Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. It's the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie.

And Hollywood Mike. Coming to you once again from the beautiful studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 in beautiful downtown Joliet, Illinois. I don't know why I just said that.

You just rattled that off pretty darn fast. Not bad. I didn't even spit.

Yeah. Well, that's good because you'd ruin the artwork that is in the studio right now. Well, you know, by doing that, I was trying to paint a picture of what was going on.

So that was my whole premise. I'm excited about this episode. Me too.

This is something that I don't think we've ever done before. We have not. Yeah.

You know, how do we support music? How do we promote music? But we're not always bringing cover bands and different musicians in and interviewing them at all. That's right. So what we've done is... Musicians are artists, you know.

Well, they are. They're artists. So we do have an artist.

They're not artistes. Well, you're right. True.

True. We have an artist in our midst this evening. We do.

We have Catherine Klausen. Whoa. Well, she's got a rock star's welcome, though.

She does. Oh my gosh. She's got that rock star welcome.

That's right. That's right. Welcome.

Thank you so much. It's awesome to be here tonight. Thanks for coming.

So I'm trying to think, we met because, well, first of all, we should probably explain who you are and what is it that you do, because now they're all wondering, OK, if she's not a musician and she's some type of an artiste. And we're going to show a little bit of a video in a little bit. But Catherine is a very talented painter.

Yeah. So I went to art school at the Art Institute in Chicago. I grew up in Chicago.

And I've been in this area for most of my life. And then, yeah, during 2020, you know, when everything shut down, I had been taking a lot of dance classes because I also do a lot of dancing. And since I didn't have the opportunity to do that and I hadn't really taken the time to figure out what I wanted to do in terms of like a coherent art style and what to focus on, then I already had like all of this dancing, all of this live music in the back of my mind.

So then I just decided, well, there's not a lot out there in terms of artwork. It's very challenging to try to portray movement and energy and everything that's so glorious about the live music scene that will never be replaced by the canned version. So yeah, I really started doing these in 2020.

And then, yeah, now we're hundreds of canvases later and it's just kind of exploded all over the place and just finding like different dancers and musicians in the area to paint. That's really been my focus. And it's been a lot of fun.

Yeah, absolutely. We should we should probably help clarify a little bit because, you know, this is kind of an intangible story of music. It's not something that we can hear and it's not something that they can automatically see right away.

So we have to kind of build that up a little bit for them here. And so what we're looking at here and what you're going to probably or hopefully be able to see in a little bit by way of video is the paintings that Catherine has brought into the studio today. It's not the only thing that she does, but it's been a huge influence in her life and it's influenced a lot of people that know who she is.

There are paintings in the studio. I'm honored to be in one of them. You're in two of them.

I'm in two of them. This one is so tiny. It is.

I told you. It's the small version of it. But I absolutely love it.

Of the band that we talk about that I'm in very often on the show. This is a painting of Cadillac Groove. I'm also in another painting where I am just playing in the house band for the open Sunday night sessions, the open jam that goes on at the studio, which we have talked about on this show many, many times.

Many times, many times. And around the studio here, there are images of people who we've actually interviewed. Jesse Perez is in one of them.

That's right. Rosie and the Rivets. Laura, who's also the owner of the studio, is a singer in The Simple Remedy.

And right behind me over here, just a few weeks ago, we interviewed The Hurricane Project. And there is a painting here of The Hurricane Project as well. So I think it's- Episode 124.

Yeah. I think it's really cool that the people that we've interviewed and the people who participate in music and bring live music to the people are immortalized forever in one of Catherine's pieces of art here. I find it kind of humorous, though, that Cadillac Groove is a nine-piece band, and it's the smallest canvas.

She wasn't sure if she liked this yet. I'm going to fix that. I'm definitely going to do a larger painting of them later.

But this was- so this is- the reason for this one, so it's an 8 by 10, and it has a lot of figures in it that are very small. But I was doing a series of paintings based on my dance group, the Lockport Swing Thing. So we have been at many different locations in the last seven years since we started because we've never charged for admission.

