ) and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Assemblage-Art-by-Jenifer-J-Renzel/213055888709223

What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?
Sometimes ideas or images just pop into my head and I’m ready to go. Other times an old object will be the catalyst. I go to a lot of estate sales and flea markets, and I get inspired by old toys, broken hardware, rusty garden tools, and so forth. Sometimes an object is just crying out to become part of an art piece.

What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
That is a tough question. I think they have to go together.

Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?
Joseph Cornell, Jean Michael Basquiat,
Alexander Caulder (his ‘circus‘ puppetry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIQbjbbNq0Q),
Hieronymous Bosch, and Wladyslaw Starewicz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ed8Hbh5XK0).

If you could be any fictional character who would you be?
Maybe James West from the original Wild West TV series.

When do you get your best ideas?
I get good ideas when I’m working out, or right before I fall asleep. Traveling and seeing new places also fires up my creative juices. I keep a little notebook where I accumulate these ideas for when I hit a creative dry spell.

What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?
All sorts of found objects plus lots of wire, two-part epoxy, and crackle paint.

Are you self taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?
I don’t have any formal education in art, but I’ve taken various miscellaneous classes and workshops over the years. I’ve also been lucky to have artistic friends who have shared their techniques with me. I sometimes wish I had some formal training in art because I think it would improve aspects of my work. Maybe someday I’ll go back to school ....

When you are not creating what do you like to do?
Watch scary movies, scrounge for art materials and found objects, read mysteries and thrillers, play with our kitties, and go on weekend trips with my partner.

How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience?

The Kaleid Gallery was really important for me -- it gave me an outlet for my art, and got me connected with the local art community. Cherri Lakey and Lacey Bryant get a big thank you from me for all the work they do to keep this gallery vibrant.

What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures?
I think it’s important to make the art that you love and try not to worry about what others think. If you lose yourself in it, it’s probably good. Some people will like it, some will be neutral, and some will dislike it. That’s OK. I once had someone tell me that one of my pieces caused her to have a visceral reaction and made her slightly nauseous. That’s not necessarily the reaction an artist seeks, but I think it just shows one range of impact.