If you know about the Fall Folk Festival (and you really should get to know the Fall Folk Fest!) you know that KPBX, the main station of Spokane Public Radio, holds a live broadcast sampler of the music performers. When I worked there, we looked for creative ways to promote the broadcasts… and got a really crazy idea. How about putting the faces of then-hosts Carlos Alden and Verne Windham onto the artwork of American Gothic? And instead of a pitchfork, holding an instrument? Like Carlos’s favorite, the banjo?
Challenge accepted.
This was a LONG time ago (20 years?!) and Photoshop’s made face swaps *really* easy now. If I was doing this today, I could make a “content aware fill’ to remove the heads of the brother and sister in the original painting. I’d be able to shade the sides of Carlos and Verne’s heads from their photographs so they match the painting better.
But eh, that’s a perfectionist’s perspective.
Almost every year, as the FFF draws near, this image makes the social media rounds again. Kudos to Carlos and Verne’s wacky sense of humor. Cheers to everyone who gets a smile out of it. And thank you to the original photographer of Verne’s pic — Don Hamilton perhaps?
May art continue to bring us joy!
Communication By Design 
