My collection of Matt Kish’s Moby-Dick art continues to grow. A little before Christmas, he was taking commissions for fun, and my wife — knowing that I have kind of a thing for bookmarks — asked him to make some custom bookmarks for me. They’re really beautiful, with dark backgrounds and vibrant colors and iconic references to some of the striking images from his Moby-Dick art project. On the reverse side, he drew harpoons and lifted the following pretty iconic quotes from the book:

• Call me Ishmael.
• I am madness maddened!
• To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

I love these things and debated framing them, but I think Matt would prefer that I actually use them in books, which I am of course terrified of doing. So they’ve sat on my desk since Christmas, where I’ve seen them every day while working. The next time I can get by a store that sells such things, I plan to buy some kind of cover to protect them a little bit, and then these’ll become my primary and treasured bookmarks.

I’m not above using a receipt or an airplane boarding pass as a bookmark, but I do love having handmade bookmarks relevant to my interests or, in any case, bookmarks that are striking or unique. (Another recent favorite is a cheapo souvenir I brought home from Portugal telling the story of and depicting the Cock of Barcelos. Because I am a twelve-year-old boy at heart.)

Anyway, here’s what my Moby-Dick bookmarks look like (the poor lighting and photo quality obviously don’t do the pieces justice):

Matt also did the poster for an independent movie that came out today entitled Ahab, and when my wife got wind that he was going to be selling the original artwork, she snapped it up for me for my birthday. Matt writes about making the poster here, and as pleased as he is about the high quality printing of the posters, I can’t help but feel pretty satisfied that I own the original from which the posters were created. Again the photo here is lousy. It really is a very bold, weird piece and a great addition to my growing art collection.