A lot of things happened this weekend that I could comment on here. There was Felix Baumgartner flying a balloon up tot he very edge of space then jumping out to plummet at over 600 MPH back to earth. Then there was the world of baseball where Derek Jeter fractured his ankle, bringing a state of depression to Yankee fans everywhere. And yesterday I delivered the work yesterday for my show, Inward Bound, which opens this coming Saturday at the Kada Gallery in Erie.
An interesting thing came up while talking with owner Kathy DeAngelo at the Kada. Her son, David, who lives on the West Coast, had called her and had told her that he thought someone was using one of my images on an album cover, something called Lowe Country. He was positive that it was my imagery. At first, I thought it might be coincidental, that it was an image from someone that had a style that resembled my work. But i thought I would look it up just to be sure.
So this morning I googled Lowe Country and, clicking on a link, was shocked to see one of my paintings staring out at me. It was an older piece, one from around 1997 and I couldn’t quite place the exact piece or where it might have been sold. But I was sure it was mine. It had to be or there was someone out there who was my artistic doppelganger.
The album was a tribute album featuring musicians, primarily from the country and Americana fields, doing covers of songs by Nick Lowe, which I thought was good because I have always been a fan of his work since the 70’s, especially when he was with Dave Edmunds in the band Rockpile . That didn’t help much. I still couldn’t figure out how my work had ended up there on the cover. I clicked on a few more links trying to find something that would give me some sort of an an idea. Nothing. Then I clicked on an interview with the producer of the project and the founder of Fiesta Red Records. His name was Robert Seidenberg.
In a flash it all made sense. It was his painting, or at least a portion of it. He had bought this painting from the West End Gallery when he was with Hollywood Records many years ago. My mind eased a bit at this revelation and I became pleased that the image was being used, even though I was not getting even a nod of recognition from it. I was just thrilled to see that image , especially when I saw that the whole painting wrapped around the entire jacket. Looks good.
I am not sure if I will get in touch with Mr. Seidenberg. I probably will if only to let him know I approve of its use and to let him know that he should be more thorough in using imagery in the future because of the ownership rights to images that artist maintain even after the original painting is sold. But at least I am aware that it’s out there. Thanks, David, for bring it to my attention.
[ PS : Found the Liner Notes and indeed I am credited. The painting was Lakelover from 1998.]
Here’s one of the tracks from the album, Heart of the City, from Chatham County Line.
Redtree Times 