The challenge of visually representing the multifaceted nature of communication for a special issue on "Conversations" was a significant undertaking, but former Visuals Editor Roberto "Bear" Guerra had a clear vision. He identified Armando Veve, a celebrated artist with a long-standing relationship with High Country News (HCN), as the ideal choice to bring this complex theme to life. For years, Guerra and his colleagues had aspired to feature Veve’s distinctive artwork on the magazine’s cover, and the "Conversations" issue presented the perfect, albeit bittersweet, opportunity, marking Guerra’s final contribution to the masthead. Veve embraced the assignment with his characteristic enthusiasm and signature style, crafting an image that artfully depicts a whimsical array of unlikely conversationalists engaged in tense yet amicable exchanges, while also thoughtfully incorporating spaces for convivial silence, thereby mapping the dynamic ebb and flow of meaningful dialogue.

Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Veve’s artistic journey has seen him connect with the HCN team in Paonia, Colorado, during a previous road trip. His insightful responses about the cover artwork and his broader artistic philosophy offer a window into his creative process, inviting readers to appreciate his unique perspective. Veve describes his primary medium as graphite on paper, a choice he cherishes for its immediacy and its profound connection to the act of writing, often viewing drawing as a visual form of language. His compositions develop organically, akin to sedimentary layers, built up with graphite, watercolor, and colored pencil. For the "Conversations" cover, digital tools were employed to expedite the color application due to time constraints, yet Veve emphasizes that these digital layers remain guided by the artist’s hand, with the drawing and color ultimately converging on the printed page, which he considers the final artwork in the context of magazine and newspaper publications.

Inspiration for Veve is found through a mindful engagement with his everyday surroundings; drawing serves as his fundamental method for processing the world, achieving inner equilibrium, making sense of chaos, and giving tangible form to his internal thoughts, allowing him to sift through them for valuable insights. He actively seeks out inspiration by cultivating heightened awareness of his environment, noticing details that might otherwise escape attention. Veve intentionally limits his phone usage to encourage greater presence and more meaningful interactions with people. His practice includes extensive walks, which serve both as opportunities for photography and as a means to clear his mind and invigorate his physical and mental state. Increasingly, he relies on memory rather than solely on reference materials, a shift that has proven invigorating and opened up new avenues of creative possibility on the page. Drawing, for Veve, is a continuous dialogue with the past and the future, fostering closer observation and novel ways of thinking, while also satisfying a deeply ingrained urge to explore, to peel back layers, and to delve deeper in pursuit of symbolic meaning or narrative.

Veve’s long-standing collaboration with the magazine on the "Heard Around the West" column fostered a spirit that resonates strongly within the "Conversations" cover, and keen observers might even recognize recurring characters. He fondly recalls his time illustrating for the "Heard" section, highlighting the peculiar and humorous nature of the stories curated by Tiffany Midge, such as the individual who propelled a peanut up a mountain with his nose or the dog named Ghost who left home to live amongst coyotes. Indeed, a closer inspection of the cover reveals subtle "Heard" easter eggs, including Bo the Bear and Ghost, two characters who first appeared in that column. Veve finds joy in remixing his earlier works, forging connections between them, and breathing new life into established motifs and characters. His cat, for instance, makes frequent appearances, a recurring element for those who pay close attention. He perceives all these elements as part of a single, evolving artistic universe, where each new story provides fresh subject matter and thematic exploration, yet all orbit a shared core of creative energy.

The objects, symbols, and motifs Veve employs to convey ideas function as characters within his visual lexicon, appearing when they best serve the concept or simply when he seeks an internal jest. He particularly favors incorporating characters that seem out of place, those "pulled out of their original context," as this theme of displacement allows him to "defamiliarize the familiar." This approach stems from a surrealist impulse, as fragmentation and cross-pollination offer more accurate metaphors for his understanding of the world.

Veve attributes his unique style, characterized by humor and whimsy, to an early fascination with narrative-driven imagery, ignited by Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the comic books prevalent in his childhood. As a child, he was captivated by I Spy books and the intricate, often perilous, virtual environments he constructed in The Sims, which fostered a sense of discovery and empowered him to create his own narratives. This inherent interactivity, where the viewer charts their own course through an image, mirrors his appreciation for maps and cross-sections, which reveal the interconnectedness of all things. He revisits his artwork, building it in layers and refining it with the meticulousness of a writer editing a draft, appreciating the profound stillness of a drawing. In our fast-paced era, the act of dedicating extensive time to a single subject, making marks with the elemental stroke of a pencil, possesses an almost absurd yet deeply satisfying quality. This connection to the earth, drawing with graphite and clay encased in cedar, places his work within a long tradition of human-made art, a tradition he feels is increasingly challenged by artificial intelligence and commercial pressures, tracing its lineage back to ancient cave paintings, illuminated manuscripts, WPA murals, and the speculative worlds of pulp science fiction.

The term "style" itself, he notes, often overemphasizes superficiality, whereas he views it more as a tangible expression of voice, akin to speech patterns or gait, reflecting his unique way of understanding and processing the world. Humor is a vital component of his art; if an image elicits laughter, he is compelled to follow that impulse. Whimsy, he believes, is a potent force that encourages free association and disrupts established structures. The humor in his work is rarely deliberate but emerges organically from the interactions within the piece or through associations the viewer makes, transforming the drawing into a conduit for such moments.

For the "Conversations" cover, Veve’s inspiration stemmed from conceptualizing conversation as a literal landscape of interaction. The phrase "a landscape of conversation" became the driving force behind the entire concept. He drew influence from medieval paintings and maps, admiring their stacked perspectives and their ability to draw the viewer into an image, inviting them to discover their own unique journey through its visual elements.

The most challenging aspect of visually depicting conversation, Veve explains, lies in striking a delicate balance between inclusion and omission. Creating sufficient negative space and moments of visual respite between elements is a perpetual challenge, mirroring the necessity of silence in effective conversation to build meaning. His initial sketches were overly crowded and "loud," prompting him to reduce the scale of elements and expand the open spaces. This deliberate approach provides viewers with literal paths through the composition and incorporates moments of quiet contemplation, such as the poignant image of a flower mourning fallen stumps.

Among the characters populating the cover, Veve finds a particular fondness for the lone prairie-chicken, captivated by its look of bewildered confusion. His work can be further explored on Instagram at @armandoveve and through his website at armandoveve.com.