Mark Wilkinson’s artwork for the cover of Marillion’s 1983 album, “He Knows You Know.”
After leaving art school, Mark Wilkinson found a nine-to-five office job drawing illustrations used for heating and ventilation companies. Realizing this was not exactly what he had in mind for a career, he started freelancing for comic books and magazines catering to fantasy and science fiction fans. This was fine for a while and kept Wilkinson busy while he searched for gigs in the realm of album art. His first would be a concept he executed for an executive at RCA who envisioned the cover art for a 1982 heavy metal compilation called Hot Shower, featuring a Tron-like image of a guy in an asbestos suit and helmet wielding a Stratocaster spewing neon flames. Wilkinson’s next album cover would mark the beginning of a long relationship between the artist and English prog-rock band Marillion to the tune of nineteen of the band’s studio albums, as well as records for the group’s original vocalist Fish.
Wilkinson came by the job after overhearing a conversation about a company called Torchlight and their need for new artistic talent while at a pub in London. He then phoned Torchlight inquiring about work and was invited to come in and meet the art director, who told him the job was creating album artwork for Marillion. In an interview for a Bulgarian Iron Maiden fan site, Wilkinson would call this point in his still-young career as his “big break.” Another turn of good luck for Wilkinson was scoring the job of creating posters for the Monsters of Rock festival held at Castle Donnington. This would lead to requests for his master-airbrush services by mega-metal acts playing the festival, specifically Judas Priest, who the artist has also had a long relationship with. Others would follow, such as the Scorpions, Iron Maiden and Swedish band Europe.
His air-brush work, while most closely associated with the 80s, was inspired by the psychedelic 60s British graphic design duo of Michael English and Nigel Waymouth, known as Hapshash and the Coloured Coat. He also credits underground Zap Comix hero and psychedelic poster artist Rick Griffin with helping guide his artistic style. His work with Iron Maiden would begin after the band decided to give a little makeover to the most famous heavy metal mascot of all time, Eddie (created by Derek Riggs). Iron Maiden’s co-manager Rod Smallwood appreciated Wilkinson’s approach to his images of Eddie as he believed the artist clearly saw that Ed was much more than “just a skull.” His work with Maiden has appeared on various albums and other Maiden merchandise. Wilkinson would return to comics, creating incredible artwork for the Judge Dredd series on several occasions in the 1990s and beyond. In 2000, Wilkinson released the now hard-to-come-by book, Masque: The Graphic World of Mark Wilkinson, Fish and Marillion, a 180-page volume full of color images of his work. You can also purchase prints and more from Wilkinson on his official site.
A painting by Les Edwards commissioned by KHBB advertising to be used as a poster to promote the UK release of Stephen King’s film ‘Graveyard Shift.’
While artist Les Edwards was a student at the Hornsey College of Art from 1968 until he graduated in 1972, he was told on more than one occasion he would never find work in his chosen profession, illustration. Edwards would ignore the advice of his peers and teachers and become a freelance artist shortly after leaving school. During his four decades as an artist, he would work with director John Carpenter and authors Stephen King and Clive Barker. Edwards’ work has appeared on books and in magazines since the late 60s, catering to the science-fiction/fantasy/horror genre, and if you are familiar with Edwards’ work, you might even be a metalhead, as his credits include a few notable album covers such as the 1983 single from Metallica, “Jump in the Fire.” An interview with Edwards from 2016 rightfully touted him as an artist that should need “no introduction.” Still, it seems Edwards’ prolific genre-specific artwork has not received the credit it clearly deserves.
Let’s try to fix that.
While he was beginning his education at Hornsey College of Art, the school was in the midst of student protests and sit-ins, unhappy with the physical state of the school and lack of funding to improve the conditions or curriculum. This would evolve into a six-week situation during which students and faculty occupied the Crouch End building on campus, best described by those there as almost “festival-like” and “empowering.” Given the general displeasure of the student body during Edwards’ time at Hornsey, it’s reasonable to believe the “advice” he received meant to deter him from his desired profession was bunk, and his early acceptance into the Young Artists agency is proof of that. Run by author and songwriter John B Spencer, the Young Artists agency represented the brightest talent in art and illustration in the UK. But, according to Edwards, none of the artists on Young Artists’ roster understood how influential their collective work would become, including future master-airbrush artist Chris Foss, and Edwards himself. Here’s a bit from Edwards reflecting on his time at school and what it actually taught him:
“There’s a lot to learn about painting, and one thing I did learn at art school was that you pretty much have to teach yourself. Also, if you’re painting day after day, you have to make it interesting and challenging, or you just become a machine.”
