Poster Art in my Momma’s Music Hey Day

Though we peer to the past from the increasingly tinted lens of a profit-driven present, my parents tell me of a time In the late ’60s where artists were kings. The musicians and supporting artists in the music industry were really the captains of the ship and corporate businessmen were back seat supportive crew members. The designers and artists creating for the bands built their perfect place in this creative mosaic to lift up the whole, a perfect cog in this city’s rising musical machine. A particular band of uber-talented, gentle misfit artists made up Sheauxnough studios. A band of brothers who did the poster and brand design for my mom’s music venue, Castle Creek. Each piece to flow from Sheauxnough Studios portrayed time rich pointillism and soulful renditions of the symbolic nature of each band. Via the passion-filled and heavily laden artist’s tender, sometimes manically fervent ethic. The collective cohabited their studio creating an aesthetic powerhouse conducive to the experimental wave riding through Austin. With their rowdy sensibilities and purpose-driven hustle, this design crescendo led to a thriving passion and play cycle of hitting the grindstone, being a nightly nucleus for Austin’s party pulse after the clubs had flatlined and then, rolling out of their lofted beds and into their desks below, the Sheauxnough artists would again set into motion like the sun in their same faithful cycle. The studio was a grand part of the equation that led to the iconic nature behind Austin becoming the Live Music Capital of the World. These chosen or imagined moments portraying the performers were always soulfully driven rather than profit. Each piece uniquely layered in the depth of the human spirit, truly gratifying the muse. A mentor of mine from the era, Danny Garrett is A soft-spoken man and an out-loud creative spirit, his humble genius shined a way for me to get into Pratt as one of my recommendations and cornerstone inspirations.

This design process is one that I’ve set my aim at, with the notion at heart that it’s not so much what you do but how you do it, how you live it. The design process that is born as an extension of living fully and fruitfully serving a purpose.