Charlie Hebdo

If you don't support freedom of speech for people with whom you disagree profoundly, you don't support freedom of speech. Whether you like what they had to say or not, institutions like Charlie Hebdo are the reason freedom of expression is so important. I can't quite say "I am Charlie Hebdo." But god dammit they had every right to say what they had to say without threat of violence and murder.

Conversation Gardening 012-014

Holly's next record

Early last year I did a record cover for my friend Holly's first record. Somehow I never got around to blogging it, but she's crowdfunding the money for her second record now, ending today (January 5th), in fact, so maybe now is as good a time as any. Aside from Holly being one of my favorite people on the planet, I have an interest in the fundraising, because I'm slated to do the cover of the second go round as well. Here's an image of the first record, a gatefold with foil stamping:

And the inside:

Part of the connection is that one of the songs on this first record, written before I ever met Holly, was inspired by a piece in my book The End.

The cover of the second record will be a continuation of the visual ideas as the first, so they'll be something of a set. Also it's a double LP.

Holly's already been in the studio a bunch. The new record is being recorded at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco, produced by John Vanderslice. Alan Sparhawk (of Low) is playing on it, as are a few other great people you can read about here. Some of my sketches and preparatory drawings for the design are also on offer as rewards in the campaign. So go help a girl out.

If you want a copy of the first record you might be able to get one from her, but I also just put a few copies up at my store site, here.

On Optimism

I did a strip for Medium apropos of the New Year. You can read it here.

MOI benefit print

I did a print for the crowdfunding campaign to start an 826 chapter in St Paul – the Mid-continent Oceanographic Institute (MOI). It's a reprise of the cover I did for their first publication of student writing earlier this year. It's an edition of 75, the first fifty of which went to donors to the campaign. printed in archival pigment on nice thick, fancy paper. Just put it up at the store, here.

Rain Taxi Benefit Auction

I donated a few pieces to Rain Taxi for their fundraiser and auction this year, including this original from God and the Devil at War in the Garden (it's inverted in the book). Most of the silhouette art from this story and from Rage of Poseidon doesn't really have coherent original art, so this is something of a rarity. Below that is a cover image I did a few years ago for Norton's American Hybrid poetry anthology (when RT's Eric Lorberer was at my house looking at originals he told me that that book became well known and, to some, deeply disliked among poetry fans following publication). Head to Rain Taxi's ebay page to see a panel from Big Questions and some drawings of movie stars from the 1920's that I did as sketches for Daisy and Tom Buchanan for a cover of the Great Gatsby in 2011.

So this is weird

My friend Marianne emailed me the other day about something else entirely and mentioned that she'd seen a page from Big Questions reproduced as an artwork in a monograph of the artist William Pope L. I had no idea what she was talking about. I poked around on the internet a bit and found that a print of the page (400, in case you're interested – a nice round number) had been on display in his show, Forlesen, at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago a year and a half ago. On their site it looks like this:

I don't really know quite what to make of this. One thought I had was "I've been Roy Lichtensteined." But that's really not true. Whatever this is, it's not an aestheticization of mass consumer culture (I just liked the idea of turning Lichtenstein's name into a verb). The other main thought I had was: I wish someone had bothered to tell me about it. I'd have liked to have seen the show. From everything I can tell, he's a thoughtful, provocative artist (another piece from the show, a wall of ketchup mixed with joint compound is pictured below). I am very interested in the ways an artwork ceases to belong to the artist when it moves out into the world, how, if it's really successful, ownership transfers, in a very real way, to its audience. And how that phenomenon might conflict with copyright law or with the artist's own self-interest. Meanings in art are never fixed.  Which can be messy. So I like the idea that that page can resonate with unintended meanings in a new context. Part of me feels honored. And yet, being completely honest... well, it's weird to be on the other side of the process. I wrote Mr. L today, so now I'm waiting to hear what he thinks.