Looking at the kind of work Edwards put out during his career clearly demonstrates how influential his work has been. In part, we all have Edwards to thank for our modern-day preoccupation with zombies and vampires, as well as his muscle-bound Conan-esque conquerors popularized most recently in Game of Thrones. When the show became a worldwide obsession, Edwards openly speculated his younger self would “laughed” at the idea that such a show could ever exist. These days, Edwards paints more often under the name Edward Miller, illustrating and painting subjects unrelated to his award-winning “Red Period” and has been the recipient of the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist seven times. If you kept all your old heavy metal records, such as Krokus’ Alive and Screaming (1986) or Uriah Heep’s nearly perfect record, Abominog, you own artwork created by the talented Mr. Edwards. His work spanning the years 1968-1988 was compiled into the 1989 book, Blood & Iron, the only publication featuring his work to date. If you’d like to own a piece of Edwards art yourself, a large variety (including originals) can be purchased on his website. For now, please take a look at some of his work from the last few decades (and trust me, I’m just slicing through the surface here)—some are NSFW.
“The Monsters Escape” (private commission).
A portrait of author Robert Bloch for the cover of the book ‘Psychomania’ (2013). Bloch’s 1959 book ‘Psycho’ was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s film.
An image of actress and Hammer Films star Ingrid Pitt painted by Edwards for ‘The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories By Women’ (2001).
A small act of kindness can change everything. Alain Bibal was gifted a camera for his fiftieth birthday. It changed his life.
He started taking photographs of the thing he was passionate about—music. His first outing with his camera was to an Arctic Monkeys concert. He took a picture of lead singer Alex Turner. The image featured the singer’s head projected onto one of the screens at the side of the stage. The photograph was different. Eye-catching. It was picked up by the press. Alain Bibal was now a rock photographer.
But being a rock photographer (or just a photographer) is never that easy. It is something one has to work at constantly. Bibal started taking photographs of the bands who visited his home city Paris. Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tess Parks, Jarvis Cocker, the Limiñanas, Angel Olsen, and the Lemon Twigs. He traveled to England where he photographed Sleaford Mods, Suggs, Dandy Warhols, and Nick Cave. His work appeared in magazines, newspapers, and websites.
Bibal started taking pictures in his teens and twenties, then drifted into the world of work. Getting a Leica camera for his fiftieth changed everything. It reignited his talent and long held desires to be creative. He had always loved the work of rock photographers like Pennie Smith and Kevin Cummins. Photographs that were gritty, real and captured an unguarded moment of truth.
Bibal works on film, digital doesn’t interest him, working on film is more disciplined, demands more concentration. When embedded with bands at concerts or on tour, Bibal uses only two rolls of film to capture that perfect image. It means he has to stay focussed on telling a story with his camera that connects with an audience. His resulting pictures are brilliant, powerful, and iconic.
The moral of the story: be kind, you might just change someone’s life.
Album art by Enzo Mombrini for the 1984 album ‘Turbo Diesel’ by Italian DJ, producer and vocalist Albert One, aka Alberto Carpani.
Flemming Dalum was born and raised approximately 1000 miles away from Italy in Denmark. Starting in 1983—Dalum, considered to be one of the world’s leading authorities of Italo disco—would make eleven trips to Italy in search of records. Italo disco came into favor in the 1980s, and Dalum became recognized as an expert on the genre as it rose to prominence not only in Italy but in Germany and other parts of Europe. Since immersing himself in the music, Dalum, a self-proclaimed “Italo freak” is able to instantly identify an authentic Italo disco song. Italo disco is probably on your radar, whether you realize it or not. Do you dig Italo pioneer Giorgio Moroder or the synth jams of director and composer John Carpenter? Then it’s safe to say disco Italo style might be right up your alley. While I’d love to jaw more about the ear candy that is Italo disco, the artwork created for the records is as lit up as the music pressed deep into the vinyl inside.
