Ellie English

Artist Bio

Ellie has a strong background in classical theater, vocal training, Historian dance, and costuming. She was invited to attend the prestigious Shakespeare program at Cambridge University, where she later performed at the Globe Theater, in London.

While working for Colonial Williamsburg, she became a Chautauqua level Living History interpreter and performed as Martha Jefferson and Martha Washington. She also learned the art of Mantua making and the construction of historic garments. She also began her training with historic music pieces, Colonial dance, and playing the harpsichord.

Artist Statement

I’m focused on bringing history to life through Vaudeville and historical performances throughout the valley.

https://ellieenglishartistry.weebly.com/

Patty Willis

Artist Bio

Patty Christiena Willis co-founded a theater company in Japan that performed at international festivals, twice at the Edinburgh (Scotland) Festival Fringe, and on sacred Noh stages all over Japan. Her collaborative work with composer Mary Lou Prince includes the libretto for “Man From Magdalena,” a children’s musical “Frida’s Colores,” a film “Feast of Light,” theater works like “When the Woman Who Loved Insects Hid,” “Just Between the Three of Us,” and “Yugetsu” (recipient of a national award) and the lyrics for over sixty songs for choir, children’s choir and solo voice. Most recently, she wrote and has been performing “Midwife” from the diaries of her great great great grandmother who delivered 3,997 babies during her lifetime (1795-1893).

After twenty-four years in Japan, Patty returned to the United States and began studies in writing and pastoral ministry at Earlham School of Religion, a Quaker seminary in Indiana. She was the recipient of the 2010 Thomas Mullen Ministry of Writing Fellowship, for which she wrote “Dancing Bird’s Apprentice” about the intersections of her ancestor’s life with the indigenous peoples of the United States. Her youth novel, “Hoshi no Furu Mura,” is recommended reading by the Japanese National Library Association. At seminary, she completed her memoir of two decades in Japan entitled “A True Story of Bilingual Cats.” Two chapters from that book received the Bailey Prize for Literature. Performances of “Man from Magdalena,” a musical theater work about a healing incident on the U.S./Mexico border, has underwritten hundreds of microloans to small businesses and individuals in Mexico and Central America.

From 2012, she served a congregation in Salt Lake City in Utah and in 2019 began serving Granite Peak UU Congregation in Prescott, Arizona. She is now illustrating and editing a book of “Poems from Finisterre,” a work that will be published in autumn of 2022. She is planning an exhibit of the illustrations with poetry for the spring of 2023.

Artist Statement

Some of my earliest memories, from before I was two, are of sitting in the back seat of our family car, a book on my lap, and my imagination deep into the illustrations. Each image opened a world of possibility. My mother said that was how I entertained myself on the long car trips between Illinois, where I was born, and Wyoming the land of my grandparents. When I learned to read, my favorite book, The Birds of North America, was a great disappointment. In elementary school, I illustrated my stories of kings and queens and fairies with drawings. My painting stopped until I was introduced to brushes and ink in a calligraphy class my third year in Japan. I soon discovered that when I was out of ideas for the next scene of a play or chapter of a story, all I had to do was get out my brushes and inkstone and a blank sheet of paper. Soon, my brush moved into Chinese characters, that had become pictures after I studied their historical meaning or simple paintings. In 1995, when a play that I had written was published bilingually in Japanese and English, I rediscovered my illustrations and the publisher wanted to add them to the book. Since then, painting has become a spiritual practice, a place I return when I wonder where my writing is going or to illustrate a dream. I take out a piece of thick paper, my stick of fragrant Sumi, my inkstone and brushes, my Japanese gouache, and begin.

The illustrations from “The Village above the Stars” were inspired by the fourteen years my beloved and I spent in a village in the foothills of the Japanese Alps. We found the hundred-year-old farmhouse just before the plum rains set in and if we hadn’t, the beautiful building would have been lost. As we saved the house, we saved ourselves and became part of a village that had existed for over 400 years in that place, terraced rice fields like stepping stones down to the misty valley below. In a typhoon, when I had to replace the tarp on our house that was keeping out the rain, I looked to the west and caught a glimpse of the Japan Sea. The day we moved in, we took a gift to our neighbors. A grandmother met us at the door and when we told her we had bought the house next door, she took our hands and said, “A mysterious connection has brought you to this place. With all my heart, I give thanks.” The story had begun.

The publisher who took the story and pictures was at first concerned about the cost of printing the illustrations but when I received a galley print, he asked for 15 more illustrations. When the Japanese Library Association chose it for their recommended reading list, my beloved and I traveled around Japan telling the stories in Japanese with music on the koto or Japanese harp. One of the villagers said of the book, “This is our village.” Since we arrived in the United States twelve years ago, our village has been expanding as you can see in the illustrations here.

www.pattycwillis.com

Danielle Lynn Fury

​Celebrating the creative spirit is one of the most essential aspects of the foundation that Fury wraps her big wide world around. Born in a small Pennsylvania town, Danielle Lynn Millard was fascinated by animals, the arts, and music. She was recognized for her abilities in art in early elementary school. At age four, Dani moved with her parents to Phoenix, AZ, and soon began a roller coaster of travels between her hometown and Phoenix, when her parents divorced in her second grade, and her mother returned with her to PA.

Flying between both states according to her needs and her parent’s abilities, Fury learned to appreciate the uniqueness of each person’s gift by discovering all of the different talents in her diverse family. She discovered the power of art and her place in it when she was 6 and homesick in a desert school. She remembers the cool, wet, red ball of clay the art teacher
handed to her on one of the hottest days, and how the experience of sculpting a bird soothed her soul. She knew then that she would be an artist.

