Subjects with Objects

Subjects with Objects

by Pete Peterson on December 14, 2012

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If you were at Hutchmoot you may have noticed an odd gray book hiding on the merch table. It was a strange little thing filled with bizarre portraits and sometimes funny, sometimes poetic, sometimes inscrutable captions. It’s a book that’s almost impossible to pick up and not be drawn in by. I’ve got one lying here on my desk. It’s been here for a couple of months now and almost every day I pick it up and thumb through it utterly mesmerized (even though I’ve read it in its entirety at least a dozen times).

The portraits are by a local painter named Jonathan Richter, who paints each of them in pubs around town. He sits down with a pint of beer and paints. One pint, one painting. The stuff that comes out of his brain is surreal, bizarre, oddly beautiful, and always interesting. Once the painting is done, the mysterious poet known as DKM (he may be a mystery but if you were at Hutchmoot you probably met him—maybe even sat in on his session) lives with it until he’s fully contemplated the full depth, breadth, flavor, and smell of its meaning and given it an appropriate caption. What you get is Subjects with Objects, and it’s kind of awesome, it’s something that needs to be in print, even if it’s hard to explain just exactly why, because it’s so darn cool that people need to see it and hold it and love it for themselves.

Those few that were for sale at Hutchmoot (only about 15 were printed) were a test run of the book. Jonathan and DKM have just launched a Kickstarter campaign with the hope giving it the production run it deserves—in hardback. I’m hopeful that if they can raise the money they need, Rabbit Room Press will be able to help make the project a reality and put another great book into the world. They’re going to need support, though, and I hope the Rabbit Room community will be a part of that.

Here’s the enigmatic DKM with the full pitch, and below that (click here if you’re reading this on the homepage) you’ll find a few samples of their work. I hope you like it as much as I do.