Georgia Rector 2025

Abstract

“In 1970, two childhood friends with a shared passion met a misfit farmgirl with a knack for guitar while on a trip to Montpellier. What started as a self-titled collection of the pair’s musical tinkering was about to be, well, a thing-- a spacey, rocky, multilingual, God-knows-what sounding thing. A lucky break secured the trio a deal with Disques Vogue, sending them on a years-long enterprise as the cultish weird girls of the French music scene.” -Rock & Folk Magazine, 1976 from the Lavender Valley Archive: lavendervalley.neocities.org Lavender Valley was a band of three young women that started humbly in the Pacific Northwest, achieved cult status in mainland Europe in the mid-70s, and was eventually forgotten except for a single rudimentary website founded in 1998. Though Frances, Beth, and Corinne are not actually real, my goal is to make Lavender Valley feel as real as I can. This type of storytelling is called unfiction, or immersive fictional stories told through nonfictional means. By combining unfiction with colorful vintage visuals, the Internet, and inspirations from my favorite real bands, I’m able to create a personally fulfilling extended project that necessitates I take on multiple artistic roles and goes far beyond thesis. The thesis project is made up of Lavender Valley’s 6 albums, for a total of 11 fully illustrated images. Visual codes of the design, photography, and type of the 1970s insert the band directly into reality, making the audience question if what they’re seeing is authentic. The album covers live on the Lavender Valley Archive website, the heart of the project overall. The album artwork has also been fabricated into LP slipcases and installed among real vintage albums for the audience to search for as if they were actually shopping for records. All of these methods of delivering this unfiction narrative serve to explore just how real I can make this band feel.