In these days of Evite’s and FourSquare and Facebook status updates, it almost seems quaint to advertise shows on silk-screened posters.
But these days, Jay Ryan’s whimsical posters — often featuring cartoonish animals and grave faces — aren’t just in demand by bands, but also a celebrated part of an increasingly prominent art scene.
This spring, a Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft exhibition showcased gig posters from across the globe, and Ryan’s art was prominent among them. Now there’s a new book of his work, “Animals and Objects in and Out of Water,” which Ryan will sign and discuss at 7 p.m. Friday at Carmichael’s Bookstore in Crescent Hill.
“There’s a rich tradition of poster-making,” Ryan said by telephone from his Chicago studio. “In this country, entertainment-oriented posters go back at least 100 years. You could draw a distinct line to what I’m doing now back through the punk fliers of the ’80s to the psychedelic posters of the ’70s and late ’60s to the country fair and circus posters that came out of boxing posters.”
Ryan has is keen on the intersection between art and commerce. Ryan’s art has been his business since the mid-1990s, whether he’s dealing with his screen-printing shop The Bird Machine or his math rock band Dianogah. And in music and visual arts, Ryan has remained a purist, loyal to his underground music roots.
He’s made a career out of churning out posters for prominent popular bands, including The Shins and My Morning Jacket, but he says he has kept his rates cheap. Just as he prefers vinyl to MP3s, Ryan rarely touches a computer when creating these concert advertisements.
“The posters are done entirely without the use of computers,” Ryan said. “Ninety-eight percent of what I do does not involve computers at all.”
“You could say it’s the difference between a grand piano and a really nice electric keyboard. The electronic Midi keyboard can do all sorts of things and sound like a duck, but it’s still just not as nice as a piano that has a physical presence in a room. There’s a certain craft to making screen-print posters that, with very few exceptions, could not be re-created with digital design.”
While Ryan’s art is flourishing, his music career is stuck in a tragic lull.
Dianogah — which includes former Louisvillian Kip McCabe on drums — breached its familiar heavy bass sound and nonlinear song structures last year with the release of “Qhnnnl,” its fourth record and first since 2002. “Qhnnnl” featured more guitars, keyboards and the addition of female vocals from Chicago musician Stephanie Morris, who essentially joined the three-piece group. But Morris died unexpectedly in June, and her loss — plus a new baby in McCabe’s life — has led to a hiatus for Dianogah.
“It’s left a big hole in the band,” Ryan said. “We’ve been a band longer than I’ve been making posters, and it was exactly the energy we needed to try and do some new stuff. And, personality-wise, we got along great with Stephanie. So we’re just re-evaluating what happens next.”
