Illustrating Moby Dick

From October 20 through December 31, 2016, The Workshop took its cue from our book-themed special exhibitions, Of Whales in Paint: Rockwell Kent’s Moby-Dick, Unbound: Tim Rollins and K.O.S., and The Art Books of Henri Matisse.

Over the course of two months, visitors illustrated hundreds of pages from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, almost completing the entire epic. 

Some visitors discovered and drew attention to the tome’s more odd phrases—“Give it up, Sub-Subs!”—while others remixed the 19th-century classic for their own purposes. Sweet, satirical, political, or adorable, each page was a unique, personal, and contemporary response to this global phenomenon.

At any time, visitors could explore bound volumes of their fellow visitors’ creations as well as the most recent 250 pages of the book stretched across the back wall of The Workshop. Behind the pages was an imaginative sea-inspired paper mural, created by members of the PMA’s 2016 Homer High School Fellows—Arikah Conant, Joliet Morrill, and Elle Spurr—using contributions created by visitors during PMA Family Days.