The illustrations and sleeve design for Kimara Sajn’s “Life Stories” album are done now. It marks the end of a beautiful experience with wonderful people. The album will be released in December and I’m very glad to hear that the booklet print is going be taken care of by using some nice quality paper. I’m really looking forward to seeing it in print.

I want to make a confession here, now that this project is over. About a year ago, I decided that I would like to collaborate again with musicians that I know doing sleeve illustration for no charge, I had done this before in other periods in my life. I make a living from commercial illustration working at the design firm that I run with my wife and partner. And, as you know, I also work in my spare time on more artistic projects as an author and illustrator. I understand that most of these small music projects don’t have a budget to cover the expenses of a professional illustration service and I thought that it would be nice to work on some interesting projects on my spare time, just for artistic and personal satisfaction of the experience.

As you know, for the first 5 months of this year I worked in a set of illustrations for Judy Dyble’s album “Talking With Strangers”. The album was released in August, although I haven’t seen a copy of the album yet. The fact is that, after having worked hard in my spare time for 5 months for no monetary compensation, providing 6 illustrations, the artist and management didn’t fulfill their word and legal agreement in providing these to me. That is also the reason why I couldn’t hold the CD giveaway for the readers of this site, as I mentioned on an early post.

Because my experience with both of them was humanly and professionally so draining and ungracious, I decided that it would be the last time that I would get involved in anything related to the music industry. My mind was completely made up and in fact I decided to refuse a recent offer from the management to replace the original album cover, which a different artist did, for my illustration for forthcoming the US release.

The music business is populated by a court of unscrupulous pirates and insatiable energy vampires. You give an inch and they’ll take a mile. Everyone who is involved in the industry knows what I mean. I started getting involved in the music business in the 80′s, doing sleeve design and logos, stage design and producing music for bands. Most of my friends and acquaintances are musicians. Some of them are well known and others are amateur, but they all have told me hundreds of incredible stories about the sad state of things in the music business.

It’s not the business itself. It’s the people who make it poor. People who are scared of somebody taking a piece of their little pie so they steal everyone else’s first. People who think they’re going to loose their identity if someone else succeeds or gets more credit. So they try to plug the energy flow to try keep it all for themselves. But it never really works that way. It’s simply saddening.

Of course, not everyone in the music business are pirates and energy vamps, my best two friends for instance are both musicians and people who I highly admire. But when Kimara approached me to get involved in his new album, I first thought: “No way.”. We have known each other for three years and I always thought he is a beautiful person and talented musician. I love his music, but I was simply drained from my latest experience. Finally, I decided to give myself a chance to end the year with a beautiful experience that could mitigate the sadness of the first 5 months.

Now, I want to raise my cup to Kimara and B. Sue and toast to them. To their generosity, their personal courtesy, their openness to learning, and their way of putting their love and artistic concerns before ego. Thank you for sharing this experience with me because people like you help the world go round!