The Strokes, Is This It

Embroidery stitched directly through a vinyl record sleeve.

12x12x2 inches, framed in acrylic.

     Is This It is the debut album by the rock band the Strokes. The album was released in 2001. I remember being a fan of the band as soon as the album came out. Their sound was pure garage rock mixed with post punk and Brit pop. They had a raw energy that was absent from a lot of bands coming out in the same time period. The first album cover features a close up of a woman bending over from the side with a leather glove on her backside. With the fear of retailers in America not wanting the carry the album because of the provocative nature of the cover they designed a second one. The second cover is a photograph of a subatomic particle. The interesting thing about this photo is that a portion of it was already used in the Graffiti Bridge album by Prince. For the US album, I embroidered the album cover in layers of textured wool thread with over 100,000 hand placed stitches. The light blue detail of the particle was traced in cashmere yarn and the logo was added as a patch. The wool thread and yarn are the perfect match to the abstract vibe of the album cover. For the international cover I started by  adding a romantic woodcut floral background to the blank areas of the album and then stitched it using silver metallic fabric that was appliquéd and laser cut. I then used abstract stitching to trace the contours of the body in multiple shades of grey and then appliquéd the glove in leather and stitched the glove details. The lettering as added as a patch as a final step.