This is a poster I did for the latest KU Dance Company performance coming up in April, 2011.

This poster is just one of many reasons for the slow blogging schedule these days. Sorry about that. Lots of work, but little time to show it!

We’re in full Spring mode here in Kansas with thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes rolling in last night! No damage, fortunately, but I hope it’s not a sign of more to come. I spent most of last week in Connecticut which is a beautiful state and you can drive it top to bottom in a couple of hours. That’s a strange concept for those of us out in the Midwest!

With the arrival of Spring comes a new crop of concerts at KU and this is a poster I did for the upcoming KU Wind Ensemble performance on Monday, March 30th. It’s a great ensemble, so check it out if you love live music.

The Barack Obama Campaign has a series of art prints for sale under the name Artists for Obama. The series is comprised of images inspired by the message of the Obama campaign and they’ve had some high powered artists on board already. All money spent on the prints go towards the Obama campaign, so it’s a great way to help support his bid for the presidency!

The first print entitled “Change”, which sold out in a very short time, was done by designer and street artist Shepard Fairey. Fairey is probably best known for his Obey Giant street campaign, but has also done some incredible commercial graphic design including album art for The Smashing Pumpkins and Led Zeppelin.

The second artist for the Artists for Obama series is Scott Hansen who is perhaps lesser known, but is one of my favorite designers right now. His Obama design is the one shown above. Based out of San Francisco, Scott has an incredible eye for textures and color and I love his retro and vintage inspired designs which, in an era of retro-kitsch, is amazingly fresh and beautiful. He is also a great electronic musician performing under the name Tycho. With an ambient, atmospheric feel, his music is worth checking out.

In 2005, my wife and I did a recital together where we each played a half-concert worth of music. In addition to some unaccompanied Piazzolla études, the big piece that I performed was a jazz improvisation with my father Vince Gnojek. I gathered together a series of 10 photographs which were a combination of my own photographs and some found images. All of them were abstract and had strong elements of texture and color. I projected them onto a large screen and we each stood on either side of it and, with the lights turned out, we performed an improvised piece of music that responded to the photography that we were looking at.

I’ve always been interested in the parallels between the visual and performing arts. In particular, I’ve found that jazz music shares a lot of similarities with art and design, not only in the final product, but in the process and language used to create it. So, I “composed” this piece as a way to start exploring this connection. Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian abstract painter, was also interested in the link between music and art and often gave his works musical titles. In homage to his improvisational paintings, I titled this piece Improvisation f2.8.

Below is the poster I designed for the recital which makes a little more sense when you watch the video!

The KU Wind Ensemble is the premier wind band at the University of Kansas. This is the poster for their upcoming concert on Feb. 14th, 2008 which should be a great one! It’s at the Lied Center on the KU campus and if you’re looking for a Valentine’s date idea . . .

Poster

Bookmarks (front and back)

Check out his website at www.tadcarpenter.com to see more of his work!