Friday, June 25, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 288

Title: Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro muttered, "Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy."

5 inches by 7.75 inches
acrylic paint, ballpoint pen and marker on found paper
June 24, 2010

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6 comments:

  1. scottJune 25, 2010 at 6:11 AM

    I love your depiction of Fleece; all I can think of is the Swedish chef from the old Muppet show...now I got the theme song in my head!

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  2. voicenovoice/élisabeth guinsbourgJune 25, 2010 at 4:36 PM

    did i say i'm waiting for your book to come out so i can didscover melville's book one quote at a time with your paintings?

    i just put up a page for you on my blog, something about graffiti i saw YESterday made me thing of you

    lizzyg
    http://voicenovoice.blogspot.com

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  3. Matt KishJune 26, 2010 at 1:15 PM

    Scott, thank you so much for the comment! This is weird, I had become almost obsessed with drawing Fleece. For some reason, I just really really liked drawing him, and I couldn't figure out why. But, when I was a kid (and really, even now) I LOVED "The Muppet Show" and have a lot of fond memories of it. And the Swedish Chef was my favorite. Even stranger, I was always fascinated by the fact that he had human hands. I was almost fixated on that when I was young. So your comment kind of brought all of what had been completely subconscious and unknown together for me.

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  4. Matt KishJune 26, 2010 at 1:16 PM

    Lizzy, that coincidence is positively eerie. So strange how closely that graffiti you saw resembles both this particular image as well as some of what I just recently did with the squid pictures. I will definitely post a link to your page later today.

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  5. AnonymousOctober 21, 2011 at 4:36 PM

    I discovered these a few days ago and have been (ahem) devouring them ever since.

    I've been very impressed by all your different styles - a somewhat random, intuitive approach seems particularly fitting for Moby Dick. And because you choose the style to fit the subject, almost every single picture is extremely communicative.

    I love the more spiritual pieces (as well as, you know, generally all of them), but I wanted to comment on this one because it's the first one that really makes me want to squeal with joy. Something very muppetesque about it, which is excellent. This is probably one of my favorite sections in the book - also excellent. And the whale steak as a tiny dead whale!!! Priceless!

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  6. Matt KishOctober 24, 2011 at 4:45 PM

    thewaysof, thank you for those kind and unique thoughts. I especially appreciated your mention of the "random, intuitive styles" as very appropriate. I have been asked about why I chose to employ so many different styles of representation several times now and I've struggled a bit with how to answer. Your words have helped me get a bit closer to a more articulate answer.

    I was also very fond of your description of this as "muppetesque." My wife has a habit of simply adding a -y to anything and claiming it to be an adjective. One of her favorites is "muppety" and she has used that to describe numerous things I've created, so this mention is especially personal.

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