We also like to go to different places where there are bands playing and just say, okay, we're going to dance, we're going to get the crowd dancing. So I was doing a series of small paintings that are all this size showing the different locations that we've been at. And I decided, okay, well, I want to include Cadillac Groove in there because that was such an awesome night.

They were playing up on the gazebo, they come down the stage, they're like boogying around with everyone while they're dancing in the grass and Mike's like climbing up on tables and it's like, good grief. My life is a musical right now, you know, for the people that say that that's not realistic. It's like, well, clearly you haven't partied with the right people.

You haven't been to a Cadillac Groove show because this just like- That's right. Do you do these from memory or you take a photograph or what? There are definitely photo references involved and also video clips, but it also just captures like my general sense of the place and memories from being there. So yeah, so all of these are based on like places that I've been and pictures that I've took and just remembering like what my impression of it was.

So I find myself in a very privileged position in a way because it's like as a dancer, I get to be in all of these amazing places and see all of these really cool bands. And it's like, well, I want to show other people how awesome this is, how awesome these people are, how awesome these places are. And so being able to do that through my artwork is, I think, really cool.

So if you say you go to the studio and you see something, you know, you're watching them up there, is this something that, OK, you get the inspiration now, you go home and you get going on that painting right away or shortly thereafter? It really depends on like how clear the image arrives in my mind. Like if it's simpler than or like based on like one specific image, then that doesn't take very long. But for others, like I also have this painting that I brought in of Summer Dance in Chicago.

So that's based on a large collection of things. So it took a few months to kind of plot it out and block it out, almost as if it was a musical number to decide where everything is going to be, because it's not just based on one simple thing. It's like, oh, I have like this half-baked idea that might take a while to marinate.

Let's do this. Why don't we go through? Why don't you tell us a little bit about each one of them as I shoot a little bit of a video? Because I think for our listeners, it's very important for them to see some of these. Absolutely.

You know, so they're not just kind of getting their own ideas, because I mean, people, you know, it's really easy whenever I think of somebody that does artwork with a rock and roll band. And for some reason in my mind, I think of the artwork that is going to be really dark or it's going to be trippy or it's going to be psychedelic or something. And the colors in your paintings are so vibrant, especially this one over here.

I absolutely love the colors in it. And even in the painting of the studio, the studio has got a lot of bright colors, but that painting even makes it look even brighter than it is. It really does.

It lightens it up. And I think all the colors, it kind of really shows like the humanistic side of music. It's not like a VH1 storytellers, you know, kind of a story.

It's showing how the bands and the music and the activities, how it all relates to people and how we're all part of a community and music brings us around. That's what the colors represent to me. And I want everybody to develop their own opinion.

Yeah, I've definitely been told that it reminds me that it reminds other people of New Orleans types of art. So you know how that has like a lot of color and energy. So that wasn't something that I was consciously working towards, but I guess that's where it ended up.

So I'll go with that. That's exactly what I thought of. I mean, the color schemes and stuff reminds me of New Orleans.

Yeah, I'm going to start over here with the studio. Let me get it. Let me get it rolling here.

And there we go. We're rolling. So this one of the studio is based on a specific night last year when I was at the Open Jams.

So all of these people were playing on stage, not at the same time. But I decided that I wanted to do a painting that was a combination of a few different combinations. Yeah, so I had put that together.

I had known that I wanted to do a painting of the studio and then just deciding like well, what's the right moment? What's the right configuration to put on there? And I was really happy with how that turned out. And I brought it to the studio for Mike and it was a big surprise. And now, yeah, now it's on display up in the hallway.

Laura is very proud of it. And yeah, it's just really cool to have that up there. And I have to say that the painting that you are looking at right now, that is the original.

And it is on display normally in my living room. Catherine gifted me with this painting here. And yeah, it was probably the first time in my life that anybody's presented me with a gift and I almost cried in front of about 50 people.

It was very heartfelt and very warming for me. And then I bought Laura a copy of it so she could hang in the studio. But yeah, I brought this from home today.

