Arts IN Focus on PBS Fort Wayne is funded in part by the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne.

Coming up, we'll talk with oil painter Mark Rogers, and the four members of Fort Wayne based indie pop band Attaboy.

It's all next on Arts IN Focus.

Welcome to Arts IN Focus.

I'm Emilie Henry.

Mark Rogers is an oil painter who relocated to Fort Wayne from Portland, Oregon.

Stylistically, his work has been described as a mashup of folk art, medieval painting and fairy tale illustration.

Obsessed with fantasy and tales of the supernatural Mark creates narrative driven oil paintings that all take place in a fictional world that lives in his imagination, called the Southwestern Bellows.

Mark, Thank you for having me today.

I can't wait to pick your brain about your your work and your process.

But before that, tell me when you started using art as a catharsis or was that how it started?

Yeah, I guess that's sort of how it started.

I was about 30 when I made my first painting a little older than other people.

I had made our way before that.

I started probably drawing in the first or second grade and all throughout high school and junior high.

My my thing was that I would get an assignment from my teacher I would flip it over and I would draw a picture on the back.

And my goal was to finish the drawing by the time the class was finished.

So I did that for a really long time and I didn't really think much about it.

I never really thought I would become a professional artist or anything.

And then after college, I wanted to become a horror writer like Stephen King.

So I was really into writing.

Every every morning I would just wake up and I would write and I would try and put in 2000 words every day like he does.

I read I read that in his book on writing.

That's what he did.

But after five years of doing that, I published five short stories and I got paid $5.

I decided to I signed up for a painting class and I started taking it.

And I had this weird experience where I felt as if I was having some sort of, like, a past life thing with painting where it felt like, Wow, I've done this before, even though I had never done it before.

So I lasted about a week in the painting class and decided to drop out of school completely and spend all my free time painting and that I would become a professional painter at some point.

But I never really quit writing because of all my paintings are narrative based.

So I've combined them both.

Yes.

So I have.

I was reading your stories and I was like, Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to get inside your brain because it works on a different level.

It's fascinating.

So I'm shocked that your medium of choice is oil paint.

And I say that because all of your paintings are narrative.

And so I would think you would want some immediacy there.

And oil takes longer.

So what what made you decide to go with oil of of all mediums?

Well, I like the addative and subtractive quality of painting in general because with, you know with inking if you mess up, you might have to redo the whole thing over or, you know, you're just adding a black line.

Whereas painting, there's like a push and pull that goes back and forth.

I almost feel like it's kind of like I'm sculpting out of clay or something because like, if I push something too dark, I can move it back and make it lighter.

I can move a line, you know, if I get the proportions a little off on something, I can go back.

I can just keep working it.

And really, I'm not as perfect as, you know, maybe somebody who has really awesome draftsmanship.

They can just go in and nail it the first time, but it usually takes me a few times before I'm satisfied with what I'm doing.

I have to know how you come up with your stories.

What is the inspiration and do you have to flesh out an entire story before you can paint?

Or can you sort of write the narrative as you're painting?

Well, all my paintings take place in a fantasy world that I call the Southwestern Bellows, and it's sort of like a fantasy world that you would read in a fantasy novel.

But instead of being set in like a medieval England, it's set in like in 1850s America.

And instead of encountering elves, the characters encounter aliens and cryptids and things like that.

So all my paintings are kind of like the American early American versions of like your typical fantasy trope, I guess.

And as far as coming up with the stories lately, I've been working in series of nine, so I will write one little narrative and then I will plot it out for nine paintings.

So that's kind of how I do it.

I draw some tarot cards.

I like using that.

As far as for a creative prompt.

So yeah, I'll do a tarot reading for myself.

I'll look at the cards, I'll come up with characters, I'll just kind of set it up and I'll spend like a week or two kind of making up the story and I develop a little storyboard for it.

So before I even start, like a painting series, I'll know exactly with the size of all the paintings that I need to do.

And I usually will.

Yeah, I just do them at about nine at a time.

But I think that I want each of the paintings to be standalone pieces.

So that's my that's like the difference between, you know, just doing the real fast art, like doing like, you know, if I had chosen inking as my medium, then I could be a comic illustrator and I could really get into the story writing.

But I really want the paintings to be standalone pieces.

So I mean, I think that there's a little bit of mystery for the viewer not knowing what the actual story is.

I mean, they might be disappointed when they know what my story is, but they can make up their own story.

Yes.

Okay.

