Nick Schillace w/ Michael Young

Art in the cafe...

Laurel Statz


"The Spectator"


December 2025



Laurel Statz is a painter and Madison area native. Her work, while figurative, is influenced by abstraction and minimalism. The paintings often have a quick and instinctual nature, capturing just what’s needed. While she often times herself to eliminate extra details and over-precision, she has ventured into more detailed works as well. Laurel does not attach narrative to her pieces. Rather, she thinks of them like a journaling process for her scatter-brained psyche. The figures in the pieces are meant to be processing tools for the artist and the viewer. She hopes that seeing these figures helps the...
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Saturday, November 19, 2005

Nick Schillace is a Detroit area composer, teacher, and musicologist exploring what it means to be an American musician. In 2002 he completed a graduate thesis on the late guitarist John Fahey, and utilizes Fahey's self-described style of syncopated "American Primitive" fingerstyle guitar as the foundation for his own technique. This style, based on early forms of blues, folk, and old-time music, provides the perfect foundation for larger and more expansive musical compositions incorporating a wide range of his own idiosyncratic influences. He is currently touring in support of his debut solo acoustic album "Box Canyon" on American Sketch Records.

---Nick paints melodies as a painter . . . his techniques are solid and the music is engaging. He has his own signature.--- - Bridge Guitar Reviews

Michael Young is a fingerstyle guitarist who plays both the six and twelve-string guitar with driving rhythm and groove, and he carries that bouncy and energetic groove from powerful and compelling compositions to soulful ballads. Moving from daunting and alarming to lighthearted and idiosyncratic instrumentals, Michael takes advantage of the guitar's possibilities by combining standard and alternate tunings with a mix of slide guitar into his playing.