And then the next one up, we have Rosie and the Rivets playing at Club Arcada in St. Charles, which is a really cool restored speakeasy that they have on the third floor of the Arcada Theater. They've put a lot of work into restoring that and Rosie and the Rivets has more of a Rocky Billy vibe. So they love it.

And people can like come out in different vintage costumes and things. And so this is based on a night that I was there with some of my friends. And so I'm in the painting, actually.

I'm dancing in front of Rosie with the red pants. And then when I was working on it, so at the last minute, then originally, then I just had Rosie and Frank were the two lead singers. I had them playing up on stage.

And then I decided, well, I kind of want to fill the space because there's like this little blank space over on the left, but I didn't have enough time to actually put the drummer on the front. So what I did was I painted him on the side so you can see him on the side of the original painting, but he's not going to show up in any of the prints. And yeah, it's a friend of mine, Derek Martens, that I've known for a long time.

And so it's just funny to be able to tell him, it's like, sorry, Derek, you get to be on the side of the painting and no one knows you're there. That might become something that people want to be. Yeah.

They want to be on the side of the painting. Only privileged people. Yeah.

They're like, no. Well, I don't want other people looking at me. I just want to see it for myself.

It's a secret. Yeah. So this next one.

So the band isn't the band that was actually playing there that night. But this is Chicago Summer Dance. So this is the largest outdoor dance in the country where they have live musicians playing in Grand Park in downtown Chicago throughout the summer.

Every Wednesday through Sunday, they have different types of bands, Latin, different ethnic groups, jazz, blues. And it's just this amazing, colorful, vibrant celebration of life and being in the city and being in a musical. And so I worked a lot on this one to make sure that I had it correct.

I repainted the sky several times because I knew where I wanted it to end up. And it took a while to get there. And I was working on it during COVID where, you know, it had been closed down for the last couple of years.

So I couldn't actually come back while I was working on it. I mean, I could, but it wouldn't be the same. So I finished this last summer.

And then like a month later, then there was a band playing. So I went there with my friends and I was just thinking in the back of my mind, OK, well, this is how I this is how I remembered it at the time. Like, have I really done it justice? You know, is it still going to be that way? Because, you know, sometimes you come back to stuff and it's like, oh, it's not how I remembered it.

It's like, OK, it's still the same. So it's just like this very hopeful, uplifting, validating experience of being able to look at it and say, oh, yeah, I know this place. I have captured it accurately.

It's still the same. We're going to go on. We're going to get through this.

And over here, the only one who I kind of said the colors were very vibrant. But this one, I mean, is a little darker, but I mean, it is so fitting because it's Al Spears and the Hurricane Project playing some fantastic blues. And it's almost fitting that there's a blue hue over everything.

That's right. It just has to be. Yeah.

So that one is set at Johnny Blitz's in Westmont. And Al and I had been talking for a while about wanting to do a painting of the band. And when I saw the reference photo for this one, I was like, oh, this is the one that we're going with.

And yeah, the guys love it. They love seeing themselves captured. And yeah, it was definitely a unique challenge for me because usually I like to have such a huge array of colors just trying to figure out, OK, what can we do with very little? You know, it's this it's this mind bending exercise in a way of like, well, it still has the same depth.

It still has a lot of vibrancy, even though it's almost monochromatic. So that one was definitely a lot of fun to do. And I mean, I have a lot of favorites, but that's definitely one of my many, many favorites.

Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, it catches the whole sense of the blues. I mean, you know, the darkness, the blue.

I mean, in the old days, you'd go to Buddy Guy's lounge or something and it's smoky. It's dark. And, you know, I'm even seeing the smokiness in there.

Yeah. Yeah. So Buddy Guy's is actually a place that I want to do a painting of.

So right now what I'm doing is I'm collecting and working on a set of paintings that's going to be different bands playing at different places. So, yeah, so similar to what we have here, but I want to make it into a whole series. So that's been really fun because it means that I also get to talk to the bands and say, OK, what's a place that means a lot to you? Where do you want to be? And I was talking to one band leader and his face lit up and he's like, oh, I've never been asked to be in a painting before.

