Museum Quality Art

When you are a museum quality artist, it is hard to keep your humility. It tends to go to your head. Recently we went to a show at the Fullerton Museum of "The 100 Worst Album Covers", and half way through, there it was, hanging there, the worst illustration I have ever done. The one that never goes away. The one that haunts me, repeatedly, every five years, since I did it back in 1980 or so. My Star Wars and Other Gallactic Funk, by Meco album cover!

I remember when the art director called, I rushed over to pick it up, and he only had a week. I normally needed two weeks in those days, but I took it anyway. When I got back to my studio, the phone was ringing, and the A.D. said he had just found out they only had three days. I told him I would bring it back because I knew I couldn't do it that quickly. But he reassured me, gave me $500 extra, and said he knew it would be great. I wasn't so sure. But I stayed up for three days, and got it done. I didn't sign it. When he arrived to pick up the art, he loved it and insisted that I sign it right on the front cover, right in the center, right where everyone could see. Right on the front cover, where it would laugh at me from the museum walls in 2009. Right where my son's girlfriend would find it in a thrift store and have me sign it all over again, as if the first time wasn't humiliating enough.

So, yes, I am now a museum quality artist, and I just wonder, what was I thinking back then?