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I think his spaceship knows which way to go

It’s a tradition in my family that when a beloved musician dies, we play their entire back catalog of records in chronological order. I grew up on David Bowie as a kid, and then started feverishly collecting albums almost 20 years ago. By the time I’d amassed pretty much everything he’d ever done, I started joking that when his day came, it’d take me a month to play it all. I’m sorry that that day is already here.

I don’t usually write or post these days about the music I love, because taste is so personal and so subjective. But music is a huge part of my life, and I’ve loved Bowie’s music better and longer than anything else.

And more than that, Bowie has had an enormous influence on me as a visual artist—and I’m not talking about the fan-girl comic-book concert reviews I used to draw for the RISD newspaper, circa 2002 (and I think they only let me do that because my friends were the editors).

What I mean is that Bowie was a huge cultural force, a tastemaker—and I delved into his work at the time when I was forming my own tastes and just beginning to make my own responses to my culture.

I hesitate to show you these, because most of my student work makes me cringe, but these were part of a series of fake concert posters (of real, historical concerts) I did when I was just starting to do formal lettering work. The lettering is neither her nor there, but it was Bowie’s ever-changing alter egos that inspired me to use different historical periods as the inspiration for each poster. Bowie himself was heavily influenced by history and different cultural traditions—much of it of the non-musical variety—from Kabuki theatre to current events to French mimes to dystopian novelists to Picasso paintings to couture apparel designers, and everything in between. I remember this fact blowing my mind at the time, and it encouraged me to seek inspiration for my work away from my own field and contemporaries. That’s still the primary way I work, and I owe that to him.

The other thing Bowie taught me was not to be afraid to reinvent myself, to change direction and explore something new or totally different. He taught me that it’s possible to create many different types of things, in a wide range of styles that might bear little resemblance to one another, and still come away with a cohesive body of work. As a cultural omnivore who learned from the best of them, that makes perfect sense to me. Yet we still live in a world that largely expects artists to pick one medium, one genre, one style, one “signature” thing and stick with it forever and ever, amen. To reject that notion and follow one’s own path, wherever it might lead, takes a lot of bravery and faith in oneself (and one’s audience!). Bowie’s instincts were unparalleled. He knew how to be broad and deep all at once—he could change a thousand times and never come across as a flake. Instead, he added a new and exotic ingredient to every concoction, until he became one hell of a master chef. If even the smallest fraction of that bravery and instinct might rub off on me, I’ll count myself luckier than I can say.

The things we love are a part of who we are and what we contribute to the world ourselves. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, our influences come full circle and bring the things we make in contact with that which inspires us. I got to have a short conversation with David Bowie once, over a decade ago, because of one of those fake posters I designed. I brought this one, printed at a huge size, to a show where I had a front-row seat. During a lull I held it up, and he said nice things to me and asked if I had a request. I told him, and he launched into a 20-minute rendition of “Station to Station.” When it was over, he asked if the rendition was to my liking—I responded with a curtsy, and he laughed and said, “Good curtsy! Nobody curtsies anymore!”

All my friends and family know I’m a huge Bowie fan, and have been emailing and texting me all day about him. My brother sent me the setlist of a mix tape of favorite Bowie songs I made him as a teenager. The sequence of songs still holds up well today, I think, and suddenly it seems like the perfect sendoff. Here they are, with just one small change:

1. Sorrow
2. Fantastic Voyage
3. Rock n’ Roll with Me
4. Panic in Detroit
5. It’s No Game
6. Time
7. The Man Who Sold the World
8. DJ
9. Queen Bitch
10. All the Madmen
11. Beauty & The Beast
12. Sound & Vision
13. Andy Warhol
14. Moonage Daydream
15. Boys Keep Swinging
16. Ashes to Ashes
17. After All
18. Drive-in Saturday

Raising a glass to Major Tom, to Ziggy, to Aladdin Sane, to Halloween Jack, to the Thin White Duke, to the Blackstar, wherever you are now. You were, are, and will forever be my favorite—and my first influence. Cheers.