Shawn Colvin taps Maggie Taylor

Hey, Charlottesville… You can say you saw it here first!

Grammy nominated folkrock singer Shawn Colvin, has a new album out – "These Four Walls." It's another great one for Ms. Colvin. But what is important to me is the image she chose to grace the album cover. Ms. Colvin picked the art of Florida photographer Maggie Taylor. Specifically, Maggie's "Woman with a Stone Skirt" is used for the cover. This is the same photo we brought to Charlottesville a year ago during Migration’s November 2007 Photography Invitational (read my review of Maggie's art here). Good to see the power players in the music industry catching up to what we do here in Charlottesville.

  

This is probably the first time I’ve been excited about album cover art since the world switched from 12.5" x 12.5" vinyl sleeves to 5" x 5" CD inserts. Gone are the days of artists getting full-blown exposure through collaborating with pop music artists. Case in point: Little known Georgia folk artist, Howard Finster, became a household name soon after Michael Stipe and R.E.M. used his art for their 1984 album "Reckoning." The following year, Talking Heads used Finster's art for their 1985 album "Little Creatures" (which Rolling Stone awarded the album cover of the year). Finster's fame instantly became mainstream - including his selection to be part of the Venice Biennale - and visitor attendance to his Paradise Gardens home (an absolutely incredible visual art installation) in rural Summerville, Georgia exploded.

  

Just think of the millions of "Reckoning" and "Little Creature" albums that were sold in the mid-80's. That’s a lot of eyes seeing Finster's art who otherwise would have never heard of him. Those were great days for visual artists and getting exposure through album cover art. Let's hope for the same for Maggie Taylor.

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[wwc]

Taylor's art is also in the opening credits of the TV show Ghost Whisperer on CBS. So millions see it!