Let me see. And it's really fun to see people's reactions, like when they see themselves in paintings, because a lot of these times then it's been a surprise to them, like they don't know that I'm doing a painting of them. And I'll usually tell them at some point because I want to make sure that I have their permission.

It's like this is something that I'm working on. I want to make sure that you're happy with it. What I think is so cool about painting, what I think is so important about it is it really requires a level of attention that can't really be captured in a photograph because you're also thinking about the essence of the person and you're spending a lot more time with it than if you were in a photograph.

And I think that people recognize that when they see a painting of themselves, like it helps them to see themselves in a different way. It helps them to take themselves more seriously. And what other musicians have told me is like, oh, you've really captured the feeling of what it feels like to be in a jazz band.

Like they feel very seen and very validated. And, you know, being a musician can be a pretty thankless profession. So it's like, oh, my gosh, someone saw me.

Someone cares. It just makes their week. Well, yeah, I mean, a painting does give off some sort of a feeling, more so than a photograph.

I mean, you're looking at it, you're looking at the colors, you're you know, I'm looking at this one over here and I mean, I know they're standing still, but I could see them moving. I could see them, you know, swaying to the music and, you know, and you just get you get a feeling from it. You know, a photograph doesn't doesn't do justice.

Plus, there's the empty tip jar. Oh, it's empty. Yes.

Well, we have to be true to life. My favorite my favorite detail in that painting right there is if you guys can see that is right there, there's a little glass fishbowl and we have that out there for every open jam and some, you know, actually we did we do pretty well on occasion, but every once in a while it comes up empty. And so she put it, I just think it's great that it's empty in this in this painting.

It's real. It is, it's real. And then last but not least, I put this on our camera a little bit.

Here's the little Cadillac groove painting here. This is what, about eight and a half by eleven? It's eight by ten. Eight by ten.

Yeah. So it's even smaller. Yeah, nine guys in a band on the smallest canvas.

I can't even get that extra one and a half inch. But that's it. That's it.

That's it right there. Yeah. This was the first one that I've seen and the first one that she presented to us.

That's great. I think we all have copies of it, too. So very amazing.

All right. We're going to stop that. So so when did you start doing this? Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.

Start painting in general. Well, doing these types of paintings. In 2020.

When I was 2020. Yeah. Okay.

Because this kind of painting, it's a lot of work and it requires a lot of focus and a lot of attention to the types of music and the dancers and everything else. So that just required a lot of downtime in order to formulate. And I was able to do that in 2020.

So before that, I had done a couple dance paintings that are more like, oh, well, it's just one couple or, you know, like one pose or something like that. But, you know, having all that free time is like, well, I want to rise to the challenge of telling everyone what they're missing out on by us being at home. Because there were some people who were going into quarantine thinking, well, I just want to stay home anyway, and I don't really go out much.

And this is normal. And it's like, I have this whole life to get back to. You know, I have all these places to go and people to see.

And, you know, maybe some people haven't been introduced to that. But I wanted to kind of bang it over their heads of like, this is what we're supposed to be aiming for. And also just the idea of, you know, you go to these different places and you might go with friends, but you also just end up establishing this rapport and this feeling of community and camaraderie with the people there.

So the idea of like trusting people, you know, reaching out a hand to them and recognizing that we have like this sense of commonality was something that I saw as being very lacking in 2020 and trying to remind people that, hey, this is what we're supposed to be working towards. We're not supposed to be, you know, keyboard warriors getting all mistrustful and angry at each other and assuming the worst. We're supposed to be coming together in all these different places, all these different ways and learning to heal as a society.

You know, I'm not an art major. I'm not an art critic. I think I fall into the same category of most people.

I like what I like, right? I don't look at a painting and say, oh, look at the brushstrokes and stuff like that. I look at a painting and I'm trying to get a sense of how it makes me feel. And being a musician on stage, I know what that feels like, right? So when I look at these paintings, I'm not looking at the musicians on the stages, right? I'm looking at the crowd.

