MODEST MOUSE an eraser and a maze LP

ILLUSTRATIONS AND ALBUM JACKET DESIGN

I have been a fan of this band since maybe 1996 or 97. It’s fair to say I am equally as excited about my artwork being on this record as I am that there is another Modest Mouse record to hear. In early 2024, Isaac texted me with a photo, a drawing I made for myself and asked if we could work on a cover for an upcoming Modest Mouse release. OF COURSE I agreed, and we started down a road where across most of 2025 I drew and drew some more, texting him ideas back and forth, until we finally landed on a way to combine a bunch of the work I had done into a solid concept.

BLACK & WHITE TO COLOR

Speaking for myself here, there are a few unintentional visual conclusions you could come to, stories you could tell yourself while listening to the record and looking at the jacket and sleeves. For me, one is the ability to move forward, to see forward and backward, to acknowledge binary choices but then to realize there isn’t a binary, there’s an uncountable number of options, of moves, of colors, of decisions, of choices. Reinvention. Evolution. Rewiring. None of that was my intention and I’m not even convinced that any of that makes sense but … it feels like a good explanation as to why these images worked as wrapping paper for this beautiful group of songs.

*Outer front cover illustration translated into color for inner sleeves*

*Back cover illustration translated into color for inner sleeves.*

THE BLUE MOTH

The blue moth has had many lives. Once a doodle for Instagram, then a painting, then I sold the painting, then I repainted it digitally from a photo of the original painting so it could become the back of a piece of sheet music for VIP Modest Mouse fans, then it became the gatefold to this record. Since the record’s release, parts of the moth became a billboard on Sunset Blvd., and the whole image was reworked as a stage backdrop for the Bonnaroo festival.