June 11, 2010

When researching "affordable art" for a piece I was writing for Dwell Magazine I stumbled across Kii Arens' work. My pal Dusti from Dallas had sent me a link to his work and I was smitten. Kii's work is very Hollywood. It is flashy, colorful, and most of all, humorous.

He'd become a bit a of a celebrity with his Radiohead poster which documented the iconic band's Haiti relief benefits show. I looked more at his collection of lithographs and it read like my music collection: Willie Nelson, Liza Minnelli, Devo, Lady Gaga, Dolly Parton.

Kii makes original prints for the shows at LA's famed Hollywood Bowl. He does not make generic show posters. Rather he creates collectible art celebrating events. His work documents these iconic artists. He pays them tribute.

So I got on a plane and spent a day with Kii in Hollywood at his work/live loft. Jason and I had gone to him, after a poll on fabulis' Facebook wall, with three celebrated gay musical icons. We wanted him to create lithographs for us celebrating these three. There were many on our list: Debbie Harry, Cyndi Lauper, Beyonce, Adam Lambert, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, George Michael, Freddie Mercury, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton, Donna Summer, Andy Bell, Neil Tennant, Rob Halford, Liberace, Morrissey, to name but a few. But three names repeated over and over from our users: Elton John, Madonna, and Lady Gaga.

We talked color. Went back and forth over graphic treatments (we ended up with none), hair (should we show any for Madonna?), and style details (ultimately we settled on no stars on Elton's glasses). Then Kii finalized his original art. They were printed in Los Angeles in a series of 100. Kii signed each of them. And now they're available to our members.

Good design. Affordable art. Paying tribute to some icons. This was our inspiration in creating these posters. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. They're pretty freaking awesome.