Indian Head Installed, Leviathan
Nov 20, 2009 — 1 comment
Here is the first picture of a completed stone Indian Head, installed on the facade of a building in Akron, Ohio. The casting looks like it came out pretty well, and the architect is happy with it, so that’s a good thing. There will be 7 total castings, I will post more pictures as I get them.
-Herman Mellville, Moby Dick
I recently started reading Moby Dick (seems to be one of those books everyone should attempt at some point), the first section of which deals with the powerful and seemingly universal human desire to be as close as possible to large bodies of water. Living in Kansas – basically as far from the ocean as you can be on this continent – this is a somewhat strange concept to consider. Even this far from the liquid prize, it seems that everyone has water on their mind in some way. Anyone who moves away from this area, takes a vacation, paints a picture, whatever it is, always seems to have the sea in mind. Non-coastal populations pack cities against the banks of rivers, build houses around lakes (go to the Minneapolis area, everyone lives on a lake); their own inland ocean substitute. Beyond the obvious – transportation, irrigation, the fact that we’re 60% water, etc. – is there some latent human urge to return to our primordial home? Tom Robbins said that humans were invented by water as a means of getting from place to place. Maybe the same magnetism of city-closeness is also drawing people back toward the water that invented us.
Somewhat related, these images are from the album cover of Leviathan, Mastodon’s strangely awesome epic metal album based on Moby Dick (is there a better concept for an epic metal album?) (No.). It’s not their best album (Crack the Skye is), but the artwork is fantastic. The paintings are by Paul Romano, who has designed many of their previous albums as well. I firmly believe that these designs are worthy of being listed amongst the best of all time (click here to see the work of the person responsible for more of the greatest-album-covers-of-all-time than anyone else, Storm Thorgerson) While we’re here, check out a few of Mastodon’s other covers:
