When I knew I wanted to move but didn't know where, my friend Sarah D. Lejeune asked “Why isn't Santa Fe on your radar?” She was right: my husband Tom and I moved here late 2023. Sarah was visiting us a year later and listened to rough mixes of the Now I'm a Kite tracks, and started making sketches. She said she wanted to get the rhythm she was hearing into the cover art and I think she nailed it.
The original plan was to paint an oil painting. She made a painting collage as a starting point and she and I both loved it. That's what you see above. Then one day in January as Sarah was working on the oil painting the Palisades fires in Los Angeles ignited. Sarah had to evacuate for over two weeks when the fires got very close to her Topanga home. Miraculously her home was spared, though every day during that time I waited for her text telling me that the house had survived another night. When she returned the collage had faded, so the original of the cover is gone.
Recovering from evacuation stress and surrounded by a nearby burn scar and smoky air, Sarah painted an oil version of the cover. I love this one too, but by the time she completed it I was too attached to the painting collage to switch to a new cover.
Here's Sarah's oil version of the cover:
