On The Lines

Celebrating five years of Jenny Lewis' On The Line album, and the cool visuals I made for it.

This weekend marked five years since On The Line by Jenny Lewis came out!

Working for Jenny has been a dream come true. For those who don’t know, I've loved her music dating back to very early Rilo Kiley days (I’m talking first pressing of Initial Friend EP days). My first opportunity working with her was doing a comic adaptation of her Voyager song, “Aloha and the Three Johns.” That was in 2015, and in the near-decade since, she invited me to create some really cool stuff for Rabbit Fur Coat’s anniversary tour, some cheeky art for her being known for blessing Modelos online (Bless!!), but nothing beats what I got to do for On The Line.

I still remember being in someone’s office listening to the tracks that were done, taking furious notes about “dogwood,” knowing in advance that “Hollywood Lawn” would be the soundtrack for a future breakup, repeating “before you let her under your sweater” a million times so I wouldn’t forget that chorus, and thinking “wow. I love this album.” Typical to Jenny’s songwriting, the album is such a surreal mix of mundane v insane, heartbreak amidst hyper specific backdrops, and a dozen other life lessons observed along the way.

Somewhere early on in the process, Jenny came up with an idea to have tarot cards made for each song, and I’m so grateful those tarot cards ended up becoming a whole thing. There was an incredibly valuable lesson I learned as an illustrator with those tarot cards. My earlier sketches all looked like the Party Clown image, jam-packed with a ton of stuff and trying to be too much (for Party Clown it’s allowed because that song is a literal trip haha). Between a tight deadline, and Jenny liking when I do looser stuff, I saw how much further simplicity and authenticity goes than trying to recreate the wheel. It’s insane to me that five years later, people are still getting tattoos of those tarot images! So cool!

Those visuals also became a life saver in recent years, literally. When my dog Henry got diagnosed with cancer, Jenny was incredibly gracious and let me recreate those tarot drawing for fans and signed them all, allowing me to not go fully in debt giving my dog the extra time we needed to have together.

(Wow, this really is just going to be a substack dedicated to my dog, isn’t it? We’re all fine with that.)

We did so many cool things for On The Line: stickers, lighters, track suits, pins, wine labels, posters, moving visuals for late night TV… the list goes on! We were so very close to an animated Jenny too (maybe one day). All of this was throughout 2019 and the very beginning of 2020. I have been staring at my photos from that year, truly amazed by how big my world had gotten. Did I know how good I had it? I’m pretty sure I did. I feel like when it comes to Jenny, I’m always grateful to make exciting stuff for one of my favorite storytellers, and that it’s always FUN.

Thank u Jenny, for putting it all on the line, and letting me be a part of such an iconic chapter in your life ❤️❤️❤️❤️