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Intuitive Alphabet

Photographs by James Dee
Published by Tra Publishing
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

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About The Book

“Luminous and absorbing…Oka Doner reminds us of the interconnectedness of all things— that everything is alive.”—Susan Brind Morrow, Guggenheim Fellow and Author of The Names of Things

Intuitive Alphabet by artist Michele Oka Doner is both an alphabet book and an artistic meditation on the connection between humans and nature. Minimal text, handwritten by the artist, is paired with photographs of sea objects that represent forms.


In Intuitive Alphabet, acclaimed artist Michele Oka Doner has created a personal interpretation of the alphabet book as well as a deeply thoughtful, artistic, and inspiring exploration of the fundamental connection between humans and nature. Minimal text, handwritten by the artist, is paired with photographs of sea objects that represent forms, such as “A is For Animal,” and “S is for Spiral.” The result is a thoroughly original, evocative, and thought-provoking work of art that underscores the profound and fundamental links between humans and nature and reminds us that life itself came from the sea.

Oka Doner grew up in Miami Beach combing the sand for treasures—shells, stones, coral—that formed her own alphabet well before she knew how to read. This elegantly designed art book is an homage to that world of discovery and conveys a profound message about looking and seeing. On an even deeper level, Intuitive Alphabet offers insights into the ways in which language has evolved and is learned.

About The Author

Michele Oka Doner is an internationally renowned artist whose artistic production encompasses sculpture, prints, drawings, furniture, jewelry, public art, functional objects, video, costume and set design, and artist’s books. She is well known for such permanent art installations as Flight at Reagan International Airport, Radiant Site at the Herald Square 34th Street Subway Station, and A Walk on the Beach, the mile-and-a-quarter-long bronze terrazzo concourse at Miami International Airport. Oka Doner’s work is found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the art museums at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Michigan, where she received her BSD and MFA art degrees and was recently awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Tra Publishing (May 21, 2019)
  • Length: 98 pages
  • ISBN13: 9780998693101

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Raves and Reviews

“Although Oka Doner’s practice is about the physical power and material potential of objects, she’s fascinated with something wholly abstract and intangible: language. Or, perhaps more precisely, how we communicate with each other and the world around us.”

The Observer

“Luminous and absorbing…Oka Doner reminds us of the interconnectedness of all things—that everything is alive.”

– Susan Brind Morrow, Guggenheim Fellow and author of The Names of Things

“Oka Doner tells us a story of how our minds make meaning…And that is the delightful point of it all: to make us aware, at each turn of the page, of the remarkable plasticity of our imaginations, that reading and seeing are not passive experiences; they are ways we, quite literally, make the world.”

The Miami Rail

“The book’s un-spectacularity makes it so spectacular. It is soul food that will be sitting on my nightstand next to Rainer Maria Rilke’s Die Gedichte.”

– Juergen Fischer, cultural critic

“[Intuitive Alphabet] is spectacular. It will make a tremendous addition to our collection of artist’s books and I predict it will be a very popular item in our classrooms and reading room.”

– Tom Hyry, Houghton Library of the Harvard College Library

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