Wes Wilson, who is generally acknowledged as the father of the ’60s rock concert poster, with 25 in the Moonalice series, has teamed up with Carolyn Ferris, with 52 in the series, to create this psychedelic poster for the 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love.
We had a chance to catch up with Wes who shared some insight about this surreal beauty named “Dick and Jane.”
Our first artwork for the Summer of Love 23 and Me celebration poster included a dancing figure and her partner. However, the 23 and me representative objected to our artwork because “people are in it” and the woman’s dress was too sensual. At first, she suggested perhaps it might work if we took the man out and leaving the woman with less thigh showing. We looked at the option of taking the man out, it didn’t carry the feeling of the Summer of Love without a man and a woman – it seemed less pertinent. We felt that figures and people were a major part of the Summer of Love. We still feel that way. We enjoyed working with the quite young 23 and Me representative except we had a slightly different perspective to the meaning of Summer of Love, but it was their party. After our amazement at such a perspective subsided, we then decided to make adjustments to satisfy our initially dismayed client in an acceptable manner as best we could. After working on the couple we’d created for a couple weeks, we created an alternative poster with only wings and a heart over the San Francisco skyline which was more acceptable to them, all in a three-day turnaround. The first Summer of Love poster remains unpublished. We thought it would be of interest to share this story with our fellow artists and rock poster aficionados. We decided to print a final Summer of Love poster with the couple we call Dick and Jane for our third Summer of Love poster to be self-published in order not to miss out on our original inspiration for the poster. Two of the three posters will be available at our TRPS booth, our other Moonalice posters will also be available with us at our booth or possibly with Chris Shaw and Alex Fischer’s Moonalice booth.If you can’t make it out to TRPS Festival of Rock Posters, you can purchase one online now at www.wescarolynarts.com
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