The music of Phish has been a source of inspiration for my art for over twenty years now! One particular part of Phish’s catalog that I have often gravitated towards would have to be their Gamehendge Saga, a series of songs from Trey Anastasio’s college thesis. Over the years, I have revisited themes from these songs and incorporated them into a lot of my artwork.
“Esther Suite” 2003 linocut series
I first got into Phish in 2000, after which they promptly went on hiatus. Going off to college, I was able to acquire tapes and CDs of shows, met other fans, and set out to learn more about the band, the music, and the culture.
One thing I noticed about the music of Phish was how easy it was to visualize the lyrics into drawings. In 2003 I created a linocut series of block prints inspired by the song “Esther”, a Gamehendge-adjacent song. At the time, I was unaware that there was a whole scene of artists creating work inspired by Phish; I just felt the song worked great as a series of prints!
“Gamehendge Suite” 2013
Once Phish reunited in 2009, I was regularly going to shows but wasn’t really creating too much artwork inspired by them. By 2012 I was making spray-painted canvas panels of antelope crossing signs that I would sell while walking around the lots before shows. In 2013 I decided to begin illustrating Phish songs. Each painting was mixed media on 8.5×11 paper. I had intended to draw the rest of the songs in the same framed design, but never got a chance to finish them.
“The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday” 2014
In 2014 I began working on a lot more Phish-inspired art, which led to several art commissions. One of these was to create a portfolio of illustrations of all the Gamehendge songs. This consisted of the 9 songs from “The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday” and additional songs that are related to the Gamehendge saga. I ended up creating 12+ ink and watercolor paintings for this series. I would end up using these paintings in my illustrated setlists, which I had begun doing that same year.
Tales from the Land of Gamehendge 2014
2015 Summer Tour Setlist Headers
In 2015 I focused mainly on my illustrated setlists, which had gained traction shortly after being introduced the year before. I started doing more of them with physical ink and watercolor, with the previous year’s setlist art being mainly ink drawings that were digitally colored. For that year’s summer tour setlist art, I decided to create the headers as illustrations inspired by Gamehendge songs. They were challenging to create, but a lot of fun figuring out how to approach the songs in a different way than I had done previously.
Thrilling, Chilling, Summer Tour 2018
In 2018 I created a series of show prints inspired by vintage monster movie posters. I ended up creating 17 posters for the summer, fall, and NYE runs, and of course, had to incorporate some Gamehendge characters in a few!
Dürer inspired series 2019
In 2019 I returned to my love of block printing. For the Phish runs that year I created a series of 11×14 block prints inspired by the work of Albrecht Dürer. 15 show prints were created in total, with a few Gamehendge characters tossed in.
2022 Tour Prints
In 2022, concert tickets went digital, which meant that there were no more Phish Tickets by Mail (PTBMs). The beauty of these tickets was that they featured cool art and looked way better in a fan’s ticket stub collection than a boring Ticketmaster ticket stub. A casual mention from my wife resulted in me creating my own ticket stubs modeled after PTBMs! The art for these stubs was inspired by the venue location and Phish songs. Each illustration I created was designed to create a larger image when the stubs were lined up vertically.
Most prints are available in my shop, although some older work may no longer be available. Joseeen.etsy.com
Not just reading the book, 