This Tuesday at the 930, Luke Asher and Bradley Hathaway are playing their tunes.  I'm looking forward to it because I like both of these artists as musicians and friends.  Plus, my wife Mickie and I have made the album art for both of their new records they are promoting.

This show is the official release for Luke Asher's Don't Leave So Early.  I photographed Luke in the delapidated upper floors of the downtown Bike Couriers Bike Shop.  The cover ended up being a simple photograph of old wallpaper.  The simple photo fits his simple music I think.  We did some portraits as well and those were used on the back cover as well as a way out of focus full-body shot on the inside (above).  Why is it so out of focus?  I don't know.  I just liked it that way.

I respect Bradley Hathaway a lot and he's just really nice to be around.  For his latest album, A Mouth Full of Dust, he sent us a pre-release copy and told us to figure out what the album art should be.  We said we didn't know exactly, but that it sounded like a long drive out west.  So that's what we did; We drove all around the southwest making photographs of dusty spots along the way.  A petting zoo sheep was the shot that stuck for the cover but there are dozens of other photos from the trip in the packaging as well.  Mickie made the above portrait photo of Bradley in Cherokee Park during his last visit to town last fall.

So I hope you'll come hear the concert Tuesday, and also buy an album.  The music is very good and I think the album packaging is alright too.

Bradley Hathaway / Luke Asher / Aaron Lee Martin

Tuesday, May 26 @ 7:00 p.m. / 6:30 doors / $7 / all ages

The 930 / 930 Mary St. Louisville, KY 40204

My mom told me that she had the first photograph I ever took.  As the story goes, I wasn't supposed to be messing with the poloroid camera, but I left some proof that  I had been playing with it.  I had pointed it right at me and pressed the button.  I'm guessing this was age 3.

"I just don't get it."  That's a phrase I hear pretty often when people get honest with me about what they think about modern or contemporary art.  I've spent quite a lot of time in the last year contemplating what it means to "get it."  I think when most people use the phrase in relation to contemporary art, they think that there is some secret message that the artist is trying to convey to them and if only they knew the secret code, the viewer could crack the riddle and "get it."  Well folks, there's no secret code to understanding contemporary art, but there are ways to become familiarized with the themes, techniques, and motivations of working artists.

The Art 21 TV series by PBS is probably the best user-friendly introduction into appreciating and understanding contemporary art.  Seeing these artists work and hearing them talk about their work is really exciting for me and gets my brain going a million directions at once.  Considering the show from a Christian understanding of the world, there are so many entry points to thinking deeper about our relationship to the earth, other people, and ultimately God and the nature of reality.

Amazingly, you can now watch every episode of Art 21 on Hulu for free and even without commercials.

This week's LEO cover article reviews the current 930 exhibit 'Holy Lands.' It's actually a really well-written, fair response to the issues that the exhibit brings up about evidences of religion in popular culture and the results of commercialism upon Christian culture.

The opening for the exhibit is tomorrow Friday May 8th, 7-10p.m. and it's up through June 7th. Full details here.

You can read the LEO article here.