painter christopher wool and poet/writer/singer richard hell teamed up together on a serie of drawings and a book called psychopts and presented at john mcwhinnie gallery a couple a years ago.
what is interesting there is that beside the visuals, the collaboration is about coming back to a roots for wool. the paintings that made him famous where based on hell’s words. there is this nice story about wool asking courteously to hell about permission to use his words when hell in a punkish way was assuming the words were not his own. just words together.
this one is for dd’
richard hell: i went over to christopher’s and saw his painting. on the original album cover i’m standing there holding my jacket open, and i don’t have a shirt on underneath. and in magic marker i have across my chest, in all caps: YOU MAKE ME ____. it was just a blank. an underscore. anyway, when i saw the painting, christopher had filled up its entire surface with “YOU” on top of “MAKE” on top of “ME.” and i said, “wait a minute. where’s the ‘blank’?” and he said, “well, how about i just leave a space at the bottom?” which is what he did. there’s an empty line below the last word. so it worked out great. i was impressed by how casually he was willing to make what seemed like a major change. it seemed gallant. and like . . . self-confident, and suave. the guy was a gentleman and an artist. by pp’