When you are creating the story, do you actually physically write it out or do you just have it in your mind?

I write it out.

I start writing it in my sketchbook.

I write and I draw kind of at the same time.

Which is weird.

Yeah, I do that and then I'll draw out all the characters and try and come up with some different traits about them so that when I'm putting together my reference material for the series, like I'll have all my reference material figured out too.

I'll put them in until like little folders on my computer where I'll like photograph different things out of my sketchbook and then, yeah, and I'll do thumbnails for each of the nine paintings and I do thumbnails for the different characters and, and then I'll take reference from like the world to like, I'll shoot pictures of maybe myself or like somebody else, or I'll just find stuff off the internet or in old books, you know, and use that for reference as well.

It's so interesting talking to you because it sounds like your process is so methodical, but your work is so whimsical.

So how do you reconcile that or do you?

I don't think I do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm like, really structured, which is weird.

But then I love that your work is so whimsical that that the viewer could take anything away from it.

Do you hope that people are coming up with their own stories?

I don't even know if I. I just hope that people are happy when they see them.

Yeah, you hope it just makes people happy or like, you know, people enjoy them, you know, within the story.

So I'll try and have a little bit of fun or poke fun at myself.

I kind of like to make stories that are both a little bit funny and a little bit scary.

So those are the two weird things that I like playing with.

As far as those go.

I have a series that's coming up next that I'm kind of excited about painting.

It's about the “Palladians ” It's about a cookie salesman who travels to this island and he is going to sell cookies to this group of extraterrestrials that have this colony there.

And they've all been kicked out of the main southwestern bellows because they're jerks.

So everybody hates them.

They're high achieving theyre they're all hot.

Theyre all they're smart.

They're they all work on line.

They're all they're all like kind of like influencers.

But this is still the 1800s, by the way.

So the main character goes there.

His name is Billard Diffenback and he travels to this island to set up a cookie account with these extraterrestrials.

And they do not like cookies.

They don't eat sugar.

of course they dont they're they're like, We're going to enter you into our mentorship program and you're going to learn about personal development or you're going to die.

So that's the whole series.

And in the end, he's eaten by a half human half shark hybrid.

Of course he is.

That stands to reason.

So.

Okay.

How fun!

Do you feel like, Oh my God, I started painting when I was 30 and now I have the coolest job in the world where I get to come up with these amazing stories and then I get to paint what they look like.

You get to make them come to life on canvas.

Yeah.

I guess that is pretty cool.

Yeah.

Throughout the day to day to day stuff.

I don't even know if I really think that way, but.

But yeah, I am fascinated by your work.

I think it's so interesting.

Like I said, every piece I look at, I'm like, I don't know what it means, but it's fun and I like it.

So what a great gift to give the world.

So I'm so glad you started painting.

I'm so glad that you let your imagination bring such joy into the world with a little bit of darkness too, love that.

Thank you so much for sitting down with me.

Thank you so much for having me.

It was fun.

For more information, visit Mark Rogers Art dot com I'm joined now by Jeff, Melanie, Ryan and Christian, the 4 musicians who make up Attaboy.

Thanks for being here, guys.

Thanks for having us.

We've already been having fun.

Okay.

Let's see.

How do you guys describe your style?

It's a good question.

We do often ask people to listen to our music and then describe it for us and part of what is our genre.

Yeah, exactly.

Part of that is because we have so many different influences individually coming into it and such an eclectic taste of music as individuals and as a collective that we draw from.

Like so many different influences.

But a typical term that we use is fun Indie pop is kind of if we had to put it on paper, what we would describe it as.

Tell me about a typical writing session.

Like, what does that look like?

Sound like?

How long does it typically take?

Yeah, I think different every time.

It's different every time.

So a lot of times we will individually write the musical portions or we'll come up with demo ideas.

A lot of times we'll have reference songs.

It's like, Oh, hey, we want to have a song that sounds like whatever song.

Sure.

And so we take some inspiration from that and then we write just like a demo idea of like, Oh, here's like the hook, here's a verse, chorus, whatever.

And then we kind of decide together like, Oh, we really like, you know, we like Jeff's idea, so let's go with that.

And then we all sit down together and we just have all of our laptops, we have Google Docs and we have a shared document and we just all sit down and it's like, okay, what do we want to write about?

What's an idea?

What's a story?

And then we just start like typing and we can see each other in real time typing and it's like, Ooh, like Ryan, I really like that line.

So let's run with that and see where we go from there.

That's fascinating.

