Acrylic and watercolour, finished digitally.

It was an incredible honor to work on this edition, especially knowing the time and care Folio puts into all the books they publish. Working on a larger scale project like this can always be a little daunting, especially when it comes to developing a theme or graphic device that can tie the image making process together. So much of Montag’s discomfort revolves around his inability to articulate what is causing him so much unrest. He can’t explain the wrongness in his life, but feels it regardless slowly eating away at him until it’s finally too much to bare. I wanted to use colour to somehow communicate this, with intense hues signaling the artificial culture created in the absence of literature, and neutral colours dominating the rare moments of peace he experiences with Clarisse and at the end of the novel after finally escaping the city and his old life. The presence of water is such an important metaphor in the book, cleansing Montag in the form of rain and baptizing him as he traverses the river towards his new life amongst the book people.

Conveying the electrical horror of Montag’s daily life was an exciting challenge. Bradbury’s dystopian vision takes the dumbing down of culture to its darkest and most pessimistic conclusion. It’s perhaps not an ugly world, but it is certainly cruel, inhumane and as relevant today as it was when he first wrote it over half a century ago.

Clarisse in the rain

Captain Beatty

The Parlour

The captain burning

The Mechanical Hound

The River and The Woods

Dramatis Personae:
On the cover, Ted McGrath as Montag.
Jodi, one of my favorite models as Clarisse.
James Gulliver Hancock as Captain Beatty.
In The Parlour, from left to right: Julia Wertz as Mrs. Phelps, Lisa Hanawalt as Mrs. Montag, and Domitille Collardey as Mrs. Bowles.

In “The Rotten Beast,” a sixteen-year-old girl named Allys, living in a near future version of the U.S., is vehemently opposed to the way scientists are meddling with human and artificial life. In fact, she blames such scientific overreaching for the illness which is killing her. When she awakens one day to find that her parents have gone against her wishes and had an illegal operation performed to save her life and restore her body, she is furious and must come to terms with this new chance at life, which she didn’t ask for and didn’t think she wanted. You can read the story here.

details

Water colour and acrylic, finished digitally.

detail

Watercolour, acrylic, and cut paper. Finished digitally.

Although we planned to obscure her face behind the type from the beginning, I painted her head in its entirety. The jewelry references two popular myths that have surrounded Cleopatra for centuries: That of her death, by self inflicted snake bite, and the pearl which she supposedly dissolved in wine as a testament to her wealth and power. The structure and styling of the jewelry was based on designs present during the time of her reign, gathered for me by National Geographic’s excellent researchers. Although the image is a fictional one, the detail and surface nuance felt very important. No such statue exists, but the sense that one could, or did, I think lends the image a quality that it would otherwise lack.

Details

I originally started working on these to generate ideas for paintings. It became quickly apparent however that the collages, as images, were finished objects in and of themselves. There was something incredibly satisfying about building something from pre-existing surfaces and textures. I was looking at paintings differently also. I feel that I developed a deeper understanding of the source material, through my search for compelling elements to repurpose into new pictures. The process of creating paintings, although incredibly satisfying in the long term, is time consuming and often frustrating. There was something very satisfying about being able to make richly surfaced images almost immediately, like cheating, with all the associated emotions that one might imagine accompanies such an act. Compared to the seemingly glacial pace of creating a painting from nothing, these collages leapt into existence almost instantly. Like magic.

Tower of Song

Topping

Step Mother

Sky Door

Rotten Beast

Pygmalion

Orchid

Mother

Ingres

Jester(clown)

Hansel

Djinn

Decadence

Cry Wolf

Bondage

Blue Beard 3

Blue Beard 2

Blue Beard 1

Artemis

Coming up with a conceptual direction on a project like this, which essentially has no restrictions, is always a little daunting. Although the idea of someone eating honey came quite quickly(I knew I wanted to create something decadent and even a little pornographic), extrapolating the concept to incorporate the idea of apiology, and devising a way to allow the packaging to support this, would not have been possible without collaborating with a great designer.

The design team made every effort to create a consistent and compelling experience, it’s thrilling to see the palette and tone established on the exterior carried through on the inside. The honeycomb pattern I created on the spine was repeated again on the interior, as well as on the case of the book. The jacket folds out into a large poster.