The Exquisite Book

I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by it’s cover, but I’m not aware of any rules that prohibit me from judging it by it’s name….which is exactly what I did when I heard of ‘The Exquisite Book’.  I mean seriously, how can you go wrong?!  In addition to having quite the alluring title, the concept behind the book is fantastic.  In essence, it’s a collaboration between 100 artists who each had the opportunity to create a single page in a picture book.  The twist was this: each artist had to design their submission (and thus the next portion of the ‘story’) based on the only thing they had access to- the page that comes immediately before theirs in the final sequence.  The only other instruction given was that the horizon lines needed to connect so the pages would be guaranteed some fluidity.  When I heard about the concept I immediately jumped online and ordered a copy to check out for myself.  Much to my delight, ‘The Exquisite Book’ finally came with today’s mail.  As soon as I brought it in the house I carefully poured over every page and so enjoyed the opportunity to try and get inside the heads of the artists.  Each one of their extensions of the page before theirs was so interesting to me…some were literal, some quite figurative, some created panoramic scenes, some went in entirely new directions, but all were creative and fun to investigate.  Best of all, I was introduced to a gaggle of new artists I probably would’ve never otherwise been exposed to.  I had many favorites so I decided it would be best to spread them out and highlight a few every so often over the next few weeks.  I’ll start you off with three I wanted to see more from.

AJ Purdy

Julie Morstad

Deanne Cheuk