Serendipity Found in an Edition of Leaves of Grass

Selecting art for the Walt Whitman’s Words: Inspiring Artists Today  exhibition has been a great experience allowing me to talk with numerous colleagues and artists, several of whom I have known for many years. Some of the artists I talked with had not yet envisioned a work based on Whitman but thought the Whitman Bicenntennial offered a opportunity to create a new work. A total of nine artists created new works to celebrate the Whitman anniversary out of a total of 32 groups of artists selected for the exhibition. So great that Whitman continues to inspire art.

The Doran edition of Leaves of Grass.

In reviewing works for the exhibition,  I found that some poems or clusters of writings by Whitman acted as a magnet to artists. A fortunate example of this serendipity centers around an edition of Leaves of Grass published by Doubleday, Doran & Company in 1940. This edition resonated with two artists in the exhibition: Brian Dettmer and Clarissa Sligh. The Doran edition, also on view at the Center for Book Arts exhibition, is one of my favorites and is in my personal library of illustrated editions of Whitman’s writings.

The Doran edition, with 316 pages,  is illustrated by American artist Lewis C. Daniel along with an introduction by Christopher Morley, poet, essayist, novelist and journalist. The illustrations, specially created for this edition, are reminiscent of a American Regionalist style of the 1930’s that captured the spirit of Whitman and his visionary ideas. Daniel was drawn to strong subjects of American pride and his human figures looked very sculptural.

The typography and overall design of the Doran are of high quality with binding boards  covered with a woven greenish burlap designed to emulate grass. The paper was specially made by the P. H. Glatfelter Paper Co. of Spring Grove, Pa. The composition, printing and binding was produced by the Haddon Craftsmen of Camden, New Jersey (Camden is where Whitman spent his latter years and is buried there.) 

Leaves of Grass, 2014, by Brian Dettmer

The Doran edition sparked two artists who have created very different books based on the original. Brian Dettmer’s Leaves of Grass, 2014, was commissioned by Whitman scholar and collector Ed Centeno.  It is an alteration of the Doran and has been transformed into a sculpted book utilizing a unique technique. In Brian’s words:

Leaves of Grass, 2014 is an altered copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass … originally published in 1855, this edition was illustrated by Lewis C. Daniel in 1940, and then this specific copy was altered in 2014; resulting in a unique object that reflects the collaboration and individual interpretations of this material by three different artists spanning over 150 years …The result is a chaotic but lively matrix of Daniel’s flowing figures and Whitman’s poetic phrases. The book becomes both a canvas and a stage, allowing viewers to bring additional interpretations to the depth of text and imagery that remains. 

My Mother, Walt Whitman and Me - A Recollection by Clarissa Sligh is a look at the Doran edition from a very personal perspective. Self-published in Asheville, North Carolina in 2019, the book merges excerpts from Whitman’s Song of Myself with Sligh’s own images to create a space to examine the book’s impact on her life. Clarissa Sligh is one of the artists who chose to create a new work for the Whitman anniversary celebration. The book is best described here.

My Mother, Walt Whitman and Me - A Recollection by Clarissa Sligh

These two works of art offer different visual perspectives on the Doran edition and provide us with new ways to consider Whitman’s words.  My own take away from these two works is centered on Whitman’s ideas concerning the life of the book and issues of equality. Whitman was fully involved in the process of making his books and he constantly revised his writings – like Leaves of Grass – and used them as a metaphor for his changing life. Dettmer’s Leaves reflects Whitman’s continual sculpting of his own writings into new works. Sligh’s My Mother gently reveals her thoughts on Whitman’s writings as they impacted her as a child and her family living in the Jim Crow South.

Both books provide insight into how the artists perceive Whitman’s words. Both books are compelling works of art on their own.