Happy Birthday to Andy Warhol!

My all-time favorite artist and a great inspiration since I was a kid. Totally turned me on to a long-time fascination with brands and icons. If you’re ever in Pittsburgh, you should visit his museum … it’s wonderful.

I just wish I still had the giant JIF peanut butter jar I painted for a 7th-grade presentation on Warhol’s style. Incidentally, I can remember that report like it was yesterday … all the kids’ eyes popping out of their heads as I happily presented to them Andy’s huge blow-up photographs of gruesome accident photos. I got an A.

CLASSICAL GAS (archive piece)

Illustration commissioned by Barnes & Noble for their music department. It was to be used on gift packaging, but I actually have no idea how or if it was ever used. (I got paid, anyway.) I have long loved to do portraits in colored pencil so this was a fun twist on that, as it’s really more of a still life than a group portrait. I’m a total classical music addict - I’ve played classical piano since grade school and fantasized about being a composer (but I had no talent for writing music, unfortunately) - so this was a project I could really throw my heart into.

I have no idea why I’ve always called this piece “Classical Gas” - other than I just love that song and this color palette seems fiery (gassy??) and fun, so …

The music is real, although honestly I picked it based on visual aesthetics, so it would sound like a bunch of nonsense if you actually played it. Oh, and as with most of my portraits, I worked my name into the layout. :)

(l.-r.: Beethoven, Liszt (my fave!), Mozart, Chopin, Bach)

The loss of all my copies of digital work last fall has left me really OCD about backing everything up in as many places off-site as I can. :) Thanks to the internet, I was able to recover some things, so I’m going to post some projects here in archive.

Anyway … two assignments archived here — a drawing and a written piece — thanks to people never deleting things off the net!

CHRIS CORNELL - “Euphoria Morning”

Sacramento News & Review, November 1999

“Jesus Christ Pose” as elevator music?? The dread of recognition rushed in like a sure sign of the apocalypse. To puree one of Soundgarden’s roughest mid-career cult faves into mellow background drone seems too impossible to fathom, but there it was — just waffling down the refrigerated aisle, sandwiched between Tori Amos’ “Cornflake Girl” (OK, that one makes sense) and Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America”.

But the horrifying marriage of Seattle’s two musical genre exports — grunge and Muzak — isn’t far off from what really hardcore early-Soundgarden fans might feel about the post-Garden solo release of lead singer Chris Cornell’s bluesy “Euphoria Morning” — an album that pits ’60s equipment against cutting-edge digital technology.

Truthfully, Cornell’s transformation occurred before Seattle’s sonic sons even went their separate ways, back when “Black Hole Sun” hit the pop stations (and supermarket loudspeakers — although in its original form), and the raucous singer snipped his Samson locks, graced the cover of DETAILS and shed his trademark shriek.

It was around the time that he began experimenting with more soulful melodies on side-project work such as the soundtrack for SINGLES. Cornell since has leaned a bit more towards “twangy”, but Soundgarden even hinted at a bluesy core resting below its abrasive topcoat. (After all, Johnny Cash did cover their “Rusty Cage”.)

And thankfully, Cornell isn’t morphing into Sting yet. Always the raw songsmith, he still possesses plenty of crass hooks and some cool, raggedy song titles (“Pillow of Your Bones”), and will hopefully steer clear of striking any messianic poses of his own.

“If I’m influenced by something, I want to take it to another place rather than emulate exactly what they did,” he elaborates. “It doesn’t matter what style it is, what it reminds me of, what it doesn’t remind me of. If it doesn’t give me that feeling of inspiration, then it’s not there yet. That’s the beauty of being able to do this as my job. It’s intangible. Nobody can tell me how to do it. I can’t tell anyone else how to do it. You have to invent it as you go along. It’s challenging, completely unpredictable and sometimes frightening, but that’s what makes it all worthwhile.”