«I have been interested in record cover design since I stole $4 from my mother’s purse in 1972 in order to buy Creedence Clearwater Revival’s record “Born on the Bayou.” This first purchase of music was somewhat of a pivotal moment in my personal history – thievery, first-time consumerism, rock and roll, violation of my mother’s purse, etc. Lots of things to love and to later feel guilty about. Record sleeves have at least 3 functions: In the most practical sense they are protection for the vinyl record within. In another way they are advertising for the music that they protected. But it is the 3rd function that interests me: the record cover as a creator of visual identity for the artist and for the songs on the record. Be it bold, sublime, colorful, or bland, the record cover was a format that was used to create a visual presence for items that we only accessed through our ears and artists we only imagined (most of the time) with our minds. This is the foundation for the “Discography” series. Another area of interest for me is failure. As with any creative endeavor, a form is created from an idea. Not all attempts at creation are successful in communicating their ideas or achieving a reflection of the spirit of the time. It is remarkable when all the elements line up and a successful work is created. But all too often, as is inherent to the creative process, failure waits. And because of the popular nature of music and all that surrounds its sphere, it is keenly felt. But it is also forgiven. Due to the quick cycle of creation in music, one’s failures are absolved, or at least forgotten, with the introduction of a success. In the “Discography” series I purposely created a large body of work in order to create a lineage of failure and success vying for a place in our minds and in cultural history. In the “Discography” series I have used the technique of the mash-up (a mixture of collage, drawing, and photography) to create a discography for my alter ego, Fat Iggy. The record cover art of Fat Iggy is a tangible format to create visual presence to look original and current, even though as a character, Fat Iggy, may not be either. But in either way, the formal elements, the images, and the typography become shorthand to describe the culture from which the record covers arose.»