Show From art to music Joshua Harrison Staff Reporter Before CDs or even tracks 8 music albums were released on big black records And while most students currently attending probably dont don't remember what records look like the few that do have been able to experience a different type of art the kind that cant can't be heard but must be seen Visual Art and Design department is proud to have a guest-artist guest exhibit featuring Paul Whitehead Whitehead is best known for painting album covers for bands like Genesis and Van Vander Vander Vander der Graaf Generator Whitehead held a lecture at the Taylorsville Redwood Campus last Thursday in which he discussed his life and work He first talked about his childhood which began just after afterWorld afterWorld afterWorld World War II in London then about how at the age of 16 he and his friend John Foster decided to hitchhike to Istanbul It was my first exposure to culture other then English culture Whitehead said It opened my eyes When he got back to London he started composing drawings and soon had his first show Someone saw his work and asked him if they could use it for an album cover I think I was 20 years of age Whitehead said Already I was exposed to how art wasn't just something you hung on a wall wall wall- it could be used in other contexts He painted his first record cover in 1967 for Fats Domino and soon after he became an in-house in designer for Liberty Records in London He then became the original art director for the magazine Time Out in London where his skills were often called for He met the band Genesis through their producer and created three record covers with Artist Continued on Artist Paul Continued from A Al Althem 1 them Trespass Nursery and Foxtrot Whitehead talked about how different things influenced his work They created the music he said And I made original paintings that reflected exactly the contents of the records Whitehead said he is a avery avery avery very lazy artist and hates to waste his time So when Genesis told him they didn't th think his painting would work work one one of the bands band's albums because of a dark track he decided instead of throwing the painting away he would have to mutilate it He went out and purchased a knife slashed the painting and left the knife sticking out of it This became the covers cover's artwork This is where I learned to use my creative mind he said I had to use my mind to solve a problem in ina a creative way Whitehead used what he had learned to look at his art artin artin artin in a different way He went wenton on to talk about different paintings that didn't come out as planned On one painting in particular he used a varnish which some flies later landed in They became stuck and died Whitehead left the flies in instate instate instate state and they became part of his work He has gone on to paint for many different bands including Peter Hammill on on his solo projects projects- Lindisfarne Trevor Renaissance IF High Tide Mott the Hoople Matthews Southern Comfort and Colin Scott In more recent years he has come to find that he enjoys the act of painting more than the finished I. I product The painting is what it is all about the actual creations Whitehead said The act of making the painting that is where I get my joy from The finished result its OK but I dont don't care about it too much Its It's like I could have or not have it Whitehead is now no composing chalk and sand paintings When he is done making them he allows his cat to destroy some and he will have other people destroy some of his other works as part of his art show Since moving to the United States in 1974 Whitehead has done many things He is in the Guinness Book of Records for painting the largest mural in the world He created the Eyes Ears Billboard Art Show the first Drive Though Art Gallery in Los Angeles He has been 1 |