Answers to Some Questions about the Mild High Club's Skiptracing Album Art.

I received an email from an academic in London to answer some questions for her Thesis about Illustration and Music.

I have received 2 inquires about this in the past week which is weird, maybe they talk to each other. I decided to dig through my hard drive to find photos of the process of makin that painting.

I have to ship the painting to Texas this weekend, So might as well document all that stuff here.

This is the finished painting for the Mild High Club's Skiptracing album.

Skiptracing
Acrylic, laytex, collage, on canvas
28" x 28"
2016

---

---

Hi CLaudia,

Got your email.

Sure, I will answer some questions.

1-How did you get to music industry?

I still wouldn’t say that i am IN the music industry. i have only done one professional album cover. The only reason I was given the opportunity to work with the mild high club is because ALEX Brettin and I are long time friends from high school. Our high school (cary grove high school) actually had a lot of musical geniuses in it like Gordin Bones and Wavy id.

2-How is the relationship you have with the band?

Like I said, I’ve been friends with alex brettin and max nitch since high school. he used to drive his black volkwagen jetta over to my house pick me up, and we would drive around smoking weed listening to jazz when we were teenagers. Until I started showing him good music like Joy division he really had a pretty normal taste in music. Alex and max still visit me and Wavy id in chicago when they come through, but Alex and I have had a bit of a falling out since 2017 because of political disagreements. He has said that he will not talk to me until trump is out of office LOL. he threatened to remove my name from further publications of his work because of the stuff I was tweeting out. He did convince me to delete my twitter which I think was a good idea since I was tweeting out toxic messages and effecting his brand. I don’t know, I think we might still be friends he just does not answer my texts of my phone calls ever anymore.

3-Did you develop the project from the word (title, lyrics, etc), music or both?

Yes. alex wanted me to do his first album cover for the album “Timeline” and after spending hours and hours on it he said he did not like it so I had to scrap it and he ended up hiring some graphic designer to do the job. SO for Skiptracing he wanted me to try again and I made him communicate to me what he wants so to not waste my time. He told me that he wanted a “film noir” visualization, with him in a detective coat wearing am old fashioned bowling hat. He would send me text messages as ideas came to him, and I would send him photos of the process of the work. he would then say “YEAH! keep going” and it would inspire him to think of things to add. He told me to add “kokopeli, a red match box car, the flower from his first album on the floor with a bong spilling on it.” He told me to add a pentagram but I did not add that. I did add the piano, record player, chess set, bass, houseplant, and the “timeline” on the wall behind him. Those objects remind me of jazz. Alex and I used to play chess a lot when he used to hang out in Cary Illinois where we grew up. We used to smoke weed and play chess while listening to music.

4-Do you think that music affects the artistic process? (How? Why?)

Well for the first album he made, Timeline, I listened to the album over 80 times while I was making the painting, and it produced a very circular painting, which was kind of disorienting. For Skiptracing I did not hear the music at all before/while making the painting. YES i think music affects the creative process. Music is kind of authoritative…tyrannical, it controls your emotions. Music can alter your emotional decisions in the studio and effect decision making during the creative process. Drugs can do the same, cause you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. Sometimes that can be a good thing but most of the time you don’t want to abuse it, because it will end up dictating your decision without you knowing it. I prefer to work in silence.

5-Advantages and disadvantages of the format?

Of painting? Illustration? I don’t really understand the question. All mediums have their advantages and disadvantages i guess. I guess the only disadvantage to making a static image is that it is not moving. music is a 4-d medium, it takes place throughout time. painting is a 2-d medium, it is flat most of the time. thats why music videos are so good at matching the feeling of music because they change throughout time like the music. Looping animations are my preferred medium for album covers but they only exist on a computer, until we have technology to print a moving animation on a record sleeve, artists will be challenged to communicate the theme of the album by way of a static image, and maybe thats the way it should be, so as to no distract from the showcasing of the music.

6-Do you think that illustration and music can be merged through the record?

Yes i think music can be visualized. Album covers can be conceived of in the mind. albums can be soundtracks to movies. You can create a movie of the music you are listening to in your imagination and manifest it in a visual art form. This is what we did with Skiptracing. His album had a theme, Alex created the theme, I just visualized it, and it helped having a strong background with Alex Brettin because I was able to tap into our shared subconscious visual lexicon to hit home the feeling of what discovering the world of good music meant to us, since we grew up doing that together, it was a shared experience. We discovered good music together.

---

---