In conjunction with his Hampton photo essay David Paul Kleinman asked some questions of Julia Mordaunt regarding the images that accompany Phish’s new Hampton/Winston-Salem ’97 box set.

What made you decide to use Dan Black and LandLand?

Believe it or not, we had little to no photos in the Phish Archives from the Hampton or Winston-Salem shows to work with, so I knew that it was going to have to be a package that was created in a very organic way, starting from scratch. I worked with Dan Black this past summer for Phish’s Colorado run over Labor Day weekend. He illustrated the poster for those show and was the first to jump into my head when we thought about heading into a totally hand-drawn direction for this box set, knowing that there wasn’t going to be a photo element involved. His style and approach ends up being very whimsical and classic, which is a fantastic combination.

It was really important for us to create a package that stood apart from Hampton Comes Alive, which is another box set that, like this, featured two Hampton Coliseum shows. That package is really nicely polished and refined, and by keeping this one a bit rougher (even keeping some of the original sketches in place), it helps set it completely apart in terms of visuals and also makes it very clear that it’s all done by hand. Of course, Hampton Coliseum itself is amazing from an architectural standpoint, and it just screams “look at me, look at me.” While thinking about the direction, we knew wanted to show Hampton Coliseum in some way or another, but we couldn’t just leave out Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Unfortunately, it’s not a very exciting looking building on its own. So, the thought was to visually incorporate both venues equally, but to have much of the focal point lay on the journey between both. However, we wanted to keeping the entire package simple and classic feeling; not overwhelmed with colors or visual elements, which really allows the focus to be kept on the remarkable music inside.

Is there any significance to the bridge/ravine tunnel/mountain?

As I’m sure many have already discovered, if you line the sleeves up next to each other it creates the driving route from Hampton, VA to Winston-Salem, NC. The majority of the actual route are tree-lined highways, so it’s a much more abbreviated version of the drive between the venues. It’s a drive that I’m sure many of the folks whole pick up the box set actually engaged in that weekend, so we wanted to represent that somehow. For fans, the journey between gigs can sometimes be just as brilliant as the gigs themselves. Or close to it.

Is there any meaning behind the basements/only half the venues being shown?

There’s no hidden meaning. It’s just another way to further dissect these venues and give a deeper look into the building and what’s going on inside. Kind of getting into the “guts” of Hampton and LJVMA. Although I will admit that when I look at the cross-section drawings, I guess I can’t help but imagine what the music must have sounded like from down there.