I'm looking at the people that are listening to the music and participating in the music. And then as a musician, that makes me remember and sense the energy that I feed off of from the people in the crowd as a performer. So what I am feeling radiating from these paintings is the crowd energy.

That's what I get out of every one of these paintings, except for the Hurricane Project. When I turned back and I looked at this one, look at this one. I mean, you don't see anybody really in the crowd there.

You just see the band. And I just see, I mean, I look at this painting and I feel like I've just, I feel like I'm in the middle of watching a documentary about Robert Johnson. You know, I'm just, I'm seeing blues is just oozing out of the canvas.

It really is. It gives me a completely different, different feeling. I've never heard of anybody choosing this idea or this concept and turning it into their choice of turning it into their medium.

I've never heard of it. There's photographers around that will go around and take pictures for bands and they'll always come up to us after shows and say, Hey, I took pictures of you. You can buy them from me if you like.

And it's like, okay, thanks. You know, they don't all do that, but some of them do that. But I mean, I don't know of anybody that's painting and just going around the local music scene and doing this.

I don't. I absolutely love that you do it. I really do.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy your work and what it is that you do for everybody. I mean, it's definitely an untapped market. And that was part of the reason that drew me to it.

So starting off with painting dancers, because so far that has been mostly what I've done, dancers and they don't always have musicians involved. But a lot of dance art that's out there is either ballroom or ballet. So it's this very idealistic version that people put on their walls and they're like, well, that's aspirational.

It doesn't draw me into the scene. It's like, you know, if I was skinnier or sexier or whatever, like maybe I could be like that if I could ever figure out how to stop having two left feet, you know, it doesn't make them think that dance is accessible. And what I think is one of the greatest compliments is like when I show my pieces to people who don't consider themselves dancers, but then they say, this makes me want to be a part of that.

I feel accepted. I feel represented because I'm also very conscious about like, well, I don't want to just portray like one certain body type in my work. I don't want people thinking that, oh, you have to have a certain body type.

You have to dress a certain way. You have to be a certain race or orientation or whatever, like or a certain age. I really try to find a way to represent everyone.

And then like when people see that, then just their eyes light up and they're like, oh, I haven't seen myself being portrayed in that way. And now I'm going to go out and dance because you made me think that I could. Right.

You know, and let's talk about that for a minute, because you mentioned you have a dance group. Yes. And ironically, they dance at the Roxy.

And we will be visiting with Jess from the Roxy. From the Roxy in a few weeks. Yeah, in a few weeks.

Yeah, absolutely. Tell us how that all started. So Jessica is the manager of the Roxy and as of the last couple of years.

But before that, starting in 2015, she and her dance partner, RJ, started a dance group in Lockport that was free of charge because our friend Georgina came up to them in Delwood Park and she said, I want my kids to learn how to dance. And I see you guys dancing around to the band. Like, would you be willing to teach them? Wow.

And they said, absolutely. So then Georgina just invited like all of her kids and all of their friends. And like, it started out with just free dance lessons in Delwood Park and Lockport and the band shell.

And then they moved to the American Legion. We were there for a couple of years. We've been to the VFW, a lot of different places around town.

And we landed at the Roxy in 2019. And we finally had like a permanent place that we could be every week. So then started putting together like different lessons of like, okay, like we can settle down and like we get our footing under us because before that we were like telling people, oh, well, we'll be this place this week.

And then we're trying to figure it out after that. But, you know, being able to have a permanent place was amazing. And everyone was like, okay, we're good.

So we landed in like July 2019. And six months later. Right.

So these are, I mean, you're teaching people how to, it's not ballroom dancing. It's swing dancing. It's a little bit of everything, really.

Yeah. So it's mostly swing. So it's designed to be done to jazz and big band music, but can be done to a lot of other styles.

It's free of charge. It's open to everyone. And we really make a focus on trying to be very welcoming and accept everyone where they're at and figure out what they want to do rather than trying to sell them on some type of, you know, ballroom type plan of like, oh, we want to make sure that you have the correct form and that you sign up for the next 14 lessons.

