Publishing can be one lonely journey. We spend a lot of time working solo and putting in hours in front of computer screens. Artists also spend long hours working solitary in their studios. So it’s always fun when we get to come out and interact with the rest of the world; to share what we’ve created during those long hours and to collaborate with others.

This is part of why the Art Pavilion at MusicFest NW has us so jazzed. Matt Wagner (owner/curator of Portland's Hellion Gallery) and the coordinators of the festival have created The Tall Trees of Portland Art Pavilion—a space at the festival full of some great visual art. Over the course of two days, artists Joe Shea and Blaine Fontana will create a large-scale mural on a temporary wall in the pavilion, an exhibit of art created just for the festival. There will also be a 3-D installation by AJ Fosik welcoming festival attendees into the pavilion. Then there’s this entirely wonderful thing happening where a whole list of artists from Matt's book The Tall Trees of Portland have each been matched with a band playing at the festival and are creating alternate album covers for each band. Cole Gerst (author and illustrator of Bukminster Fuller: Poet of Geometry) has created an album for Spoon, Jon MacNair for Man Man, Bradley Delay for Modern Kin; and Maryanna Hoggatt (who also has a fantastic show up at Hellion Gallery during the month of August) for Future Islands, among others.

This is the first year the festival has included visual artists and we’re so excited to play a part in it. As a gallery owner and author, Matt has the unique position of being a connector between artists and the public. He has taken it further and makes the effort to also promote relationships between the artists and with other mediums—like us—and now the bands at MFNW. So we get to go out to Portland’s Waterfront Park on August 16th and 17th and join in the fun. We can’t wait to be a part of introducing some of PDX’s local music lovers to these artists.