Jarrett Rutland
Cover artist, Islands in the Sky (National Edition)
Painting Appalachia the way it feels
Some artists paint Appalachia the way it looks. Jarrett Rutland paints it the way it feels: a little strange, a little magic, and lit from the front porch.
Jarrett is an Asheville author and illustrator whose picture books include Chilly da Vinci, Alligator Wedding, and I Love You No Matter What. His watercolors have a signature move: whimsical machines and impossible visitors dropped into everyday mountain scenes, rendered with the patience of someone who clearly loves the details. If you have spotted his Asheville City Soccer Club season posters around town, you already know the style.
When it came time to choose a cover artist for the national edition of Islands in the Sky, we did not have to look far. He lives here. His work is rooted here. And nobody blends Appalachian landscape with flights of imagination quite like he does.
Stories land here
Jarrett's latest work for ACP says everything we are about without a single word of pitch.
A flying machine drifts down out of the night sky, all rivets and portholes and curious eyes, hovering over a mountain cabin beside a creek. The whole scene sits in deep watercolor blues except for one thing: a single warm beam of light, falling on a reader in a rocking chair who has not looked up from the page.
Somebody on a porch in these mountains is always the first to catch a story.
The print
Fine art print, available soon
Produced in the archival quality Jarrett's collectors expect from his studio work. Sizes and pricing announced with the release. Join the email list and you will hear before anyone else.
Get first wordAnd who knows what comes after that. We have some ideas. So does Jarrett.
Straight from his Asheville studio
Islands in the Sky
Jarrett's cover art wraps the national edition of our debut anthology of Appalachian storytelling.
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