I just finished a big store installation for Saks 5th Ave. here in New York for their Diesel boutique-- which is going up next week. Here are two of the pieces I did for them. This season Diesel is doing a line of women's jeans which emphasizes super-tight, peglegged, colorful designs. To capture this, I proposed doing five colored drawings in mixed media-- less "comic booky" than the instore I did for them in the fall-- more illustrative, more impressionistic, with a painterly touch. The images will also be displayed in an industry trade show Diesel is attending in Vegas this month, and special prints of the images are being done for preferred customers and friends. In a related bit of news, Diesel is also planning to carry the PULPHOPE book in their US stores.
These girls came out a bit more tough-guy than planned, less virginal, less springtime blossom. That's undoubtedly due to the Motorhead and old Cult and Bauhaus I was listening to while drawing. The girl on the left is a subtle nod to HR Watson from THB...
I find store installations-- and fashion work in general-- to be challenging, it's like being in school again. Something new. I'd never quit comics for it, but it keeps you thinking in new ways.
But it's not "thinking outside the box". There is no box. Art is a bottomless wishing well of beauty and danger and forceful expression.