And, you know, we're going to correct you and whatever. It's really a matter of wanting people to be in love with dancing and carry that into wherever they are. Right.

And do you guys get together on Sunday nights? So we have classes on Tuesdays and on Sundays, then we have a lot of live bands frequently. Right. So we have live bands, like we have two this week.

So there was Shout Section, big band playing last night. And then on Thursday, Mr. Luckiness Orchestra. Tomorrow we're going to be playing there.

So a lot of times then we're there for different band nights. And then, you know, we'll often come over to the studio to keep the party going. Yes, exactly.

And that's how I found out about the dancing, because all of a sudden tables get pushed away, the crowd splits like the partying at a Red Sea, and all of a sudden there's like eight people in there and they're all swing dancing to the music of the people that are there for the open jam, just playing whatever, you know, comes to mind. And that's how I found out about, you know, going on down the street. So we actually used to have dance classes, like blues dancing.

We were teaching that back in 2019 at the studio on the third Thursday. We're not doing that currently. But when I moved to Lockport last year, then I came into the studio and I hadn't been there for, you know, a couple of years.

And Laura saw me and she's like, oh, my gosh, you're from the dancer group. Like she wasn't even owning at that point. She was just a bartender.

And she was like, I remember you guys. When are you coming back? She's always been like so incredibly welcoming and lovely. And, you know, she loves having us there.

And it's like going to a relative's house and hanging out in their basement. It's just such an amazing atmosphere. So like that was the real reason for like why I wanted to do a painting of the studio, because Laura was being so amazing and Mike was being great.

And it's like, well, how can I give back? Because you guys are just like hauling ass out there and being amazing to everybody. Well, you are giving back to create what you create. You're giving back to, you know, let's face it, the musicians in this community, in this area, I mean, we consider what we're doing giving back.

I mean, people don't look at it that way. But yeah, when I get up on stage and I'm with my band and we're entertaining a crowd like this in Lockport at the car show or when we played the Roxy in places like that, it's like, yeah, okay, we're on stage and we're entertainers. But for that two and a half hours or three hours that we're there, we hope that we're making everybody forget whatever was shitty going on in their life earlier that day.

You know, we're there to make everybody feel a little bit better. I think you are doing this not only in your paintings, but the fact that you offer those free dance classes for people. That's got to be an amazing form of exercise and stress release for a lot of people that really need it.

It really is like, you know, this whole body experience. And yeah, it's really healing and cathartic. And, you know, you see these people that are just like struggling through stuff for the first time and they usually come in with this mental block like, oh, I can't do that.

I don't know. And then it's like, okay, we're all friends here. There's no judgment.

We just want you to have fun. And, you know, there's like a basic step that like will coach you through and it's all okay. And like when it sinks in for them and you see their face light up, it's just this amazing thing.

Like you realize that they are learning about themselves, like something that they didn't realize that they were capable of, that they're able to express joy, that they're able to, you know, be around people, be a little bit more trusting, a little bit more accepting. And it's just like this paradigm shift that's happening. Yeah.

And being free, I think, is a big thing too, because paying for dance lessons and they're not sure if they can dance, that adds more stress to the, now I have to learn something. I've got, you know, I just paid somebody this much money for 20 lessons. I got to learn.

Right. You know, when it's free, it's like, hey, relax. Absolutely.

And it means that you can bring like as many people as you want. Like you don't even have to participate in the lesson if you don't want to. Some people just come to watch and to socialize and, you know, kind of sink in through osmosis until they decide, okay, these people are okay.

Maybe I'll participate. But, you know, people like parents come in with their kids. We have like one instructor who's been coming in recently with her eight month old baby.

Wow. Yeah. Is the baby dancing? Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. She is so advanced. Yeah.

Well, so if people want to want to view your artwork and want to visit you and see what else it is that you do, tell them about that. Because you have a studio. Yes.

