One song, forty artists’ answers

“Scarlet Begonias” has been a Grateful Dead favorite since it was first played live in 1974. Its climactic verse flips the colors of the sky, and that image is the starting point for this book.

Over twenty-eight years, award-winning writer and filmmaker Steven R. Hurlburt commissioned artists to respond to that one image. The forty works in Sky Yellow / Sun Blue include paintings, murals, encaustics, relief panels and embroidery, by nationally known names and by artists with strong regional reputations, including several from the New Orleans area.

What’s inside

• Forty full-color reproductions of the commissioned works
• A statement from every artist about their piece, with commentary by Hurlburt
• Essays, observations and interviews from Grateful Dead archivists, biographers, musicians and scholars (see contributors)

The object

The design is modern yet classic, cool but not trendy, smartly accessible and elegant, and it’s printed with the highest-quality paper and production. No other Dead-related art book is like it.