This program took place on November 30, 2011. For upcoming program offerings, please click here.

If you were going to illustrate a novel, which novel would you choose? Artist Matt Kish chose Herman Melville’s tale Moby-Dick. And he didn’t just illustrate the main plot points; he created an illustration for all 552 pages of Signet Classic’s paperback edition. Join us for a talk with Kish, as we explore his personal and artistic voyage through Moby-Dick.

More About Matt Kish & Moby-Dick

Inspired by one of the world’s greatest novels, Ohio artist Matt Kish set out on an epic voyage of his own one day in August 2009. More than one hundred and fifty years following the original publication of Moby-Dick, Kish began illustrating Herman Melville’s classic, creating images based on text selected from every page of the 552-page Signet Classics paperback edition.

Completely self-taught, Kish refused to set any boundaries for the artwork and employed a deliberately low-tech approach in response to the increasing popularity of born-digital art and literature. He used found pages torn from old, discarded books, as well as a variety of mediums, including ballpoint pen, marker, paint, crayon, ink, and watercolor. By layering images on top of existing words and images, Kish has crafted a visual masterpiece that echoes the layers of meaning in Melville’s narrative.

Kish spent nearly every day for eighteen months toiling away in a small closet he converted into an art studio. In order to share the work with family and friends, he started the blog “One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick,” where he posted art and brief descriptions about his process on a daily basis.