A little about myself.... I'm from the NW suburbs of Chicago. I am married with two young adult children. I have always been drawn to music - adventurous progressive music, people who love that type of music, and people who play that type of music. Music has been the driving force in my life as long as I can remember. This, along with a natural ability to draw and create art, is my hard wiring. I play keyboards at a hobby level, but professionally I am an artist with a 40-year history in design & graphic art production. I very much live and breathe music & graphic design, which I believe gives me a synergy for creating artwork for music mediums.

 

While I have always worked as a graphic artist in the publishing and marketing trades, my aspiration was to do album cover art. I got my break in 1999 when Neal Morse of Spock's Beard agreed to look at my design ideas for a new CD project. This lead to creating artistic impressions for rock & roll icons for over 20 years, including the legendary Keith Emerson, Carl Palmer, Mike Portnoy, John Wetton and more.

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The name "Man In The Mountain" comes from an alias I used back in the day on the Spock's Beard Message Board, derived from a song segment on Spock Beard's "The Light". A sad song about a man who is feeling down about the illusions of life, retreating to the mountains, and waiting to return in The Light. When I first started doing cover art, it made sense to use "Man In The Mountain" because I was well know on-line by that moniker. And since then, it has become memorable and uniquely well-liked by people just getting to know me.

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My success comes from a deep understanding of art branding for music genres (in particular progressive rock). I know what looks cool and can deliver it! But it’s also about knowing how to collaborate with artists and their needs. It’s important to be responsive with artists and very reliable professionally. At the end of the day, you need to deliver on time, and not have a plethora of errors coming from the printing plant, that’s why bands come back to me for more.

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See below, pictures with the musicians I have worked for.

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Read interview in Insider-Rock with Man In The Mountain: