Has it really already been almost a year since I first read Moby-Dick? It seems like just a short time ago I was wrapped up in Melville’s language and subsequently discovering Matt Kish’s illustration project, One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick. Matt finished his whale of a project in January, and his artwork is being published this fall to coincide with the 160th anniversary of the novel’s publication.
Completely self-taught and refusing to set any boundaries for the kinds of images he would make, Kish used a wide variety of materials, including found paper, ballpoint pens, markers, paint, crayons, ink, and watercolors to create art inspired by lines from every single page of the 552-page Signet Classics paperback edition of Moby-Dick. A hallmark of the project has been his use of pages torn from old, discarded books. Layering images on top of existing words and images, Kish has crafted a work that aptly echoes the layers of meaning in Melville’s narrative. His approach is deliberately low-tech, a sort of counter-response to the increasing popularity of born-digital art and literature. Kish started the project in August 2009 and spent nearly every day for eighteen months toiling away in a small closet converted into an art studio.
Simply amazing. Wishlisted.
