The Last Personal Journal.

The final batch of Inkymole vs Sage Francis Personal Journals is for sale at Strange Famous Records today. We won't be making any more, so if you've always fancied one, best get your order in!

http://sfrstore.myshopify.com/collections/literature/products/sage-francis-x-inkymole-personal-journals-signed-notebook

Personal Journals

If you know me or my work, you'll know just how immense the period of 2006-2007 was in terms of personal work and the impact that it had on me and my work, and in fact everything really that happened after that.

In 2005 we - Leigh and I - came up with the idea of creating a body of visual responses to the lyrics of a man whose albums we'd been listening to for several years - Sage Francis. It was as simple as that really, but nothing could have prepared me for the slog, the tears, pencil-wringing, hard work and challenges that the idea would bring.

On October 23rd 2006, in a draughty building leased by a charity in Brick Lane, E1 (now a Burlesque club and restaurant), Sage Francis performed to a pin-drop quiet room crammed with excited faces, the exhausted artist and boyfriend hiding in the wings, and thus 'If A Girl Writes Off the World' was born. The show lasted for just under two weeks and marked the end of a year of stone-cold solid work, and the beginning of a firm friendship.

Sage wrote about his experience of the show on this blog, and it made various press. There was even an interview. But the greatest impact it had was to give me a chance to prove I could remember how to make personal work, and not to be afraid of the most frightening thing you can imagine doing. Parachute jump? Well, you wouldn't get me doing one now, but there were moments leading up to the show, with costs mounting and blank pieces of paper staring back at me, and 300 people coming from around the world, that I would gladly have swapped what I was doing for that.

The New York showing of the work, logistically probably the most difficult thing we've ever pulled off, with the ground floor of a Chelsea market space all to myself and a massive cross-Atlantic crate of delicate work, led directly to becoming part of my NY agency Bernstein & Andriulli, and formed further friendships with Bernard Dolan, Anthony Saint James and many Sage fans and colleagues.

Sage and I have worked together on things ever since then. I would love to do more for him, but we are both busy making a living and the making a living and the projects we want to do don't always co-incide. When they do, the results tend to be...pretty good.

So this book is more than just a chance to reminisce and play with paper. It's 10 years since Sage's pivotal album, Personal Journals was released, the one that fueled the visual content of the entire show, and 6 years since the Manhattan show. The dates get blurry, but I know anniversaries have arrived, and this book was an opportunity to revisit some of the artwork which didn't make the final cut, or which formed a tiny detail probably unnoticed by most.

Designed by me and hand-built five minutes from where Richard III was found slumbering in his hidey hole, these are half lined paper and half plain, with 8 mailable postcards and gold and silver foiled covers, featuring a close-up of the pencil piece 'Runaways'.

If you want to buy one, they're in our shop
http://factoryroad.bigcartel.com/product/inkymole-sage-francis-personal-journal-double-sided-notebook

If you're thinking of buying one in the US, get one straight from Sage's shop instead - his are signed
http://www.strangefamousrecords.com/news/personaljournalsnotebooks/

Thank you Sagey Franks. I'll always be grateful.
x

Li(f)e in pictures.

My friend and long-time inspiration, Sage Francis, releases his latest album in May called Li[f]e, named after a line from one of his earlier tunes on what is one of my most-played albums, Personal Journals.

Anyone who's kept an eye on what I've been doing for the last ten years will have an understanding of how important Sage's work has been in developing my own, and Sage's words will need no introduction. But for anyone who isn't aware, it was Sage's music which prompted me to undertake one of the biggest and scariest projects I've ever done, my show 'If A Girl Writes Off The World', in 2006.

Here's a quote take from the website for the show, which you can still visit today:
'I played connect-the-dots with your beauty marks, and ended up with picture-perfect sheet music...you can still hear me humming your nudity under my breath' (Hopeless)

Sage's songs are strewn with tiny linguistic gems and white-hot pin-pricks of personal expression, leaving the hip-poppers littering their charts with fake diamonds and teeth.

And if being reduced to tears or smarting from a sharp political smack round the chops isn't enough to remind you you're alive, his beats'll do it for you.

I wish I had written the words, but I didn't; I can only pick up the crayons and scribble hard at what they conjure...it's going to take more pictures and more day trips out of the comfort zone before I can say I've done this man's work justice.

The exhibition was a collection of 2- and 3D pieces made as a raw and energetic response to a selection of his words. In contrast to client and professional work, these pieces were imperfect and impulsive, some being sold, some becoming permanent installations with fans around the world, and some making their way to the walls of Sage's home, where I'm proud to say they remain to this day.

A video of the show coming together.

Voxpops of the show with Sage making a cheeky entrance/exit.

When he asked me to produce artwork for his previous album, 'Human The Death Dance' (above), I was awestruck and bloody excited - what's better than being asked to do cover art for your favourite artist? But I was equally excited for to discover Sage's next cover artist is fellow Rhode Islander Shepard Fairey, who's created this beautiful illustration based on an old snapshot of a very caucasian Sage from a time when it wasn't at all cool to be a white rapper. Not one to give in to tired and silly rap preconceptions, Sage stuck his face in all its pasty beardy glory on his album cover, and it became one of his most iconic images.
Having watched Sage's cover art move from hand-drawn covers, photocopied for free at Kinko's, to collaborating with one of our most renowned artists (and fellow Bernstein & Andriulli creative) has been a journey I almost feel a maternal pride in; this is a man who's worked harder than I can describe to get his label to where it is today. Constantly in awe of his vision and commitment, I'm proud to have played just the tiniest part in that!

Congratulations Sage on the beautiful artwork and I cannot WAIT to hear the album.

Sage Francis starts touring in May 2010.


Read about and order the new album here.