Matt Mullican's poem Untitled tells the story of a life from birth to death. I wanted to use imagery to show progression just like the writing. After trying a few different directions, I ended up deciding to use stripes because I was inspired by all the different forms they can take. While I tried digitally creating lines, I liked the look of hand-drawn ones much better, especially in a book about human life.
I then experimented with materials from sharpie to ink to paint. Each material created different styles of lines. Sharpie tended to make fairly even, consistent lines while ink trailed off at the ends. I used these varying effects to emphasize the progression of the poem. As the reader moves through the book, the lines tend to get thicker and less controlled. They start to degrade more as the character ages, so by the last spread they are barely visible.
Matt Mullican's poem "Untitled" goes through every stage of life from birth through death to explore the human experience. To visualize this journey, I created abstract illustrations of stripes that evolve from page to page. I drew the stripes using a variety of media, such as marker, ink, and paint, that evolve and deconstruct as the story progresses.
