DANNY WERACHOSKI EXPERIENCES
Danny is a Stevens Point person of many talents- poet, educator, activist, curator- to name a few. We began collaborating together when he started curating live performance shows for Caravan Wine Shop where I was creating the marketing. Since then, he has branched out to performing and booking shows at other venues and which I have had the pleasure of continuing to do design work for his events.
Patchwork is a collaborative music group consisting of members of other artistic projects joined together. This local to Stevens Point, WI group asked me to make their show flyer for a bill at the local venue The Annex. Because of their concept and name, there was something to visually start with. I turned to linoleum printing for this because of the physical nature of them being blocks made me think of quilting with printing. Out of curiosity, I also experimented with printing one of my block patterns of flowers overtop of one of the pages out of my grandfather’s yearbook I had been holding onto. Thinking of a yearbook page as a quilt of people seemed appropriate for this class of musicians and so a combination of both designs were used in print and online.
I usually start working on Danny projects by listening to the artists who he has booked and allowing their music to start shaping images in my head. Without being able to hear the two other acts, I focused on Caley Conway for this flier and her multi- faceted sound mixing together (in my opinion) Harry Nilsson and the great 90s female singer songwriters like Fiona Apple and Alanis Morrisette, sometimes with a simple piano hook or other times full bands. To me she was a kaleidoscope and this is what I tried to capture on this poster. A kaleidoscope that is about to take flight.
This show came together as a celebration of friends celebrating each other, so for Patchwork it just made sense to reach out to Lenora. Having worked with her on other designs before, I trust Len’s artistic vision and let her run with the basics. I shared music from the other acts we’d be sharing the stage with, along with the venue location, cover charge, and time of the event. Lenora soon shared beautiful drafts that miraculously reflected the tender music of the acts, through symbolism, color, medium, and the ever elusive “vibe”. Patchwork was floored and also very excited about the multitude of options we were given. I know I’ll personally be working in collaboration with Lenora for years to come, it goes without saying at this point.
Danny Werachowski