Yeah, but also, like, is it, is it as challenging as it sounds?

Yes.

I mean, I would say like when I before I was in this band, I was doing music on my own.

And my process personally was absolutely the opposite of what we're talking about.

So when I joined the band, it was truly a personal challenge that led to some frustration like, Well, this is how I was written before.

This is absolutely foreign to me.

And jumping in now, years into the band, I'm like, I've started to understand, Oh, I see the value in this.

And now it's a little more fun.

But the challenge, I mean, I've said before that we when we sit down to write a song, especially lyrics and melody, it's basically a planned argument session, right?

We are planning to argue with each other to produce the best thing.

And over the years that's gotten to the point it's like, okay, like this argument we all know leads to the best product and the most creativity by drawing it out of each other.

And it's something I've really had to grow into because it is not my bent when it comes to that.

Well, I was going to say so nine years in, clearly something is working and you guys get along.

But do you have those moments and you two are married?

So do you have those times when it's like, okay, you know what, Maybe we're not going to write today because we're not all jiving?

Or do you know that you're going to put your nose to the grindstone and do it?

I mean, honestly, it's more of the latter because any type of creativity or, you know, the inspiration might not just magically be there when you need it to be.

And so we've tried to have an approach where it's more of a discipline where we're literally putting days on the calendar far in advance, where we are writing this day, regardless of if we feel creative or not, just because to try to counteract, you know, what might be a lack of inspiration well you just got to power through it and make it happen anyways.

I imagine that it is easier having three other people to sort of help draw that out.

Is that true or does it make it like, just don't bug me?

I dont want to I think it is easier because, you know, let's say one of us is maybe that day not feeling as creative or something like that.

It's like, well, somebody else might not be feeling that way.

So they might kind of, you know, take the ball and run with it or lead that charge and then it kind of inspires you.

I mean, this happened last time we were writing.

I was you know, my head was admittedly kind of somewhere else.

And then they started putting ideas down on the page.

And all of a sudden I was like, oh, okay, what if we do this?

And it kind of got the ball rolling for me.

So it's really cool to be able to like, inspire each other internally, even depending on, you know, what one of us or all of us is feeling at the moment.

Were you guys all musicians, like from the get, or did you have different creative outlets?

Melanie, let's start with you.

Yeah, so I've been playing music pretty much my whole life.

I started like piano when I was like six, I think started singing lessons, guitar lessons.

So that's always been a part of my life.

But I also always had other outlets theater and dancing and even just like painting, drawing, all that kind of stuff.

So I've always known that like some sort of performance or like artistic aspect would be a part of my life.

Yeah.

Ryan, what about you?

Yeah.

So I've been singing, I mean, since before I can remember.

I remember having my first solo in a school play when I was in kindergarten.

I played a disobedient frog that got eaten by an alligator, which is traumatic.

But I kept singing in spite of that and picked up some other instruments along the way.

I always thought that music would be I mean, obviously part of my life at different points.

I was like, Oh, maybe it'll be a career thing.

And then but I was also thinking of other things too.

I didn't actually know that I would end up being full time in a band doing doing this kind of work at this point.

But it's been a blast and I'm really glad I'm here, so.

Yeah, Yeah.

Jeff, what about you?

Yeah.

Similarly, you know, I started playing piano when I was in kindergarten middle school band.

Taught myself guitar in high school and yeah, that was probably the primary creative thing for me.

But I also love performing, even if it didn't involve music, you know?

So the kind of the combination of those two things definitely paved the way to do what we do.

For me, Christian Yeah, for me, I went to my first concert when I was six years old, and I distinctly remember seeing the bands on stage and saying, That's what I want to do with my life.

So I've known from a very early age that I wanted to tour and perform and do music full time.

So I started playing guitar when I was seven, then picked up as many other instruments as I could, just teaching myself and started my first band when I was in middle school and hit the road right out of high school and been doing it ever since.

Nice.

How do you guys feel that you have grown as artists, especially as as sort of a collaborative unit, but also individually?

I'd say for me, the most stark example of that is when I joined this band.

I had played in bands previously and I always had to have what I called my security blanket, where I had to have a guitar or a keyboard in front of me.

If I didn't, I was the most awkward, like, I don't know what to do.

Like, I can't just sing.

I've got to have these things.

Right.

And once I joined Attaboy we were doing some shows and we got to certain points like, you know, you should, you should probably not be playing something right here and do something like, All right, here we go.

And I say that to say.

