Van Halen, 1984

Embroidery stitched directly through a vinyl record sleeve. 

12x12x2 inches, framed in acrylic.

     This was the final album for the original lineup of Van Halen. The original lineup was Eddie and Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth. They released 6 albums in the 6 years they were together, every one of them memorable. Due to internal conflicts David Lee Roth was replaced by Sammy Hagar. The debate raged on forever on which version of Van Halen was better. 1984 sold over 10,000,000 copies worldwide and contained their only number one hit with “Jump.” The album cover features a painting of a smoking cherub. Incidentally, the album was banned in several countries because of the depiction of smoking. Since the album is a painting I decided to create the whole album using rayon thread and abstract stitching. By the time I was finished I had digitized and embroidered over 120,000 stitches in over 50 colors. The logo was created as a patch and mounted as a finishing touch.