This past Saturday was the first event for The Exquisite Book. It was a Crafternoon at the main New York Public Library in Manhattan. Huge thanks to Jessica Pigza and Maura Madden (who founded the idea of Crafternoon- she has a book you should definitely check out!) who hosted us. The event was free and we got a really big crowd of over 75 people, we almost didn’t have seats for everyone! People of all ages came to check it out. Artists from the book also came to participate- Jen Corace, Laura Ljungkvist, Arthur Jones and Chris Kyung. It was so exciting for me because I was meeting Jen, Arthur and Laura for the first time and I’ve been fans of theirs forever! (Chris is one of my best friend’s from college)

Here’s the lovely Maura Madden giving a super nice introduction to me (I am behind Maura in the blue candy patterned shirt):

And here’s the super talented Laura Ljungkvist, Jen Corace, Arthur Jones and Chris Kyung (in a very serious picture!).

Jessica set up a table where we sold books and let guests browse them for inspiration.

We explained the four quick collaborative drawing games we were going to play:
1. Exquisite Corpse- a paper is folded in three. One person fills in a head and shoulders in the top part, without looking at the head and shoulders, the next person draws the middle of the body, and again without looking, a third person completes the “corpse” with legs and feet.
2. A double fold book so can sew and create and then have a partner fill in one side and you fill in the other so it mixes and matches.
3. A big scroll where you can come and add to an ongoing collaborative drawing.
4. A collaborative story where each person writes a sentence and then passes to the next person.

For people who were a bit intimidated by the idea of drawing, there was materials to collage with. (But in the end most people had fun with the crayons, colored pencils, and markers we supplied. )

After we gave everyone instruction they were super eager to start:

After everyone had finished making Exquisite Corpses we laid them all out in the front of the room like a mini exhibition and everyone came up to see the amazing collaborative creations!

We also checked out the long scroll everyone had been drawing on:

Then I found the story that had been passed around the room and read it to the crowd:

It went on for a couple pages, but here’s the first pages:

It was a super fun afternoon! I think it was a great way for people to meet new people through making drawings together. I loved that people walked across the room to ask another stranger to finish their Exquisite Corpse drawing.

Big thanks to my mom for taking all the photos at the event!

Our next event is in San Francisco on Oct. 14th at Rare Device and will be a “live drawing event”. There will be a long table set up and artists from the book will be drawing and passing to the next artist to add on. It will be a long chain of drawing which you’ll get to watch. Also we will be signing books- for more info and to see which artist are coming, check out our exquisite site here.

© Julia Rothman 2007