McCORMACK, Derek
The Shithole Opry Collector’s Guide

A jewelry collection designed for punk vampires in attendance at the Grand Ole Opry: McCormack’s first foray into art and object-making is characteristically both absurd and obscene…

Derek McCormack’s devilish blend of art and fiction imagines a world in which Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren are vampires, designing punk-influenced jewelry for other vampires visiting the Grand Ole Opry, the mother church of country music. From safety pin fangs to punk Minnie Pearl pearl necklaces, The Shithole Opry Collector’s Guide showcases all manner of star-studded shit from McCormack’s “Hillbilly Heaven Collection,’ which he has been documenting on his instagram page @thegrandholeopry since early 2024. The project is a riff on Westwood and McLaren’s work of the 1970s, which reimagined American rockabilly and rocker gear; it’s also a perversion of the clean-cut Christian facade of country music. Most of all, it’s a parody of the way fashion designers pirate the past for inspiration, as it poses the question: What if the past stole from fashion the way fashion steals from the past? The Shithole Opry Collector's Guide combines McCormack’s novel art-objects with his most original writing to date: the result is spectacular and sinister, sidesplitting and spine-chilling.

[publisher's note]

Published by Cushion Works, 2026
Design by Justin Carder
Artists' Books / Crafts / Fashion / Queer Culture