Inspired
by the frequency and choice of words in President Obama’s
inaugural address, I have created a series of pen-drawn compositions
or calligrams to illustrate my latest book. My Fellow Citizens
will be published at the Codex Book Fair in Berkeley, California,
on Monday 9 February.
The drawings are based on word frequency and while at first
glance they may look like woolly scribbles each one is in fact
made up of pen-drawn words. The image used for the cover is
based on the whole of President Obama’s 2,418-word speech,
while each of the fourteen illustrations is based on the text
on the facing page. For example: if you analyze the word frequency
of the whole speech ignoring common verbs, pronouns, prepositions
and indefinite articles etc, you find the following words occur
most often: nation (11), new (11), America (10). These are represented
in the calligram by large red words. Words occurring four or
eight times, e.g. people, spirit, today and God, are drawn in
smaller blue letters, and black ink is used for all 171 words
that occurred two or three times, e.g. peace, power, hope and
prosperous. Words occurring only once were not used.
For the illustrations, all the words used in the text on the
facing pages are represented: red is used for a frequency greater
than or equal to 4, blue for a frequency greater than or equal
to 2, and black for words appearing once.
Inspired by the fervor of the nation at the prospect of a new
America, and with a spirit of hope, I joined countless other
people to watch President Barack Obama deliver his inaugural
address on 20 January 2009. I read the carefully chosen words
of this sober speech with interest, admiration and curiosity
– to decipher the rhetoric of the author(s) at this auspicious
moment in American history.
Read more about My Fellow Citizens and see more images
at www.solmentes.com.
The second biennial Codex International Book Fair will be taking
place from Monday 9 to Wednesday 11 February in the Pauley Ballroom
on the campus of the University of California Berkeley. The
ballroom is near the intersection of Telegraph Ave. and Bancroft
way. The fair is rapidly becoming the “world’s fair”
of the book as art and artifact. Over 110 artists from around
the globe will be exhibiting what amounts to “a staggering
panoply of riches.”
To
be published at the Codex
Book Fair in Berkeley, California on Monday 9 February |
