My Fellow Citizens

front cover of the artists book My Fellow Citizens

Title

My Fellow Citizens

Subject

English, Political Science

Description

"From the artist's website: Pen-drawn calligrams based on the frequency and choice of words in President Obama’s inaugural address given on 20 January 2009. Inspired by the fervor of the moment and Obama's oblique references to Englishmen John Maynard Keynes, and the radical philosopher Thomas Paine.

The drawing used for the cover is based on the whole speech. For example: if we analyze the word frequency of the whole speech, ignoring common verbs, pronouns, prepositions and indefinite articles etc, we 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. Individual drawings are based on a portion of the text, all the words used in that selection are represented: red is used for a frequency ≥ 4, blue for ≥ 2 and black for words appearing once."

Creator

Esslemont, David

Publisher

Solmentes Press

Date

2009

Rights

Scope and Physical Decription from http://www.solmentes.com/books/my_fellow_citizens.html

Format

"31 p.: col. ill.; 22 cm. Digitally printed with archival pigment inks on 180 gm BFK Rives Velin Cuve. Fourteen illustrations hand-sewn in Velin Cuve covers, 32 pp, 8.5 x 5.5 inches (220 mm x 143 mm). http://www.solmentes.com/books/my_fellow_citizens.html#p0"

Language

English

Barcode

35108007010630

Location and Call Number

DEN Spec Coll J82 .E91 2009b

Library catalog URL

http://consort.library.denison.edu/record=b3396381a

Collection

Citation

Esslemont, David, “My Fellow Citizens,” Digital Exhibits | Denison University Archives & Special Collections, accessed March 28, 2024, https://exhibits.denisonarchives.org/items/show/131.