Thursday, April 29, 2010

Some recent design work.

Here are a couple of album designs I've worked on recently (and had a blast doing, I might add). The first one is for Atlanta songwriter Jeff Delbridge's upcoming digital release, Endless Ocean, which has an absolute ton of REAL symphonic strings all over the place. If you like the Amelie soundtrack (or Sufjan Stevens or Elliot Smith), then you'll do well to give this a listen on your favorite digital retailer when it's up. Jeff had Hassel Weems shoot some photos at the Chattanooga Aquarium and wanted to use those as a basis for the design, so that's what I did. Good stuff. http://www.jeffdelbridge.com

The second design is for our good friend from Melbourne, Australia, Levi McGrath, and his new album, Children of War. If you were up on the old Rebuilt Records podcast (still available on iTunes, I think), you would recognize Levi from the podcast I did with the wonderful Mark & Niki Tulk from Small House Records (now Small House Creative here in America... and right down the street from me, to be exact), the label which releases Levi's records. Levi got to come back to the US to record vocals last Fall at RoomFiftyThree (Mark's new studio here in Athens), and I was blown away by some of the photos he took on a recent trip to Uganda (on which the album's music and design are based). Levi has some pretty heartbreaking stories about children soldiers, and his heart for them is pretty inspiring. I encourage you to check out Levi's music online at http://www.levimcgrath.com and read more about his adventures in Africa and elsewhere. He's also quite handsome. There, I said it.

Thanks for letting me be a part of your art, fellas.

Posted via email from JasonHarwell.com

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

This blog has moved


This blog is now located at http://jasonharwell.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://jasonharwell.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

This blog has moved


This blog is now located at __FTP_MIGRATION_NEW_URL__.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
__FTP_MIGRATION_FEED_URL__.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Parenthood.

In large part, my last year or so has been about resetting my priorities, or perhaps more likely, correcting them. Through conscious effort, I have tried to keep my family above my work (read: "the things I do"), and this can be somewhat of a challenge considering I have more jobs than I have family members. In some ways, I have found it very hard to "reprogram" the way I live my life.

In all cases, I have found it the difficulties well worth the trouble. This picture is a great example of why.

Posted via email from JasonHarwell.com

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

All is well; all is new

Today, I'm in Clermont, FL doing some music and hanging out with J.Rich and Jeremy Ezell. It's good times.

But a couple of days ago we had Easter, and that's really what this post is about.

Perhaps for the first year ever, I did not go to an Easter service with either my family or my wife's family; we actually went to our own church. And on this particular Sunday morning, our church welcomed Adam Lambert from Jewish Believers in Jesus to walk us through a passover seder and to illustrate how Jesus brought passover (deliverance, redemption, restoration, forgiveness) to it's absolute fulfillment.

We took communion with unleavened bread, and as I did, I felt within my own heart a smallish voice say to me, "It is done! All is well! All is new!"

And I thought of our friend Mike Sweeney.

And I thought of my father in-law and my sweet mother in-law who would have celebrated their 40th anniversary this Easter morning.

And I could not stop weeping because in that moment both the pain of loss and the triumph of the resurrection became very, very real to me. 

It is done. 

All is well.

All is new.

I cannot tell you how I cling to these words. And even as my heart is heavy, I rejoice that all has been made right again. In fact, it's probably because I feel the loss that I rejoice all the more. 

I'm getting older, and this is getting harder. But this...this is what Easter is all about: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mikesweeney/journal

Posted via email from JasonHarwell.com

It's got to go somewhere, right?

I've been trying really hard in this election season to remember the things the internet has taught us: 1. Don't read the comments...