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My first obsession in life was drawing. My earliest visual memory was the eruption of Mount St. Helens in May of 1980, which covered the town in which I lived with a thick layer of ash. At that point, I became obsessed with volcanoes, and drew them for a couple of years. When I moved near the ocean, I began a long period of drawing imaginary undersea worlds. I used so much paper that my parents (both visual artists) made me a desk that could hold a roll of butcher paper, allowing me to draw in a continuous scrolling style. Later, I became interested in more technical subjects, imaginary machines, geometric puzzles, mazes, optical illusions. I began learning guitar at the age of six, and by the age of ten or eleven I decided that I had to make a choice with my time, so I gave up drawing.
About a year ago, I decided to bring a sketchbook with me when I went on the road for gigs. I began drawing again after 20 years, just drafting objects from airports, hotels, dressing rooms, but somehow a completely different drawing style emerged, which was made completely of loose, scribbling lines. Perhaps it was the result of years of practice in improvisational music creeping into the visual medium. At the same time, I was writing, editing and compiling the music for this record. It all seemed to fit together, so I made drawings for the CD design. The old subjects from my childhood returned: an imaginary ocean world, a volcano, a labyrinth, an optical illusion, a geometric design.
The drawings for the CD were made freehand with a .2mm black ink pen on white paper, reversed into a negative image, and colored by hand on the computer (see this process below, left). In order to have the images appear normal when they are reversed from positive to negative, I drew them backwards, applying black lines for light instead of shadow.
The cover image contains an optical illusion called an "anamorphism," which is a distorted image that can only be seen from a certain unusual angle (also seen on "home" page of the website). If you rotate the cover 180 degrees (so that the text is upside down) and turn the spine of the CD away while looking at the center of the image, you will see a small face appear in the water when the picture is seen from the edge (see picture below, right). In order to render this face, I had to make the drawing while looking at the paper from this sharp angle. Returning to normal view and looking at the brown island on the horizon, you see a small rectangle with a wavy red line, which leads into the next drawing.
The back cover features a labyrinth in the form of a spiral (also seen on the "other" page of the website). This image appears in a few places (including the clouds in the same image), and is also a theme throughout the music. The labyrinth has a solution, which is not very difficult. The fiery mountain in the distance leads to the next image.
The volcano on the inside cover (also seen on the "music" page of the website) opposes the cool, watery look of the front cover. The volcano shoots out strange patterns, which also appear in the surrounding clouds (this pattern is also on the last page of the score). The spiral at the tip of the smoke plume leads to the next drawing.
The wave drawing for the CD tray is like the cover image seen from another angle, in that there is a face under the water (also seen on the "bio" page of the website). Actually it is many identical faces, linked to one another as they grow smaller and disappear into the crest of the wave. The geometry of the drawing is based on golden proportions, and the spiral created by these proportions within a pentagon. The face here and on the front cover are both self-portraits. The moon and water theme leads back the original drawing.
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