I mean, if you look at video from nine years ago, it is 100% different to the point now where I'm like, I don't want to play like, I want to just get out there and have fun and that's going to hinder me.

Yeah.

And and so that has been a really fun growth process for me by learning from other front people and getting, you know, having lessons, YouTube videos from people that talk about, you know, being a front person, what do you do with a microphone, that kind of stuff.

And that's all helped me develop that.

And I think that's probably one of the biggest, most obvious examples for for myself.

Tell me about touring, because, you know, we have in our mind the big tricked out RV and that type of thing, which is not how most bands tour.

So how do you guys do it and how are you still all friends?

How are you two still married?

How does that work?

Yeah, yeah, we are touring is, I would say pretty nontraditional is one of the ways we've we've described it.

One of the things we do as a band that I think is really different from almost every other band is we have been positively influenced by artists in our lives and we have found one way to kind of pay that forward is by creating a school assembly program that we take into public schools like high schools and middle schools and we do music that we've written.

We talk about some of the inspiration, the stories behind those songs in ways that would encourage students to persevere.

Or we talk about mental health.

We talk about treating people with respect, and we use our music to hopefully emphasize those points.

And so being that's one of the places we do touring A lot of our school year.

Touring takes place in in schools.

So our schedule is more based on a weekday system and often we'll go out for some weekdays and be back home and then go back out.

So rather than a six week straight up tour six nights in a row with one day off, that kind of an idea.

Ours is more like, Well, we're out for three days, We come back for a week, we go out for a week, we come back.

And so we get to be home a lot more often while doing the same number of of touring gigs.

So that's, that's how our schedule has panned out.

Now, when we do this school assemblies, we also have our normal concert, one that you might go to a music venue.

We have full lighting production that we do.

All that stuff will perform those in the same town and invite people to come see that show.

And so sometimes we're doing two or three shows in one day and move in where, you know, full time roadies that happen to play music a little bit.

Yeah.

So we, we do that a lot and we finally nine, 9 to 10 years in are in a nicer RV which is an absolute game changer.

But we did a lot of years in a van first and now we're we're finally RV which means that we have beds which is real nice better then a van bench yes, for sure.

So what's next?

What do you guys hope to to achieve or are you kind of happy in, in this sweet spot?

I mean, it is really cool to be in a spot where, you know, what we do is sustainable.

You know, even you asking about, like, how are we still, the four of us in it nine years later and everything.

It's just really been awesome to kind of just put our relationship as people first.

And that is kind of what has like led to I think kind of the success we've had is like we genuinely like look out for each other and each other's families.

And I mean, we've all been in bands and stuff before where you don't have that relational rapport and it's it's really tough.

And so I think we just kind of committed early on to like, let's just make sure we're all healthy as as people and as friends and as a couple and all that.

And good things have stemmed from that.

So we're really grateful to be in that space and we're just working on a lot of new music right now.

So that's really exciting stuff and continue to release stuff and get more into doing like music videos and other creative things like that.

Yes, and trampolines are involved occasionally We've got a lot of fun with music videos.

Yeah, Something we love as a band is fun and maybe that like going over the top all the time.

And so that's found its way into the music video world now.

Yes.

And it comes through.

It's so and you want to keep consuming it because it is so fun.

What is your favorite part of being the 4 that make up Attaboy?

Oh man.

Oh, that's a good question.

Yeah.

I mean, the being on a team where everyone has their strengths and everyone has their weaknesses and we all kind of get to pick up slack and and relieve slack in different ways for each other.

Like, as, as, as a team has been really awesome.

And when that gets, when, when you have people that are drawing that out of you, it's something that can feel uncomfortable at certain moments.

But it's also in the long run, the thing that's making us better and better.

And so that's I mean, I haven't often thought of it in that those stark terms, but like that is a real gift of being in a band that has a has a team that works like this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it really does feel like a family.

I mean, obviously Melanie and I are married But yeah, I think it, it just really does feel like a family and that really helps with everything from inspiration to, you know, keeping it going and sustainability and all that good stuff.

Fantastic.

You guys are so much fun.

Your music is so great and I love that you don't want to pinpoint exactly what your sound is because that means it can continue to be fun and organic and that's that makes it fun to listen to.

So please keep doing what you're doing.

Thank you guys so much for for all of the music you create and for all of the good you do in schools as well, because we need that, obviously.

And thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having us.

For more information, visit Attaboy online dot com Our thanks to Mark Rogers and Attaboy.

Be sure to join us next week for Arts IN Focus.

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