Sandi DeFranco Giannini
Berks County artist captures energy of jazz on canvas at Jazz Base

By Amelia A. Seelig

     She can be found at Gerald Veasely’s Jazz Base at the Sheraton Reading Hotel, brush in hand, canvas perched in front of her, painting and moving to the music.
     Some raise their eyebrows in curiosity when they see her there, wondering what she is doing. But she just paints, content in her world of colors and music, capturing her surroundings on her canvas.
     Her name is Sandi DeFranco Giannini, and she has been a successful award-winning landscape painter for years.

Jazz Series Print 1

     Giannini, who resides in Hamburg with her husband and two sons,  has considered herself an artist since she was as young as two years old.
     She received her certificate of fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and has shown her work in juried shows and exhibitions all over the country, including New York, Alabama and Massachusetts.
     She also has exhibited extensively in Berks and surrounding counties over the years. During this time, she has won several national and regional awards for her large-scale landscape paintings, including The William Emlen Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship.
     In her landscapes, Giannini incorporates the Impressionist en plein air method, in which artists paint face-to-face with the scene they set out to capture rather than painting from a photograph, along with her own style, which is strongly influenced by the Impressionists: distinctive brushwork and the use of color and light.
     So if she’s a landscape painter, what’s she doing at a jazz club?
     Did she get lost on her way to Grings Mill or Hawk Mountain?
     Not quite.
     Actually, after 20-plus years painting from nature, she decided she was ready for a change.
     She began painting the musicians when she felt the desire to get back to painting people again, just as she did in art school years ago.
     “I’ve always loved to paint people,” said Giannini. “I feel this breakthrough in my work because it feels freer.”
     This is what brought her to Gerald Veasely’s Jazz Base at the Sheraton, where she can be found just about every Thursday night, paintbrush in hand, using brushstrokes and body movement to coincide with the notes that are played.
     While listening to and watching the musicians, she quickly attempts to recreate the scene using vibrant colors, attempting to capture the energy being created by the musicians who play there.
     To Giannini, it’s about the calligraphy of the strokes, or the way the brushstrokes appear on the canvas, along with capturing the energy of the music, note by note. The energy triggers brushwork changes, Giannini explained.
     “To me, it’s about space, light, energy and tensions,” said Giannini.
     This project is somewhat more challenging than painting landscapes, because of the movement that takes place, but this only inspires Giannini more.

     “A challenge makes it more exciting when you accomplish it,” she said.
     In a way, her latest project follows the en plein air method just as her landscape pieces do, except rather than painting the elements of nature face-to-face, she is now painting musicians in the environment that comes naturally to them — on stage, playing together, creating  soulful jazz and blues.
     And out of the many shows she’s had over the years, she’s never shown a piece that included people in it, she added.
     And what better people to paint than those who are totally absorbed in their craft, full of the kind of energy and intensity only jazz can create.
     The pieces of art Giannini has been creating at the Jazz Base will be on display leading up to and during this year’s FirstEnergy Berks Jazz Fest.
     The Jazz Series Prints are available at a special introductory holiday price of $20 each or two for $35.
     Prints can be purchased at the Jazz Base every Thursday.