Build
Hi. My name is Brooke Richey and I am the founder of Wasp & Fig Sounds. Thanks for buzzing over to my site. My vocational calling is to design safe spaces for individuals of all backgrounds to experience genuine connection with oneself and others, through the creation of live music. I strive to inspire my listeners, clients, and sponsors to live healthy, and joyous lives through the art of expression.
Since you are here, here is my call to action for you:
Tell stories — truthfully.
What’s up with the wasp & fig?
The combination may sound strange— why on earth would an insect be the life-giving source to a fruit (figs, which by the way are inverted flowers)? A fig wasp and a fig are in a relationship known as mutualism, one cannot exist without the other. The ones we eat, by the way, are female figs. The male fig fruit are only for the purpose of the fig wasp reproduction, where a female fig-wasp lays her eggs, and the baby wasps that are made can carry out the fig pollen to create more figs. Sometimes a female wasp will crawl into the wrong fig— a female fruit, where it gets trapped, and eventually dies. Since the pollen she had been carrying is now trapped inside the fig with her, the fruit blooms internally, simultaneously breaking her body down with an enzyme. The combination occurring here is what becomes the inverted flower fruit that we love so much on our morning toast or charcuterie platters.
So what does all this have to do with Brooke Richey’s music?
Figs are a family emblem for me. After learning about how they were created, I was even more inspired to create music as a living. There is something beautiful to be made, when pain and death is endured, or even just when life takes its course. The bottom line is, I just have too much to say and share about the consequences of living in this world. Music is the way I can build — by bringing people together through experiencing live music. However, the desire to use the fig & wasp as an icon for my work started with my Grandfather, a full-blood Croatian man who had to quit primary school at a young age to help his family fish in order to survive. His utmost goal in life was to build. He left a homestead behind — 3 villas just off the shores of Bratuš, Croatia. On Villa Rogač in the summer of 2016 I’d pick from my grandfather’s fig trees to make my breakfast. There I knew that I wanted to work hard, and build as well. My villas though, are designed in the forms of songs, nocturnes, symphonic suites and film scores.
I build long-lasting places of home for the soul through the creation of live music.