Ever wonder what it’s like to work with a visual artist to create art for an album? We wanted to share our process working with Kat Hamilton (KatMFineArt on Etsy) for the piece that will accompany Lady of the Harbor in the book alongside the album.
In talking about the art for this album in general, we keep coming back to the themes of absence, what is not seen, and the focus of the visual being something that is missing or obscured. We are interested in the concept of negative space, and how that reflects one of the questions our music raises: whose voices are or aren’t being heard? For Lady of the Harbor, we wanted an image that evoked immigrants arriving to Ellis Island, with the Statue of Liberty visible but not the focus, and not just a part of the scenery.
We sent Kat those ideas and the track, and she sent us Concept Sketches 1-3. We loved the setting on the deck of a ship in sketches 1 and 2, as well as the focus on an individual among a crowd of people. Sketch 3 felt like it nailed the idea of the Statue of Liberty being present but not depicted literally. After chatting with Kat about her sketches and our reactions, she sent us Draft 1, which integrated all the ideas. For us, the only issue with Draft 1 was that the family felt too separate from the crowd, so Kat made some adjustments and sent us the final draft, which we love and we hope you do too. It is such a joy for us to work with talented artists who can take our ideas and turn them into something so visually compelling!