The variety of album art produced during the decade of Italo disco’s height had one foot firmly planted in the realm of futuristic fantasy, often composed in an airbrush style. That’s what we’re going to focus on for this post. Airbrush art was such a huge part of the 80s, and several artists used this style for their contributions to Italo disco records such as Giampaolo Cecchini, a giant of the Italian advertising world. Italian sci-fi and comic artist Franco Storchi also successfully used this technique for Italo disco trio Time, as did Enzo Mombrini to create his provocative images for Italo disco acts, many which slipped into obscurity, as a fondness for Italo disco started to wain toward the end of the decade. If this topic has got you thinking about fog machines and neon lighting, the 2018 documentary Italo Disco Legacy traces the origins of Italo disco and includes facts and reflections from Flemming Dalum and other curators of Italo disco history. Covers by Cecchini, Storchi, Mombrini and a few others follow. Many are NSFW.
Franco Storchi’s cover for Italian superstar George Aaron’s (Giorgio Aldighieri) single “She’s a Devil” (1984). More by Storchi follows.
One of the entries for Punk magazine’s “Patti Smith Graffiti Contest” from 1976.
One of my very favorite possessions in my home library is the massive 2012 coffee table book Punk: The Best of Punk Magazine, gifted to me by a punk rock pal of mine. If you don’t already own a copy of it, find a way to part with $20 (or so), buy the book, and I promise you won’t ever regret it. Every so often, I pick it up and start reading from a random entry point and am taken back to the magazine’s heyday and its gritty yet comical approach to covering the punks of the scene when it began its glorious print run in 1975.
Core components of Punk were the comic strips based on the fictional exploits of the punk elite, the photo pictorials used for “The Legend of Nick Detroit” (starring Richard Hell) and another epic punk rock tale, “Mutant Monster Beach Party.” Both pictorial “movies” featured appearances by, well, everybody involved in the New York City punk scene and beyond, like David Byrne, Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol and Joey Ramone. Punk marched to the beat of its own high-hat-loving drum kit, but they also did regular magazine stuff like running contests.
In 1979 Punk solicited submissions from readers for their Patti Smith Graffiti Contest, requesting that they deface a press photo of Patti. When Volume I, Issue #5 published in August of 1976, the magazine noted it was still receiving entries commenting they “maybe” might print more, but they “doubt it.” Eight Graffiti-inspired press photos of Patti were chosen for the three-page, black and white layout and run the gamut from Patti looking a bit like Alice Cooper (pictured at the top of this post), to a topless collage of Patti (with her name spelled “Paty”) with tattooed boobs. It would take three more years for Punk to launch the Shaun Cassidy Graffiti Contest, announcing it in Punk #17 in 1979. Submissions were strong, but sadly, Issue #19 was scrapped, Da-Doo-Womp-Womp. Lucky for us, Punk’s John Holstrom included nine of the brutal illustrations of Cassidy, sent to Punk in Punk: The Best Of Punk Magazine. What a time to be alive. Some of the images that follow are NSFW.
Scribbles announcing the winners of the Patti Smith contest. The photo below is the one mentioned, sent in by Bimbo.
Get them young and you’ll have them for life. That was the maxim when I worked in television. It was called “creating brand loyalty,” which probably explains why the bloke who was then Chief Executive of the broadcaster who occasionally employed me, was responsible for making “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” a big success in the UK. I suppose, this maxim was a more cynical variation of the Jesuit saying, “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.” Brand loyalty was a way of ensuring the audience stuck with the channel and watched the adverts. Programs were the wrapping paper for the advertisements. Advertisers in a way dictated the kinds of things that could or could not be seen on commercial TV.
In the seventies, creating early brand loyalty saw the publication of children’s magazine Look-In in January 1971. Look-In was the equivalent of kids’ TV Guide or as it was known “The Junior TVTimes.” The TVTimes was the rival listing publication to the BBC’s Radio Times. There were basically two broadcasters back then—the BBC which was financed by a compulsory license fee payable by anyone with a TV set; and ITV, or independent television, which was financed by advertising.
Look-In was ITV’s kids comic or teen magazine. It contained a mix of cartoon strips based on popular ITV broadcast shows like Benny Hill, Man About the House, Kung Fu, The Six Million Dollar Man, Sapphire and Steel, Freewheelers, and Catweazle. There was also sports, puzzles, crosswords and plenty of pictures and pullout posters of pop stars like Marc Bolan, Debbie Harry, David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, Slade, David Bowie, Suzi Quatro, Roy Wood and so on.
