About two weeks ago I signed my first record contract. No, I am not recording music, I get to design a record album cover. So you might ask, how does an artist get such a gig? Well, I have been a working artist for close to 20 years, and I have never been invited to do one before. I actually wasn’t asked to do this one either, instead I asked the musician if I could do it. During the pandemic, Michael Kirkpatrick, who is a folk singer from Fort Collins, CO did a live stream concert every Thursday for what seemed like an eternity. Maria and I started looking forward to these “funstreams” and rarely missed one. I started to get to know Michael’s songs pretty well, and invited him to play at our cabin in McCarthy during his summer tour in Alaska in 2021. When he was packing up after the concert, I asked when he would release his next album and if I could be the artist to design it. I told him I would do a trade out for another house concert.
I was very pro-active, possibly even annoyingly so. I sent sketches to Michael with possible concepts several times, then I realized I was pushing too hard, so I sat back and waited. Every time I go to the cabin, I always bring all my painting supplies, so I can work there too. The day after I arrived to the cabin a couple weeks ago, I got a message from Michael telling me he wanted to talk about compensation for a full record album design. We are talking vinyl here, not a CD, or digital release, although it will be all of those things too. I have always loved looking at the artwork on vinyl records. A couple of my favorites are Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road, and Captain Fantastic. I also love Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and Led Zeppelin 4. I went online and found out how much an album cover design normally costs, and I charged him that, minus the price of a house concert. Michael now wanted to move on it, since he had already recorded the songs at the recording studio, and they are finishing up remastering them now.
The timeline was tight since I was planning on staying here in McCarthy for about a month. I said I might get it done by the timeline he wanted. I went to the tool-shed to look for pieces of plywood and other support materials that would be large enough to make a good album cover. My original intention was to do these on canvas, about twice the size of the print version, but I didn’t have that here. Instead, I found a nice piece of Baltic Birch plywood that I know would work well. For a primer, I had a gallon of spar urethane, and I remembered using that for a cool piece I made in college. Before I put a ton of time into a large album cover on experimental supports, I wanted to see how it would work, so I made a couple of test panels. I painted a PBR on one and I was satisfied that it would be sufficient quality for the album design.
The following week Michael and his band Violet Pilot came to McCarthy to play at the Golden Saloon. I have never heard the band play live before, so I was really excited. I asked the band if they wanted to go on the glacier the next day. Sean McCauley, the drummer, was really excited and wanted to go swimming in a pool out there. I was skeptical that would happen, but I said, “Bring your swim shorts and we will see…” We had a slow start, since they played until after midnight — it was an epic performance! They brought all the energy of a rock band and rocked like they were playing a show at a major sports stadium, instead of a backwoods bar. I helped drive their equipment to the other side of the Kennicott River, then we went out on the glacier. I couldn’t find the blue pool for a long time and I was afraid that Sean wouldn’t get to swim on the glacier. But we saw over in the distance a wedding happening, low and behold at the blue pool! We waited while drinking some glacier water using red vines as straws, then walked over there in our ice crampons. A guide was letting two people go in and we kind of watched them do it, to see how to go about it safely. Getting in and out is a problem, but the guide had a camping mattress and a safety line secured with an ice screw. I had a stick and an extra jacket. So I laid out the coat on the ice for entry and exit. And those crazy rock musicians went for a dip!
We were late getting back to McCarthy town and I wanted to bring the band up to my cabin for a beer and chill session, but they all ate at the Golden Saloon, since it was included as part of their payment. Michael came up the hill to the cabin and we talked about the album cover. It was 80% done at this point and he was very happy with how it was going. I made a few changes to the concept after discussing it with him. I made a quick meal from some stuff I had on hand and then we went back to town after I made Michael help me with some heavy lifting chores. I will be wrapping up the album design in the next week and when it is all approved and production ready I will blog about it again. Showing off the final product when it is ready!
Real Art Is Better! 