The graphic designer Wes Freed, well known for his work on Drive-By Truckers, passed away at the age of 58. Freed, a marginalized artist, received a colon cancer diagnosis in January.
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The band Drive-By Truckers confirmed earlier this year that Freed was getting cancer therapy. Following the disclosure, a GoFundMe effort was started to aid with his medical expenditures. Outsider art is described as work created by self-taught artists who have had little or no involvement with the art world’s traditions.
Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers
“I am aware that word has gotten out. I’ll upload something as soon as I can. I’m simply too dang depressed right now to say anything.”
The Virginia native and musician died on September 4, nine months after being diagnosed with cancer.
Wes Freed was a musician
Freed studied painting at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond after growing up in the Shenandoah Valley.
Then I went to Richmond and thought, “I don’t know, Richmond looks large enough,” and when I went to New York, everyone agreed, “Yeah, Richmond is surely large enough.” “I guess I always wanted to be an artist in New York when I was in high school.”
In a 2011 interview, Freed explained that via his work, he strives to persuade himself that a setting from his boyhood exists elsewhere, maybe in a metaphysical way. The musician was also a Richmond, Virginia,-born artist. The Shiners, Dirt Ball, and Mud Helmet are just a few of the local bands that Wes Freed has shared the stage with.
A coffee-table book featuring a variety of Freed’s work, The Art of Wes Freed: Paints, Posters, Pin-Ups, and Possums, was published in 2019. Along with album covers for bands like Drive-By Truckers, Cracker, and artist Lauren Hoffman, the book features some of his artwork.
I’d say that I started painting before I started performing music, but in my mind, they are inextricably linked.
Freed revealed to No Depression in 2019 that he randomly ran into the Drive-By Truckers in 1997 at the yearly roots music festival Bubbapalooza. They grew close and slept in the same room as Freed and his ex-wife, Jyl Freed.
He was asked to participate in the Southern Rock Opera double LP shortly after that. Wes Freed and Lilia Hood, Patterson Hood’s sister, worked together to finish the album packaging.
We’ve been collaborating with him ever since she made a promise early on to be faithful to his work and never change it.
He first worked with Drive-By Truckers on the cover of their third album, Southern Rock Opera, released in 2001. On the group’s double LP from 2001, a red-eyed owl flying over a burning field may be heard. Additionally, he designed backdrops, t-shirts, posters, and other band memorabilia. The Cooley Bird mascot, which became visually associated with the group and guitarist Mike Cooley, was also created by Freed specifically for the band.
Drive-By Truckers’ seventh album was produced by Freed in the future. Additionally, he worked with the group on their most recent album, Welcome To Club XIII, which was published in June, as well as their 2020 album The New OK.
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