In Your Face: A Decade of Flagpole Covers

The Georgia Museum of Art presents

ln Your Face: Decade of Flagpole Covers

February 18-March 12, 2OOO

January 19,

2OOO Pete McCommons got out of his car one morning in front of Masada Leather and noticed this perfect little cityscape reflected in tre parking meter. When Flagpole needed a cover for Brad Aaron's story on downtown Ahens, lr/cCommons hurried back to fre meter wifr rug@'s fusty digital camem.

April 7, 1999

Gindy Jerrell made this cover from a portrait of poet Kevin Young by photographer lan McFarlane. This cover, like Athens itself, represents the confluence of some remarkable talents.

December 2, 1998 Kathleen Cole took this picture and the others inside that illustrated a story about the Klan. She hung around with the Klansmen and their auxiliary until they trusted her enough to let her photograph them. Her pictures and story won third place for photojournalism in an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies national competition.

June 2, 1999

Most of the Flagpole staff live in the Normaltown area, one of the sections of Athens subjected to the annual plague of Lubberly locusts, so Larry Tenner's cover using Lizzie Zucker Saltz's bugs held a special meaning for the staff.

September 8, 1999

Cindy Jerrell had already done an illustration of R.E.M. for the Oxford American magazine, and in so doing had assembled a collection of R.E.M. pictures and iconic paraphernalia, so when Flagpole needed a cover to go with John English's paean to "the gUys," Cindy whipped out her fixins.

October 20, 1999

Travis Nichols did a long, two utt. Travis offered to get his friend Carolyn Berk to take the pictures, and although that was her first assignment for Flagpole, she succeeded admirably in getting Vic to relax. parl interviar witr boubadourlbardAryit Vic Chesn

March 9, 1994 The late Patrick Keim lent his arms for this cover by Chris Bilheimer. During this period, Bilheimer did a lot of covers lor Flagpole, and they were as much a surprise to the production staff as they were to the reading public. Bilheimer parlayed his Flagpole work into a cushy job doing R.E.M.'s artwork.

November 23, 1994 Chris Bilheimer again.

Medium: acrylic on apizzabox. Anything the guy touches turns to art.

March 3, 1999 Patrick

Lee Dean showed up and

asked if he could contribute a weekly cartoon, which ran on page 3 ol Flagpole during '1999 until he finally decided to take a sabbaiical. Meanwhile, Flagpole production started asking Patrick if he could do covers, using (gasp) color. This is one ol the results, which are always inventive and unmistakably Patrick's.

December 17, 1997

Steve Lickteig, then at

WUGA-FM, had the bright idea of getting a bunch of local writers to collaborate on a Christmas story, which turned out to be about the murder of a K-mart Santa Claus. The writers read their bits on the radio, and then Flagpole published the result. Dennis Harper came to the rescue with this striking cover.

November 5, 1997 To celebrate Ftagpole's lOlh birthday, the magazine threw a party at the 40 Watt Club. Daniel Fell did this cover based on the idea that important events like that frequently end up with misspellings or other errors in critical places. Since life frequently recapitulates art, the actual cake had the same spelling. Note Jeff and Jeff in the lower iight corner, Flegpool's long-time mascots.

September 21, 1994 This was Chris Bilheimer's year for dramatic Flagpole cover images. And it was his year alone for understanding the symbolic significance, though this one is sort of self evident in a postmodern kind of way. But unforgettable.

March 11, 1998 Jim Stacy kicked off the tradition of putting weird music art on the cover of lhe Flagpole Athens Music Directory. At the time of this cover, the same image decorated the cover of lhe Directory and lhe Flagpole that contained it. These days, Flagpole and Directo4ytend to have separate covers, but still weird.

March 29, 1995

Jason Thrasher happened by The Globe and took the picture of then-publisher Dennis Greenia (left) and then-editor Pete McOommons (right) with a space between them for the "space alien" (center), which Rachel Reynolds later PhotoShopped into the picture. McCommons was later abducted by aliens and changed into a publisher.

January 6, 1999

David Stubbs made a lot of fine photographs tor Flagpole while he was working on his degree at UGA. One of his assignments was to photograph THE photographer-Karekin Geokjian, who showed David how he does it. This cover is David's homage to Karekin.

May 26, 1999 Beverly Buchanan is noted for her painted-house constructions as well as her paintings.

This is a self-portrait by the artist, whose personality is as colorful as her art.

January 9, 1991 Joni Mabe, who herself was later he subject ol a long profile in Hag@e, did this cover, which represented one of her artistic "obsessions," which include many celebrities in addition to her all-time unparalleled artistic fixation on "everything Elvis."

September 13, 1989

Larry Tenner's super-

heroes represent three of the popular clubs of the time: The Rockfish Palace, in the space now occupied by Boneshaker's, The Uptown, which at that time was a

live music club located where the Burntstone Brewery is now, and the 40 Watt Club, which at that time was on Clayton Street, where the Caledonia Lounge is now.

This cover was so popular that Tenner added some figures to it and put it out as a tshirt.

September 4, 1991

ln the early days of Flagpole, Doug Hollingsworth held almost every possible position. This cover is an example of his artistic side, and his ley wit extended to his writing, his ad design, and even his selling ads. They don't make them like Doug anymore, because they can't get the ingredients.

Pete McCommons Publisher, Flagpole

Masterwrorks from the San Carlos National Mueum of Art, Mexico City Related Events:

...

Concert "Spanish Music in the Golden Age" Tiresday, March 14,7:3O p.rn. ln conjunction witr fre ertribition of masterworks from tre San Carlos National Museum, he Georgia Museum of Art will host a specialconcert of Spanish music. This performance willfeature music of he arrcimeros (royal songboola) lrom Spain's sxteenfr+entury courb as well as pieces frorn he Spanish New World. The concert will be presented by he Athens Chamber Singers accornpanisl by an insfumental ensemble of re@rders, Renaissance halp, percussim, and vihuela, an early form of Spanish guitar. Ensemble director KeMn Kelly willoffer commentary on he muskal selections.

Ray Broussard Thursday, March 9, 5:3O p.m.

Ray Broussard, a former professor of history at UGA, willdiscuss he history o{ mlonial Mexico in tris trird of a series of lectures given in conjurrtim with the efribition Mastervwrkfrcnt tle San Ad6 Natioral Museum of Art, Mexb City.

Please visit our rnrebsite next rrueek at nru\ /.uga.edu/gamuseum to viernr tonight's party pictures.

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