Description

I painted this cover for the Time Life/Warner Music album "Classic Rock 1968, Blowin' Your Mind, " which featured ,on Track 11, "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vidda" by Iron Butterfly. Once upon a time I was a drummer, and loved imitating that famous drum solo. With that inspiration, I evolved the idea of a moon-base repair depot. Two astronauts play a game of chess (the board is one of history's famous end games, thus the title; the names on the astronauts uniforms is a hint) on a spare anvil while a team of automatons repair their iron butterfly-inspired spacecraft. The album format, obviously, is square. I made the painting rectangular for possible resale in other markets.

Not long before starting this project, I saw an exhibition in New York, at the Morgan Library I think, of Piranesi's "Prisons" series, which inspired the look of the architecture.