If memory serves, the very first issue of Look-In contained a free, cut-out and make your very own TV studio which featured the set, presenters and a camera from ITV’s hit kids show Magpie—rival to BBC’s more mild-mannered Blue Peter. Perhaps my interest in TV started then? Who knows. Look-In was a strangely appealing magazine, for it always contained something of interest—whether a pop star interview or favorite comic strip, or just the double-paged regional listings for the week. I lived in Scotland which meant watching local programming like Knot-Tying from Drumnadrochit or Haggis Farming from Pittenweem, while the rest of the country enjoyed Captain Scarlet or Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).
Look-In also had fabulous cover artwork featuring portraits of pop stars, DJs, and actors as painted by Arnaldo Putzu. These covers made the magazine instantly recognizable and iconic. A bit like Richard Bernstein’s covers for Andy Warhol’s Interview which followed in 1972. Putzu had a career painting movie posters, most notably for the Carry On films and Get Carter. His paintings were featured on the cover of Look-In until the 1980s when they were sadly and unimaginatively replaced with photographs.
Look-In lasted from January 1971 until March 1994 and here’s a small selection of the cover artwork from the 1970s to early eighties.
“I don’t really call myself a painter…I draw. So I draw my pictures, and then sometimes I paint them in, and sometimes I don’t. I’ve been doing this always, I’ve just never shown anybody. My drawing is like my meditation.
As a child, Stevie Nicks and her family never spent much time in one place. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, the Nicks family would move from Arizona to El Paso, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, making it difficult for Nicks to form long-term friendships. At the age of fourteen, while attending Arcadia High School, she met a girl who would change her life, Robin Snyder. Nicks would call her relationship with Snyder as the “only friendship she ever had.” Snyder would accompany Nicks on tour with Fleetwood Mac as her personal speech therapist. Nicks’ herself credits Snyder with helping her develop and maintain her resonating and unique vocal style:
“She (Robin) taught me how to sing. She taught me how to use my voice.”
The Nicks family would continue to move around, and she would end up meeting Lindsey Buckingham while she was a senior, and he a junior at Atherton High School in California. They would become an item and, in 1973 released the album Buckingham Nicks, a critical flop. But the pair’s fledgling effort was enough to give them visibility, and by 1975 they would be part of a newly revamped Fleetwood Mac. As the story of Fleetwood Mac’s combustible union is well told, let’s simply describe this romantically turbulent period of FM as just that. The band would persevere and produce the emotionally charged album Rumors, and later Tusk. Nicks would soon begin work on her first solo record, Bella Donna. They were doing boatloads of blow and enjoying their collective fame. When Bella Donna was released in July of 1981, it was an instant smash. This was also the year she found out her best friend, Robin, then 33, had been diagnosed with leukemia. She was also six months pregnant, and expecting her first child with her husband, Kim Anderson. Unwilling to terminate the pregnancy to undergo a more aggressive treatment, the baby would be born (by induction) three months prematurely. Robin would die two days later. Completely torn apart by grief, Nicks would marry Robin’s widower three months after Robin’s death, only to file divorce papers three months later.
According to Nicks, prior to Robin’s diagnosis, she had never drawn, much less painted anything. Following Robin’s death, Nicks would start drawing, initially, to help process the pain of her friend’s unimaginable passing. In 1981 she would create a piece specifically for her, “Robin-Rhiannon,” and more would follow. Nicks completed “Robin-Rhiannon” for her bedridden friend so she would always have something to look at when she was unable to be there.
In 2001 Nicks briefly spoke about her artwork, which she has continued throughout the decades, and of the possibility of putting out a coffee table book full of her illustrations and paintings. Until Stevie determines the world is ready for such a treasure chest, we can all treat our eyes to some of the work done by a young Stevie Nicks and her self-described “angels.”
“Robin-Rhiannon” (1981).
“Rhiannon,” another angelic piece by Nicks inspired by her friend Robin in 1982.
Before Salvador Dali met Sigmund Freud during the summer of 1938 in London, the great Surrealist artist had tried unsuccessfully on several occasions to meet the revered psychoanalyst at his consulting rooms in Vienna. Dali had lacked the confidence to knock unannounced on Freud’s door and instead had wandered the cobbled strasse holding “long and exhaustive imaginary conversations” with his idol. He had also fantasised about bringing Freud back arm-in-arm to his room at the Hotel Sacher, imagining the great psychoanalyst “clinging to the curtains” while he babbled freely about his dreams, his sexuality, and his fears.
