The Songwriting Painter

HOPIE THE SONGWRITING PAINTER

The word from others point of view:

I've known Hope Cassity for about 7 years. As the executive director of a non-profit Arts organization and a talent buyer for our organization, I can say that she has always exceeded expectations!

Hope is a soulful singer songwriter and an equally soulful visual artist. Her song crafting is bound to yield a" hit song" one day in my opinion... She is just that good. That said, until that day, she proves herself to be a true artist - which is to say-she is dedicated to studying her craft and to making connections with people who can connect with the spirit of her music and art, and that spirit is definitively love and light.

Bruce Andrews ,Executive director ,Shelby County Arts Council

“Anyone can rhyme words and write a song. But, real songwriters make you “feel” something when you hear their songs. Hope Cassity is a real songwriter. Her lyrics have a message and her melodies will have you singing along after the first listen. She is REAL and knows how to dig deep in her heart and soul to pull out the best. That’s what makes her such a gifted, talented songwriter”

Jerry Salley

Songwriter/Artist/Producer

*Salley is referred to by Billboard Magazine as “One of Music Row’s greatest veteran tunesmiths,” Jerry Salley has had an incredibly successful, multi-award winning songwriting career. Nominated in 2019 for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame & for a Grammy. Jerry wrote Outlaw State of Mind with Chris Stapleton & Jerry Bowman. Jerry, Hope & Jim McBride co-wrote Sting a ballad about Hope's life growing up with her late father. One of the best voices in Nashville also cut the vocal on the original demo of it (Rebecca Lynn Howard)

Hope Cassity is a delight to write with. The song is the THING with her. She always wants to find a great idea and write it the very best that she can. Hope is not afraid to share her thoughts but always wants the best LINE to win, no matters whose line it is. Hope is willing to study the lines, edit and take whatever time is necessary to finish the song as it should be finished. You can't ask for MORE than what she offers in a co-writing partner.

Jim McBride

Songwriter/Artist/Producer

*McBride is a CMA Award winning, grammy nominated songwriter and former president of the NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association). Over 30 years Jim got over 100 album cuts with eighteen TOP 40 singles , ten top 10 singles and six number ONE singles. From Cassity's home state of Alabama there was a kindred home state connection during the writing of Sting and Cassity considers writing with Salley and McBride to have been pivotal in how she crafts a song currently. She felt Salley and McBride were a great team to write with. Stated "they were flawless in their execution of pin pointing and nailing down the most colorful words to tell the best perspective of the story.

Hope Cassity is an award winning Talenthouse Masterclass songwriting instructor, Nashville recording artist, and self taught abstract visual artist. She spent her pre-pandemic life touring and performing close to 200 shows a year for over a decade before she got diagnosed with rare cancer and had to leave the stage for a while. That hasn't stopped her career from taking a new direction. Recently, her song THE IDEA OF YOU was featured on FOX tv and major US & Canadian networks on a hit tv drama called DIGGSTOWN. The soundtrack featuring an eclectic mix of hot list up and comers included Hope's song "THE IDEA OF YOU". The soundtrack including the song was Emmy nominated for best music supervision in a television drama. Cassity is in the midst of a comeback with 19 new songs to release and a massive summer tour. She will share the stage with country musics next women in country Morgan Myles. She's also on schedule to open for Darius Rucker, Lee Brice, Jerrod Neimann, and Love & Theft this year.

CASSITY has fronted the cover of Regional Music Magazine and with a well known name across the southeast and they dubbed her the "hardest working singer-songwriter in the south". Named NCMA Best Female Vocalist and nominated for best duo, best songwriter Cassity developed a series of masterclasses in songwriting for Marriott International Hotels, MOXY and Talenthouse UK. She's sold every session out with participants coming from across the US to learn from her. She's seen HOPE & life from a different perspective and said that doing less is sometimes more in life as long as you write about it. She's been writing and singing more in studios post pandemic than on the road. Finding her new rhythm with writing, speaking, teaching and showcasing her impasto style of original art she will combine all these elements of her creativity to connect with others. HOPIE is currently building a blossoming following for her visual art. She will have a large scale professional fine art exhibit going up in 2022 in HUNTSVILLE HOSPITAL in her home state of Alabama. She has high hopes that the exhibit will raise a human connection to awareness about Ovarian Cancer. She is looking forward to sharing through her artistic studies, exploration her deeply personal perspective on what going through cancer is like while maintaining a career in music and art.

