Kay Rosen is an American painter interested in wordplay and capturing language visually, earning her the name "writer's sculptor." Toeing the lines between sculpture, poetry, architecture, and performance, Rosen's works revel in subtlety, using various visual, grammatical, and typographical strategies to challenge the way we interact with words, language, and art.

In 1997, Rosen, along with six other artists, was commissioned by the Renaissance Society of Chicago to transform an everyday household item into a unique art object. For this project, Rosen created a set of two martini glasses, each adorned with the letter/shape “o.” What better way to marry the classic garnishes of a pickled onion and olive with the martini than by etching and painting the letter/shape "o" on a pair of martini glasses?