Dali had spent his teens and early twenties reading Freud‘s works on the unconscious, on sexuality and The Interpretation of Dreams. His inability to meet the psychoanalyst in Vienna suggests Dali was in some way terrified of Freud, as if this grand examiner of human behavior was capable of seeing straight through him like a believer might feel when coming face-to-face with God.
When Albert Einstein met Freud in 1927, it was a meeting of equals. Two men who were pioneers in their chosen professions yet who had no understanding of what the other did or why it was important. Einstein later said Freud knew as much about physics as he did about psychoanalysis and claimed he could not understand the point of analysis at all. When offered to be psychoanalyzed by the great headshrinker, Einstein had refused stating he preferred to remain in “darkness” about his own motivations.
Freud fled to London from Vienna after Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938. He had heard of how the Nazis had burned his books, but dismissed the seriousness of their actions by saying:
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now, they are content with burning my books.
His nonchalance was bluster. When there was a sudden rise in anti-semitic attacks in Vienna, Freud quickly made preparations to flee the country. He arrived in London in April 1938.
Because of their interest in dreams and the unconscious, it may have seemed obvious that Dali and Freud would have made natural friends, but Freud’s taste in art was strictly traditional and he was wary of the Surrealists after a run-in with André Breton in 1921.
Breton was deeply enamored with Freud’s work and had been inspired to develop a technique of “spontaneous” writing to give free expression to unconscious thoughts and desires. Unlike Dali, Breton had the confidence to turn-up unannounced at Freud’s door and thrust his genius on the great man. Freud was not impressed. His lack of enthusiasm caused Breton to later dismiss Freud as nothing more than a “general practitioner…an old man without elegance” working away in his shabby consulting rooms.
Despite this, Breton still credited Freud with pioneering work into the unconscious imagination in his Surrealist manifesto in 1924:
Freud very rightly brought his critical faculties to bear upon the dream. It is, in fact, inadmissible that this considerable portion of psychic activity (since, at least from man’s birth until his death, thought offers no solution of continuity, the sum of the moments of the dream, from the point of view of time, and taking into consideration only the time of pure dreaming, that is the dreams of sleep, is not inferior to the sum of the moments of reality, or, to be more precisely limiting, the moments of waking) has still today been so grossly neglected.
Dali did not have a manifesto, but he did have a painting The Metamorphosis of Narcissus which he wanted to show Freud. The meeting between the two men was organized by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, who was also exiled in London.
Dali was just thirty-four. Freud, nearing the end of his life, was eighty-one. Dali arrived with his wife Gala and the art collector Edward James, who carried The Metamorphosis of Narcissus under his arm.
Dali was intimidated by the “father figure” Freud. His conversation was nervous and stilted. Freud asked if all Spaniards looked like him? If they did, then this might explain the Spanish Civil War. Freud’s joke fell flat. Dali later wrote that he wanted to be seen “a kind of dandy of universal intellectualism,” and be treated as an equal. As if showing his credentials, he presented Freud with a magazine that contained an article he had written about paranoia. Freud barely looked at it. Trying to interest him in the article, Dali explained;
...it was not a surrealist diversion, but was really an ambitiously scientific article, and I repeated the title, pointing to it at the same time with my finger. Before his imperturbable indifference, my voice became involuntarily sharper and more insistent.
Freud just stared “with a fixity in which his whole being seemed to converge.”
Then Dali revealed his painting, to which Freud said:
...in classic paintings I look for the unconscious, but in your paintings I look for the conscious…
Dali was unsure what Freud meant and took his comment as criticism.
While small chat was exchanged between Freud, Gala and James, Dali began sketching. He suddenly saw Freud as a gastropod:
Freud’s cranium is a snail! His brain is in the form of a spiral – to be extracted with a needle!
Dali’s drawing of Freud is now at the Freud Museum.
Dali thought his meeting with Freud a failure, but days later, Freud wrote Stefan Zweig:
I really have reason to thank you for the introduction which brought me yesterday’s visitors. For until then I was inclined to look upon the surrealists – who have apparently chosen me as their patron saint – as absolute (let us say 95 percent, like alcohol), cranks. That young Spaniard, however, with his candid and fanatical eyes, and his undeniable technical mastery, has made me reconsider my opinion.
