Accordion musician finds arts career in printmaking
By Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood
The Grand Rapids Press
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Ashley McGrath is following her bliss and leaving a wonderful trail of music and art in her wake.
A professionally trained musician, McGrath, 25, is a member of The Soil And The Sun, the popular Grand Rapids-based band that just snagged two Jammie Awards in February. She’s married to lead singer and guitarist, Alex McGrath. On stage, she sings and plays oboe, keyboard and a slick, red accordion.
And that red accordion is what led to our meeting. It’s a family heirloom passed down from her uncle’s mother — a musician named Lillian, who played it in the 1970s at the Grand Ole Opry.
“She got dementia, so she forgot that she ever played,” McGrath told The Grand Rapids Press. “They gave it to me, and a year ago, she passed away. So it is very special to me and my family.”
McGrath, who grew up on a 200-acre compost farm in South Lyon, credits that gift with inspiring her to learn to play accordion, an instrument that has become part of the rich musical stylings of her band that features multiple singers as well violin, keyboard, guitars, oboe, cello and percussion.
On New Year’s Eve, McGrath decided to carve a linoleum block featuring her beloved accordion.
“I was just playing accordion, and I was like, ‘Man, I love this thing,’ and I just wanted to do a block print of it,” McGrath said.
A printmaking enthusiast myself, I spotted the red accordion print online with an assortment of others in McGrath’s new Etsy shop and contacted her to set up a chat.
Turns out the print was just the tip of her creative iceberg.
“I went to college thinking I was going to be an art major, but my piano teacher convinced me to be a music major,” she said about her time at Spring Arbor University.
“And now I’m kind of grateful, because now, I feel like (art is) something I can just do because I love it. My ego’s not all wrapped up in it, so I can just create.”
McGrath plans to take her printmaking supplies on tour this month, carving blocks and completing small print runs of her designs as The Soil And The Sun travels to Texas and back in their newly acquired vintage Boy Scout bus. She plans to sell prints at gigs along the way.
If you have not heard The Soil And The Sun perform, head over to thesoilandthesun.com. Their music is described as “experimental, spiritual folk-rock/new Mexican space music.” But don’t stress over getting your mind around that definition — just go have a listen for yourself. It’s original, beautiful and Grand Rapids-made, and that’s enough to win me over.
A band of makers complete with artists and photographers, the musicians take a DIY approach to most of what they do from creating a mandala out of coffee beans and food for the cover of their second album, titled, “What Wonder Is This Universe,” to renovating their tour bus.
McGrath sells her prints for $5 to $15 at concerts and through her Etsy shop called Mashama Prints, a name that came to her in a prayer after she asked God to reveal it.
“I saw the letters Mashama come up,” she said. “Then, I went home and Googled it. And it’s a common African name, which means ‘to be surprised,’ and the characteristics of the name were me.”
The name stuck, and she started posting prints for sale online.
McGrath, who works as a part-time nanny, said she never consciously set out to become a printmaker.
“I think what I’ve realized is that I’ve always been drawing throughout my life, wishing I could make a block print, basically without knowing it,” she said. “Because I just think I didn’t know the medium really existed. I never saw any block prints really until I saw Rick Beerhorst’s stuff.”
Beerhorst, a fellow Grand Rapids artist and musician, showed McGrath and her husband how to block print a couple of years ago, but she says she didn’t feel compelled to dive into the art form until about three months ago.
And now she’s hooked. She burnished 160 prints with a spoon to thank fans who pre-ordered the vinyl recording of their last album.
“I feel like I’m kind of settling into the rhythm of it,” she said about her prints.
She said printmaking brings her a different sort of peace than she experiences while performing on stage.
“When I’m singing and playing with the band, there’s so much to think about, but it’s so exciting,” she said. “When I’m doing (printmaking), there’s that same feeling but solitude, too.”
McGrath said she would like to start commissioning prints and hopes that someday her creative pursuits will pay all the bills.
“I’m hoping that art and music can be all that I do,” she said, noting she has big plans to makes loads of prints this year. “I know there’s a lot in me, especially with prints that I’m excited to get out.”
