Dolly Parton’s Jolene is one of the most iconic albums of all time, featuring such absolute smash hits “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You.” While not strictly a concept album, the stories it tells weave a tapestry of life in rural Appalachia, full of heartache and longing in the life of an unnamed everywoman. Parton’s lyrical soprano voice and unparalleled songwriting skills elevate the album to the sublime.

Drawing inspiration from daguerreotypes and tales of rural Appalachia to generate prompts for Adobe Firefly (a look at the process here), I honed the resulting images using Photoshop to achieve my final vision. While traditionally Parton’s album art tends toward kitsch, there is a haunting quality to this album that needed to be brought out.

The inner sleeve features lyrics from the titular track imagined as a handwritten letter to the red-headed seductress, not so much as a threat, but a plea. On the reverse side of the sleeve I incorporated an alternative version of the lyrics, written as though Jolene is some sort of unknown eldritch creature, which reflects the Southern Gothic sensibility, beautiful and terrifying. There is a feeling of “uncanny valley” to these lyrics, of something almost human, but not quite, and this perfectly signifies the ever-changing nature of our relationship with Artificial Intelligence.