Zweig never showed Freud Dali’s sketch of him, fearing the picture looked more like a skull than a snail.
Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dali (1969) is a made for television documentary that captured the artist in fine fettle as he delighted in performing for the camera. Dali is seen indulging in his trademark mix of showman, clown and serious artist, hammering out a tuneless miaow on a cat piano (Dali associated pianos with sex after his father left an illustrated book on the effects of venereal diseases atop the family piano as a warning to the dangers of sexual intercourse); or sowing feathers in the air, as two children follow pushing the head of a plaster rhinoceros; or, his attempt to paint the sky. Directed by Jean-Christophe Averty, with narration provided by Orson Welles.
The subject of this post, Italian artist Paolo Girardi, is also a survivor, if not a warrior.
In a lengthy interview with the rock/metal oriented Bardo Methodology (#3), Girardi spoke about his childhood and the abuse he was subjected to at the hand of his own father, who would punch and kick his son. He would force Paolo into the sport of wrestling, and the experience initially had Girardi reliving his father’s systematic abuse. According to Girardi, as his father lay dying in 2007 he took the opportunity to tell his son he had “never done anything good in his life.” This final interaction would send Girardi off to prove his not-so-dear-old-Dad wrong. Later that same year, he would win a Bronze medal in the Freestyle Wrestling Nationals in Naples, Italy. His dedication to wrestling would work in tandem with his commitment to painting, a pursuit he had invested himself in during the 1990s, painting and creating artwork for local metal bands. By 2011 he was able to sustain himself financially with his art.
As of 2018, the self-taught Girardi has churned out delightfully blasphemous artwork for more than 100 albums, including Washington State bands Black Breath and Bell Witch, Power Trip (Dallas, Texas), and Italian black/death metal band Blasphemophagher. Aside from Girardi’s contributions to their music catalogs, his clients also have another thing in common; they are all completely fucking metal. And metal bands are the only clients Girardi, a former fresco builder, takes on. Girardi himself is the epitome of old-school heavy metal—he still wears t-shirts from his favorite bands (when he isn’t shirtless of course), has a few tattoos, drinks beer, and lives by the mantra that (the band) Manowar is his “religion.” Which, as long as wearing loincloths isn’t mandatory, seems like a lot more fun than swallowing the bilge of conventional religion.
If you’re a dedicated headbanger, you’ve likely seen Girardi’s work before. If not, then please prepare your eyes for the NSFW, super satanic work of Paolo Girardi.
Girardi’s cover artwork for ‘Slaves Beyond Death’ from Seattle band Black Breath (2005).
The cover of ‘Meditate to Kill,’ the 2013 album from French band Stav.
When Patti Smith first met Judy Linn they were two young artists just starting out on their careers. It was one-nine-six-eight. Smith was a poet, born in Chicago, then raised in New Jersey. She’d worked in a factory, had given birth to a daughter in ‘67, given her up for adoption, moved to New York, where she met a young man called Robert Mapplethorpe.
Linn was a photographer, born in Detroit, who had come to New York to study at the Pratt Institute. She showed great promise, a natural flair, a real talent. She graduated with BFA in 1969.
After they met, these two young women worked together, collaborated, daydreamed, conspired to change the world. Some people set themselves goals. Write them down. Make a plan. Put the plan into action. Linn took photographs of the movies she and Smith created in their heads. It was the start of making their dreams real.
They were living in Chelsea Hotel. Linn was making money taking pictures for papers and magazines. Smith was working in a bookshop supporting Mapplethorpe.
Linn photographed Smith “because she was taking photographs of everything.”
I was eager to be Judy’s model and to have the opportunity to work with a true artist. I felt protected in the atmosphere we created together. We had an inner narrative, producing our own unspoken film, with or without a camera.”
We were two girls with no one to please.
Linn and Smith chose props and clothes to create their pictures. Some looked posed. Some look like they captured a moment of spontaneous intimacy. Unselfconsciously caught off-guard. Each picture presents an image of emotional truth. We’re in that moment with them, wondering what happens next. Here’s where their future began.
More of Judy Linn’s photographs of Patti Smith, after the jump…
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