Artist/musician/photographer Robbie Kaye proves creativity has no bounds

A Valley resident since 2013, Kaye set to look in four-woman live performance Thursday, Aug. 7, at Lost Chords Guitars

By Pamela Dozois

Contributing Writer

Robbie Kaye is creativity in movement. As an artist, composer, classical musician, photographer, and former gymnast, she has by no means stopped exploring the myriads of how of bringing magnificence into this world. Kaye has carried out and composed music for a few years in New York and Portland, Oregon, earlier than she transitioned into images and portray. Kaye’s work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries and has been featured in quite a few publications akin to LensCulture, Lenscratch, Gourmet, and Marie Claire magazines. She has a everlasting exhibit on the University of California, some items of which have been stolen. Her work can be within the arms of personal collectors all through the U.S. and Europe.

Three years in the past, Kaye returned to her music roots after receiving a field of her previous cassettes and began writing and recording once more. She might be acting at Lost Chord Guitars in Solvang on Thursday, Aug. 7, in a Songwriters within the Round occasion with Arwen Lewis, Toni Land, and Emily Zuzik. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the efficiency will begin at 8 p.m. Lost Chord Guitars is at 1576 Copenhagen Drive, Ste 101, Solvang.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she says her first expertise of life consisted of tall buildings and cement parks till her mother and father despatched her to summer season camp on the age of 5. It was then that she mentioned she took her first breath of contemporary air, skilled nature in all its glory, and realized that she was destined to copy the surprise and wonder she had skilled in these summer season months. They have been the inspiration for her love of artwork and all the weather of nature.

As a baby, she studied gymnastics and was educated in classical piano. After graduating from highschool, she attended a university in Georgia as a result of it had a superb gymnastics program, and as a gymnast, she wished to compete collegiately.

“It was a life-changing experience,” she mentioned. “I went from being a popular student in New York to being a social outcast. I quit the gymnastics team because I didn’t feel like I fit in in general. I had a hard time living in a rural setting and in such a different culture. And being a sensitive person didn’t help. I was extraordinarily shy, even to this day, although people I know will laugh at that statement.”

She ultimately discovered her tribe and returned to gymnastics, however competing was not in her future.

“During spring training, I landed incorrectly and hurt my back,” she mentioned. “Since I couldn’t do gymnastics any longer, I turned to my other love, which was music. I had been classically trained in piano in New York, so I took music courses instead. When I returned to New York for Christmas vacation, I was immediately put into the hospital for back surgery. I had a herniated disc and never returned to school. Georgia was really character-building, to put it mildly, but I eventually found my niche.”

Instead, she utilized to Berklee College of Music in Boston, learning jazz and majoring in composition and piano.

“The first band I was in was a country band where I played piano. It was at a venue called Swampland,” she mentioned.

After a 12 months and a half at Berklee, Kaye returned to Long Island and joined a rock ‘n’ roll band in 1979.

“We made a 45 record, performed in New York City, got on the radio, and, like most bands, we broke up,” she mentioned. “At the ripe age of twenty-two, I moved to Manhattan and pursued a music profession by collaborating with different musicians. In the interim, I attempted working 9-to-5 jobs, however I simply couldn’t deal with it for very lengthy. I’d dangle in there for 4 months, after which I needed to transfer on to the following job. I even wrote a track about Manhattan.

“My grandmother wanted me to be a paralegal and go to secretarial school. She would take me shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue and buy me power suits. So, by day I wore a power suit to work, and by night I wore black leather pants, performing in shows in Greenwich Village.”

In the early Nineteen Nineties Kaye had her personal band, 5 ladies and one man, known as Reverend Tribble & the Angels. Kaye’s journey as a songwriter is rooted in a deep love of music and a dedication to her craft.

“I started writing my own songs when I was 16, when my parents told me they were getting a divorce. It was a means of expressing my sadness at the time, and I continued writing lyrics for my own music,” she continued. “I also had the good fortune of being signed to Warner Chappell Music as a staff songwriter. The following year, one of the songs I co-wrote was for Disney Records, and the following year, the same song was placed in a Disney film.”

A change in her private life meant a change in location.

“I married and moved to Portland, where I recorded a CD called Two Separate Worlds and formed my own group, and as a duo we performed both on the east and west coasts for a few years,” she continued. The marriage didn’t final, however now we have remained pals.”

During the millennium Kaye determined to vary course and return to highschool.

“I quit the music scene for the first time in 2000 and went back to school to study creative writing and literature. I continued writing and recording but got out of the business side of it,” she continued. “I moved to the Oregon coast for six months, where I traded music for my room and board. While I was there, I took writing classes through Portland State University in Cannon Beach, Oregon, then moved to Santa Cruz to continue studying and got a job at UC Santa Cruz while attending school there. I then moved to Santa Monica and worked for the Dean of Admissions at USC while continuing my studies. I registered for a new semester at USC and took my first photography and poetry class with the California Poet Laureate, Carol Muske-Dukes who I later collaborated with for the 125th anniversary of USC in 2005. We created a poetry/photography book for the occasion focusing on the school’s architecture and landscapes. I pursued a photographic career, and in 2009 I traveled the country interviewing women who were in their 70s and older at their weekly beauty parlor appointments and created a photographic book called ‘Beauty & Wisdom.’”

In 2013, Kaye moved to the Valley, launched her e book, and began portray motorbike tire treads on T-shirts, sweatshirts, and on canvas, promoting them in a enterprise she began. She mentioned it was then that she turned fascinated with resin.

“I continued with my photography and transitioned into abstract expressionism, painting trees for a collection called ‘Naked Trees’ and another called ‘All Dressed Up & Everywhere to Go,’ which can be viewed and purchased at Helen’s Hair Studio in Santa Ynez,” mentioned Kaye.

Kaye’s new single, “Clear Blue Sky,” was launched Aug. 5 on Spotify and all listening platforms, and he or she is presently writing and recording songs for movie, TV, and adverts.

Over the years, Kaye mentioned she has had the dignity of co-writing with exceptional songwriters, together with the legendary Doc Pomus, revered hitmaker Clay Mills, multi-award-winning producer Elliott Lanam, Mark Cruz, and Julian Cassia. She has additionally demonstrated her versatility by scoring the music for 2 musicals: “Afterlife” by Bob Fenster and “The Continuing Adventures of Anne and Jack” by Josh Goldman. Robbie’s track, “Big Red Truck,” has been performed on NPR Radio and nationwide daytime tv.

She has since remarried in 2006, has an artwork studio in Santa Ynez, and is continuous to be a artistic power of nature.

For extra data, go to www.robbiekaye.com or electronic mail [email protected].