Throughout high school and college, Dani received multiple recognitions for her art. She attended colleges in both states, with degrees in Art Education, Ceramics, and Religious Studies. In 2009, The community gallery and studio, CLAYOTE was born, along with a therapeutic after-school clay program called “MudPuppies”. Once Fury’s own two sons grew of age, Clayote finally closed in 2018, and Fury began the journey of full-time art and music.

She currently resides in Yavapai County, with her partner and bandmate, Richard L. Strock. Whatever time that is left after all of the art chores is often spent on a hike, with the dogs, or performing/songwriting together.

Artist Statement

Colors are never few in a Fury acrylic painting, handmade mug, or resin shadowbox. Nor are layers, for Dani typically works several canvases, shadowboxes, and kiln loads simultaneously, and often with a band practice during her break. Paintings can take an hour or several years.

The resin shadowboxes emulate suspended freedom of movement, with the help of the clear resin pools and organic material immersed between layers of paint and clay.

Fury’s pottery is what she is currently most known for. Her prices and sizes cover every category and situation for the fan and consumer. Regardless of medium, her art commands attention.

Sky Conwell

Matt Santos of The Mile High Show says, Sky’s “… Rock-A-Billy- Surf-A-Billy showmanship is legendary. He’s one of the hardest working musicians in Arizona.”

Known as Sky Daddy on stage, Sky is a leader in the Prescott Music Scene with his solo career and with his bands. He’s an inexhaustible and prolific musician. Sky fronts six bands and plays solo, averaging eight shows a week, sometimes three in one day.

Sky says, “There are only two things I’m any good at — playin’ music and cookin’ a steak. So it’s a good thing that music’s my job ‘cause I’d be fired from anything else.”

Sky Daddy

Solo Acoustic Guitar

Sky plays and sings “American Music” on acoustic guitar and harmonica. Songs are a diverse mix of popular country, acoustic rock, folk, blues, jazz, rockabilly, Americana, and some of his original tunes. Sky says, “I just love to get a feel for the people–read the room and play what they want to hear. So, every show is different. I’ll take requests, whatever the crowd’s into. I love the challenge. I’m just like the people who come. That’s the most important thing, to have a great time and it’s contagious! We all just want to have fun!”

99 Years

Johnny Cash tribute

Sky is the face and bandleader of this authentic Johnny Cash show. Sky says about Johnny Cash, “I can’t quite explain it, but he moves me like no other musician. Part of it is the way he seems to live and inhabit a song is like no one else. It’s taught me something valuable. I came to realize that no matter how good or bad a song, it can almost always be improved. That’s inspiring to me in my other projects too. It empowers me and inspires me to take chances with my art.” visit www.99yearsband.com for info, videos, pics, & more!

Sky Daddy & the Pop Rocks

Rockabilly

​ A high-energy danceable rockabilly/surf band. Playing the music of the late fifties and early sixties (and songs of that style) is perfect for getting up and dance weddings, nightclubs, and parties.

Lonesome Valley

Classic Country

A country music band specializing in “real” country – old school traditional country music the likes of Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, Dwight Yoakam, and George Strait. The tunes they play are made for dancing; swings, cha-cha’s, two steps, etc.

Garbonzo Brothers 

Borderlands

Sky “Daddy” Conwell and Tony Cocilovo play authentic and classic music of the borderlands – Mexico, Cuba, Latin America, and the Southwest United States. Sky plays nylon string guitar and percussion while Tony plays Spanish guitar and mandolin. Tony is well known and popular in Mexico and Spain for his Flamenco-style guitar playing and Spanish singing.

Off the Record

Classic Rock

A classic rock dance band. Lead vocals are shared by Sky “Daddy” Conwell and Glen Walker. Both are showmen – entertaining in every way. Sky plays lead guitar and Glen plays rhythm guitar. Drums are played by Mike Hutchinson (who’s played with many well-known country and rock acts throughout the years) and Eldon Long plays electric bass. 

Artist Statement

My name is Sky Conwell. I reside in Prescott Arizona and I make my living (barely) playing music.  I play guitar and sing many diverse styles of American music: folk, rock, country, blues, jazz, Americana, rockabilly, surf, soul, etc. I play solo and also with many bands. The bands I play in include rockabilly/surf band “Sky Daddy and the Pop Rocks”, classic rock band “Off the Record”, the Country band “Lonesome Valley”, and a Johnny Cash Tribute Band called “99 Years”. I play at many venues around town and in the Phoenix area and Verde Valley as well. I perform covers and original songs.

Two compliments I receive most often when performing are that I am diverse and that I am fun.

I grew up on Country music but discovered many other forms of music through the years. My cd collection (of thousands) includes music of all genres. My love for many genres of music dictates that I also enjoy playing many genres of music. I enjoy “mixing it up”. I enjoy looking at the audience and viewing the venue… and then trying to guess what they may want to hear.  I am always open to requests and encourage them.

I am many things:  a singer, a songwriter, a guitarist, an artist, a musician, a bandleader… but most of all I am a performer. I believe that if I am having fun playing music, then the audience will also have fun. Music and enjoyment are contagious.  I can’t HELP having fun doing what I believe God made me do – performing music. I enjoy having guests sit in with me. I enjoy interacting with the audience. This is who I am, and I cannot change.