Aside from music, Hopie is beginning what will likely be a prolific visual art career as a painter. Her art studio is housed inside of The Clay Lady Campus a 30,000 clay art education facility and glazing manufacture company featuring every type of KILN available. She just completed a fine art showcase in 2021 and has been commissioned for over 100 privately purchased works in a few short years. Nashville hosts her creative home where she is a visual art teacher for children and memory care residents. Hope uses the inspiration from the clay works she is around. Collectors rarely believe the paintings are made of paint and have to ask what is it made of before falling in love with her sculpted art. Cassity's art is most times described by some of her fans as looking "edible" , fun, and unexpected.

This momentum in her career hasn't been handed to her she's had to be a makeshift warrior to keep her cause and career going. While fighting Ovarian Cancer Hope turned to painting after taking time away from touring as a full time musician to heal. Cassity has is a very rare Ovarian Cancer that only 1% of women are diagnosed with and now after a long 4 year battle she faces no cure only treatments to manage recurrences. Cassity USES MUSIC OFTEN AS HER INSPIRATION AND AS A CONDUIT FOR CREATING AS SHE SEES SONGS IN COLOR.

Using "Songscapes" she uses her friends original songs to inspire color palettes for her paintings. She listens to her grandpas old vinyl while she blends 7 mediums including one from Russia to mix her own medium . Imagine 4-5 ft tall human size sunflowers sculpted and hand built out of found objects & acrylic paint and tiny styrofoam hummingbirds. REAL & lifelike her flowers are complete with birds whose feathers move realistically in the wind. The detail and depth of Cassity's work keeps your minds eye searching diving deeper into the numerous layers of her work. The most recent visual works she is boldly and successfully building three dimensional floral bouquets from paint. Most have to ask "what is it" ? Is it paint?

She works at re-purposing every used paint brushes and found objects. Cassity's resourcefulness is bold, playful and fun making sure to not to throw away or waste things that can be recycled, and repurposed or add depth, texture, or dimension to her work . She loves texture and continues to push her own boundaries with sculpture, balance and proportions. One piece features a massive 120 inch butterfly sculpture built out entirely out of acrylic paint and individual sea fans. Cassity is completely self taught in all forms of visual art and music. She loves using found objects with her own sculpting style. Hopie found her love for art from watching her mom paint growing up. She also loved art down on the coast of 30a when when was touring with music. She found Justen Gaffrey who she credits for her love of super thick impasto painting and piping paint. Although during the years before he created Gaffrey Art Material, she knew of his work and loved painting in that style. She couldn't afford the paint so while he began production making his own medium, she spent time exploring making her own way to do the ultra thick style of painting she had seen done by him and only a very rare number of artists. Not having the budget to bulk up with the amount of paint and expensive mediums others use, Cassity began exploring and developing her own method of painting. She is deeply grounded in the environment around her. Her travels, her sorrows, her joys, her resilience and her working through her fears can be seen in her ability to try anything. To disappear from her daily life for hours and weeks on end to study mediums and manipulate, test them. The more she learns the more her stories through color and music add layers more depth in her introspective pieces. You will see when her mood or her location changes so will her art.

Cassity is developing her art in so many different it's exciting to see which direction she's going to go next. Will she be singing or painting.

Wait and see...She has currently 14 new songs to release and plans to begin releasing them this summer following the tour to Alaska.

The word from others point of view:

I've known Hope Cassity for about 7 years. As the executive director of a non-profit Arts organization and a talent buyer for our organization, I can say that she has always exceeded expectations!

Bruce Andrews ,Executive director ,Shelby County Arts Council

Jerry Salley

Songwriter/Artist/Producer

Jim McBride

Songwriter/Artist/Producer