A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Design
Elly Jackson of La Roux in the recent video for Bulletproof. I’ve been enjoying La Roux’s debut album a great deal in the past week. The jacket she’s wearing is designed by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and features the black stripes and primary colours used by Piet Mondrian (1874–1942) in his Neo-plasticist paintings of the 1920s.
I’m a bit late with this one but better late than never. Brian Eno’s illuminated transformation of the Sydney Opera House, part of the city’s Luminous Festival, was widely publicised last month but I never got round to checking it out properly. This week Thom drew my attention (thanks Thom!) to this panorama by photographer Peter Murphy whose marvellous view inside one of Yayoi Kusama’s mirror rooms I linked to in March. Looking on Murphy’s site I see he has another Kusama panorama showing a view inside Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show). And while we’re on the subject of Ms Kusama, she currently has a room at London’s Hayward Gallery as part of their Walking in My Mind series by different artists. You can see a reaction to that here.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive
Another work update and another cover for Underland Press, this being the third volume in the Best American Fantasy series. The picture is based on a description from Jeffrey Ford’s story although I don’t know how accurate this may be since I only had a précis to go on, not the story itself; I hope Mr Ford will forgive the necessary artistic licence. The book will be published in January 2010.
The second of my book designs for Tachyon Publications is published this month and it was good to receive a copy in the same week as getting a load of new CDs. Medicine Road is a contemporary fantasy of shape-shifting and shamanic magic set in the American South West. This job was particularly pleasurable for being illustrated by Charles Vess, celebrated among other things for his many collaborations with Neil Gaiman, including Stardust. I embellished the opening pages with designs based on Native American petroglyphs, a couple of which are from the tribes mentioned in the text.
Laurel and Bess Dillard are charismatic bluegrass musicians enjoying the success of their first Southwestern tour. But the Dillard girls know that magical adventures are always at hand. Upon meeting two mysterious strangers at a gig, the red-headed twins are drawn into a age-old, mystical wager along the Medicine Road.
One day, seeing a red dog chasing a jackalope, Coyote Woman gave them human forms. They became Jim Changing Dog and Alice Corn Hair. In return, both of them must find true love within a hundred years or their “five-fingered” forms will be forfeit. Alice has found her soul mate, but trickster Jim is unwilling to settle down — until he sets eyes upon free-spirited Bess Dillard.
Yet time is running out for the red dog and the jackalope. In just two weeks they will journey to their reckoning at the Medicine Wheel. Meanwhile, a motorcycle-riding seductress and a vengeful rattlesnake woman are eager to meddle, and Bess and Laurel, caught in a web of love and lies, must find their own paths into the spirit world.
Next up from Tachyon will be a book by Kage Baker. More about that later.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Best of Michael Moorcock
A visit to Baked Goods distribution this week brought me a haul of new releases, all items I’ve either designed or overseen the production of. Among the new CD designs I’ve already mentioned the Tectonic Plates compilation, a really excellent collection of dubstep singles with a bonus disc of mixes by Pinch. Related to Tectonic’s Bristol underground is a compilation of singles from the Caravan label mixed by DJ October. I’ve put together the labels for Caravan’s vinyl over the past year and assisted with the layout of this, their first CD. The other new design (which I’ve yet to add to the site) is a collection of live improvisations by Mojo-tipped Liondialer (influences: Supersilent, Talk Talk, Ornette Coleman, Tony Conrad, Stars of the Lid, Jandek, Loren Connors, Ben Frost, Shearwater…), aka Greg Haines and Danny Saul. This is another release on the White Box label and was recorded, edited and sequenced by my good friend Gav whose knowledge of music esoterica has been drawn upon for previous posts here.
Also new: a clutch of recent vinyl (I really need to add a vinyl section to my pages), a Tectonic promo T-shirt (!), and two releases which I helped guide through the production process, Cloaks Versus Grain and The Sleeper by The Leisure Society, the latter being a very well-received release which was nominated earlier this year for an Ivor Novello award.
Meanwhile, there’s more book work turning up but I’ll talk about that when I’ve had a chance to further update the site.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Plates: Volume 2