a series of art, an exodus, and the aftermath...

G'day.....

Lots of major life changes since I last posted..

I am once again an official Houstonian and also unemployed....which I havent been in quite a long time. Job hunting is proving to be difficult but it is still early to give up too much hope yet. Seriously considering focusing on a teaching route....

The thesis show went quite smoothly, and I am quite satisfied with the pieces I created for it. While much of the in-progress art has been featured here, it would be wrong not to put up the culmination of much hard work. And so, here they are in the following order :

1 and 2 : These two are an album poster and a shirt design for the drone ambient duo Hammock. With Hammock being a band almost completely instrumental with very little vocals and lyrics, I chose to draw from their latest album title "Maybe They Will Sing for Us Tomorrow" and the overall feel of their music. Hammock certainly has an encompassing and ephemeral quality to their music, like a flock of Canadian geese across a winter sky. To represent this feel, for the poster I came up with the image of a fair girl staring through an old window pane, her hand pressed up in the glass in a thoughtful and introspect gesture and expression. The shirt design works as progression with the girl now absent and departed, leaving behind only a handprint as a legacy.

3 : This piece I came up with late in the series. This one is show poster for the band "A Northern Chorus" a thoughtful and beautiful indie band from Canada. The inspiration for this piece comes from their song "Winterize", specifically the chorus : "Pockets full of spent bullets, old train tickets, and pictures of the sun that couldn't warm up those winter eyes". The concept was the simple idea of taking the phrase "winter eyes" and creating my own visual representation. In this instance, it features a maiden with cold blue eyes and tears that have become snowflakes from their icy chill. The snowflakes were actually hand made using the classic method from childhood.

 cont. previous entry...

a series of art, an exodus, and the aftermath...cont

The other three pieces....

4-6 : These three pieces are the designs I made for Oh, Sleeper (christian hardcore band), the first two being shirt designs and the third being a show poster. They center around the lyrics and themes of their first album "When I am God" which follow the struggle against the flesh and the spirit through a war and battle analogy. Of particular note was the final song "The End of a Dark Campaign" which presents the allegory of being wounded in battle, calling for the medic, and the choice to lay down in defeat or get up and continue the fight (derived from the lyrics "Lay dead or charge the line") symbolizing the personal war against our human nature. Thus the three soldiers represent three choices: the two with the X's (from the slaughterhouse mark placed on the doomed animals) have chosen to accept defeat, and the third (the X has now become a cross representative of the medic and Christ) taking arms again to press on despite his wound.

Although I am a very harsh self-critic, I must say I am quite satisfied with this body of work especially considering it is my first foray into art for band promotion. I only hope now that someday I may actually be able to do this as a career.