How a German artist became a singer-songwriter-album painter

It all started with Sawyer’s YouTube video singing Fredericks.

“I was surprised,” said Nina Phifer, a painter living in Hamburg. “His music is very sad, but somehow it resonates with me.”

In 2015, Glenn’s singer, songwriter and guitarist Sawyer Fredericks won The Voice, an American singing competition on national television. At the age of fifteen, she was the youngest winner in the show’s eight-year history. He would continue to release several albums, make at least one trip to 49 US cities, and get his music to the top of the Billboard folk charts.

But in 2017 he released one of his singles “Hide Your Ghost” on YouTube, which was heard by Pififfer. For inspiration, Fiffer posted a chart on Instagram about how the song influenced her and tweeted how much she loved her music.

“None of my friends heard of it,” he said.

She tagged Frederick on Instagram, who saw the drawing.

“It was so amazing that the song went on,” Fredericks said.

Fredericks and his then manager, his mother Kirsten, called Phifer and asked him if he was interested in making the album.

“I jumped out of bed,” Pfeiffer said. “I was so excited.”

The album “Hide Your Ghost” changed his career.

“He always drew. He said,” You were very good at the age of 11. “I copied everything, especially the rest of the food and vegetables. This was my refuge – a safe place. “

Born in Germany, he also played the violin and at the age of 16 was a member of a 10-piece orchestra that attended high schools in New Jersey. Although she completed technical training in Hamburg, she was interested in nutrition and received degrees in Germany and Australia. I am still working on my masters degree from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. On the way she said that she had learned English – mostly self-taught. In 2011, at the age of 23, she decided to become a freelance graphic designer and, until Fredericks Call, worked mostly in printing such as brochures and advertisements.

The call to him was particularly exciting because he is a fan of his music.

She said, “It’s amazing to work with people who really like you and are able to add some of their own things to their success.”

The first was to listen to the songs that were about to be recorded.

“His music is dark and sometimes depressing, but my illustrations are colorful and optimistic.” “But I love the dark side of it.” “The pictures express how I feel about his music,” she said.

He sent six drawings that reflected the idea that Frederick thought of collecting water and fire together. The drawing chosen for the CD cover features a female figure hovering above her head in an imaginary garden of scorched leaves. The other five sketches were kept in a booklet, which contained the lyrics of each song, and each song contained a picture that Fredericks requested.

Some sketches at the time reflected Frederick’s concerns, including the election of a new president and environmental issues such as the Keystone XL pipeline, his mother said. On the envelope in the booklet is a picture of a woman in fetal position, with a deep dripping mass that can be interpreted as oil. Inside are barren trees, animal-like figures and other imaginary images.

Fredericks said he was pleased with the result.

“I took the lyrics of a song and put it in his artwork,” he said, laughing that he was not inspired by reading science fiction films, but occasionally by watching fictional films.

Five methods

One of the techniques used in his work was Pfeiffer creating images on album covers in Adobe Photoshop to allow for more color and manipulation. And that other pictures are made of pen and paper or watercolor.

The entire process took six weeks and was the first experience for the two of them – the first album they portrayed, and the first time they used the artwork for them.

He said, “I used photography in my first two albums: Sawyer Fredericks (2015) and Good Storm (2016).” “I loved working with Nina.”

The next album, Phool Aapke Liye, which was released in 2019, ran for more than two months.

“I was qualified about this CD,” Frederick said with a laugh. “I saw a lot of pictures back and forth. I saw someone walking on the ground as if they were planting seeds on some red and gold in the artwork. I intentionally did not want it man or woman. And I wanted tones like the flowers that grow on the family farm: sunflowers, “Winds, dripping honey. I wanted every drawing to capture the emotion of the song.”

Hermaphrodite shows a grass that grows from its back while digging near a rivulet. The flowers overflow with bees, bees and butterflies. The booklet has an image of a woman on the cover in a fetal position dripping with golden honey at the bottom and a sunflower with long hair in a knee figure and from behind, twisted branches and butterflies with honey balls. A hand.

Pfeiffer said that the bisexual character was “a bit intimidating. It’s a new kind of creature.”

But she likes this process despite its length.

“He had a lot of ideas and wanted to include them. This was a detailed result.

“It was a really good job with Nina,” Fredericks said. “I wish I had done this earlier [on the other albums]. I am a perfectionist and I want a style that moves forward. ‘

Currently, he stated that he has no plans for another album because he did not have enough new material.

“But if I do, I plan to work with Nina,” he said.

Hide your ghost and check out your flowers at www.sawyerfredericks.com. You can view his previous albums and some live recordings at www.Amazon.com and your local music store.

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