Concept art used to seem to me one of the most inaccessible artforms. It’s certainly one of the most abstract. And in the realm of acclaimed-museum- and high-end-gallery-bound work, the tradition concept art lives in, the history it points to, and the vocabulary it uses certainly excludes most people. However, the concept of concept art (if you will) does not require a connection to this singular tradition. Concept art does not need to be tethered to technique, though it sometimes is. It does not need to be beautiful, though it sometimes is. It does not need to be, and almost by definition can’t be, standalone in its nature. It is in response to something else, in conversation with the world. (This is simultaneously what makes high concept so inaccessible but also what makes) And it is built on ideas, something we care a lot about at Powderhouse and something novices can start having before they develop technique or training in a domain.

concept art i love

Coming soon.

a homemade playlist in a day

This project was my first attempt at creating a concept album of my own. I was continuing a “living tradition” between myself and my partner (a playlist exchange, not too original), and after taking unusually long to listen to the last playlist I was gifted, I needed to come back with something special: a playlist of original recordings. This concept album tells the story, in broad strokes, of the development of our relationship to this point.

exquisite corpses

These are a few of the results from a day-long workshop I ran introducing colleagues to looping, garageband, and musical forms. We used an exquisite corpse style structure to create sound elements for eachother and then, using whatever sounds had been created for us, were tasked with creating a “song” from it.