Collaboration- Musician Omar Ruiz-Lopez
When I say our friend Omar is an amazing musician, I'm not saying that lightly. Every time I bump into him, I feel like he's just done something amazing. I'll be like "Hey! How is your week going?" and he'll be like "Pretty good, I just played with the War and Treaty at the OPRY" or like, "I just flew out to NY to play with a Jonas Brother."
Click here to read Omar's bio
As someone who adores roots music, and also recognizes the need for this scene to include way more musicians of color, I've watched his career take off with extreme pleasure-- first as a member of the NC's much loved group Violet Bell, and later on his own.
One thing he hasn't done yet though, is put out on album of his own songs. So, when Omar called me and asked me to do the album artwork for his first solo album, I was excited to say yes. It actually ties in perfectly with my migration stories project this year, as Omar was originally born in Panama, was raised in Puerto Rico, and has now traveled up to the Southeastern US.
You can listen to a snippet of one of the songs on this album here.
The artwork I create for this album will explore the themes of water, travel, native botanical species, and (of course) roots. The album and this artwork is still in production, but there is actually something y'all can do to help support it now. You can go to Omar's kickstarter page and donate to the project. Here is the link. There will be original block prints available as kickstarter gifts should the album be funded.
Above: These Belted Kingfishers are one of our inspo pieces for the album artwork, as we look to ways to include strong water references.
Above: The final dimensions of the kickstarter print will be 9x12, as seen in these mid century botanicals above.
Above: Music has always been on my mind as I seek to highlight the things I love about our region. This mandolin piece is part of a series of folk instrument prints I've carved. Each piece features an instrument, and is named after a song we love to play on that instrument. For the Mandolin, I chose the song "Blackberry Blossom" because my husband Sean can really shred that one on the mandolin :)
A note on client work: While I do love working with organizations and artists on projects like this, I have already taken on a huge amount this spring and do not plan to take on any new client work for the rest of 2026. So, if you are a band reading this and thinking-- ohh- maybe we can work together, I'm so sorry but my dance card is already pretty full!* have a few other projects in the works that I will release over the course of the year, but most of what you'll be seeing from me is my regularly scheduled nerdy wildlife prints.
*unless you are Lucinda Williams, in which case I will obviously drop everything I've doing.