Wendy
Lee Gadzuk is a visual artist and musician who grew up near
Philadelphia, PA, attending art school and playing in her band The
440's, and found her way to the Sonoran desert of Tuscon, where
spirits live in the saguaros.
Wendy
left Tuscon for Los Angeles and while she found plenty of ways to
make art and music, making money proved a bit more challengin.
In this episode, Wendy talks about
the the LA 'hustle' and gives us a peek into the competitive,
audition-like process of applying for bar tending
jobs.
Wendy
eventually left Los Angeles and headed north to Oakland, where she
founded the band Andalusia Rose. Currently,
Wendy and her boyfriend, Tony Buhagiar, are the musicians behind
Stone Levitation - listen to
one of their tracks at the end of the episode. Wendy has been
playing classical piano since the age of four and has also played
violin. Have tried guitar as a teenager, Wendy picked up it's
cousin, the bass, after hearing one too many complaints from a
roommate about his inability to find a bass player for his
band.
An art
school friend of Wendy's kept posting photos of Joshua Tree and
Wendy reached out and learned about the art community here. After a
few visits to her friend, she left Oakland and settled in her place
in Morongo Valley, which, while lusher than the Sonoran desert, has
it's share of critters that keep Wendy on her toes.
Currently (September 2018) Wendy has four
assemblage pieces in the 'Desert Icons' exhibition at the Yucca
Valley Visual & Performing Arts Center and will be one of ten
artists participating in a panel discussing the desert's influence
on her work. The panel is September 30 at 4 p.m. tickets and more
information here.