So I have a studio out of my apartment in downtown Lockport. So you can find me on Facebook. It's probably the easiest way.

It's Katherine Claussen Art Studio. And that's K-A-T-H-R-Y-N-C-L-A-A-H-S-E-N. So there is where I post all of the updates for where to buy artwork in different places that I'm exhibiting, you know, new releases, different products that are becoming available.

And then I sell different prints through Pixels and Redbubble. So people can get prints on all types of different materials. You know, they can get art prints.

They can get canvas prints, which is what Mike bought for the studio. You know, it looks like an original. It does.

Same quality. It does. I was shocked when it showed up.

It looks like somebody painted it by hand and it's a print on canvas. Yeah. It was amazing.

Yeah. It's like you can get tote bags. So there are like several ladies at the Lockport Swing Thing who have been getting different tote bags that are all different images.

And it's kind of like, you know, Pokemon collect the whole set. Ha ha ha. We're getting out to something there.

So, but it's a great conversation starter because they're carrying the artwork around like bringing it to different places rather than having it, you know, sit in a shrine at home where, you know, people aren't going to see it unless they come in. And then, you know, they come to these different venues and dancers are supposed to bring like clean shoes so they don't mess up the floor. So it's great for shoe bags.

So they take them to these different venues and people are like, Oh, that's really unique. Where did that come from? And then it always starts conversations like, well, Catherine did it and then they all pop up like, and I have one too. And I have one too.

And it's just re-advertising. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. They're awesome. Do you have any exhibits coming up? Not currently.

So I, in February, then I had a solo show at Gallery 7 in Lockport. And right now then I'm just working more with different individual places to display my artwork there. So I have pieces up at the studio.

I have a painting up at my coffee roasters in Lockport. Yes, you do. Right.

Yes. Right. Yeah.

That's it. That's it for now. But, you know, as that changes, because the solo show was a lot of work.

Yeah. I finished a lot of paintings to prepare for that one. Yeah.

So I will definitely be posting updates as they come along. Excellent. Excellent.

Very good. These things are gorgeous. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. I love the colors.

Like I said, it definitely gives me a feeling of New Orleans style, the coloring and stuff. Right. Right.

I've got paintings that are probably just prints at home, which is, there's like houses and they're all multi-colored. Right. I look at them because they remind me of New Orleans.

I just love them. Especially that one, the Rosie and the Rivets. Yes.

That really does, for sure. Wow. Well, thanks a lot for coming out.

This is very, very interesting. Yeah. Thank you for having me.

I think this might be one of my favorite episodes. It's really, I don't know, I found it to be a bit of a challenge to come up with, how can we have a rock and roll Chicago podcast and not have a band in the studio? And I think we've figured out a way to do it. We figured out a way to do it.

That's right. It's still musical. Yeah.

Art is musical. Absolutely. Absolutely.

All right. Thanks again, Catherine. Thank you so much.

Thanks for being here. Thanks. Oh, so that is Catherine Klaassen, everybody.

I hope the video comes out because I think people really need to see her work and I hope they- Yeah, we'll figure something out. I hope they go to the website and the whole bit and take a look and see what she's doing and participate in, I guess, the joy that she's creating in her artwork from music. That's right.

That's right. I mean, I got a little bit of joy when you mentioned that you really liked this one of the Hurricane Project and you get the sense of Robert Johnson. And on this day that we recorded this interview, today is Robert Johnson 112th birthday.

How did I not know that? I don't know, but I knew it was his birthday. Amazing. Yeah, today's his birthday.

Well, everything works out for a reason. That's right. So make sure you get out there and check out some of this artwork.

Keep posted, check in and see if there's any shows coming up, stop by the studio. Absolutely. And you might even get to meet her in person if you do because she's at the studio quite often.

Maybe. I heard she usually buys drinks too for everybody. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Right before she puts them in a painting. Right.

That's right. That's part of the paint. All righty, then everybody, thanks again for listening and we will see you next Tuesday with another exciting episode.

See ya. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin, theme song courtesy of MNR Rush. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show.

The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.