JEAN-PIERRE WEILL

Author and illustrator of
Here, a Love Song  (A Children’s Book for Adults)

Born in Paris, France, in 1954,  Jean-Pierre Weill was raised in New York. With careers in literature and theatre, his parents exposed him at an early age to the expressive arts.  After attending the classic studies program of  St. John’s College, in Annapolis, MD., he joined and directed the family’s language arts audio/visual company whose primary achievement was to record the 100 major English- speaking writers and poets of the 20th Century. 
 
In 1992, he began experimenting with drawing and painting on levels of glass.   Over the following years, he originated and  brought to maturity a uniquely expressive mode of painting and drawing in 3- dimensions, a process he termed “vitreography”®.   (www.vitreography.com and www.jeanpierreweill.com)   Jean-Pierre Weill Studios  went on to design and manufacture his many vitreographs, editions of which have sold in hundreds of galleries, stores, and museum outlets  throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Hong Kong, and Japan.

 In  the Spring of 2008, he embarked on a project to write and illustrate  a book-length commentary on the  topic of well-being.    It would not, however, be the customary, often sentimental  treatment of the topic found in the self-help genre.  Instead, the reader/spectator is taken on an illustrated journey of serious inquiry,  shared in a simple philosophical spirit,  but also craftily and with laugh-out-loud humor.

The result is a book whose illustrations and words unite in intimate partnership.  The title  Here, a Love Song , has by-line:  A Children’s Book for Adults. Why the by-line?  Cynthia Ozick, the novelist, short-story writer, and critique,  reviewed an advance draft and commented, “Because one must begin to see as a child sees, in order to grasp it – not with the understanding of a child, but with the pristine eyes of a child.”  She called the book   “a rapturous amazement.  I think it is a Psalm.”  

A close reading of it will reveal a vocabulary rich in visual puns, set  in a landscape that illustrates the human psyche.   From the beginning, and without let-up,  the book pokes  at  modernism’s  most famous poem-journey,  that of morose, deeply inhibited J. Alfred Prufrock. 

Here, a Love Song  would fit comfortably within  a number of genres:  self-help, inspirational, spirituality, philosophy, poetry, and art.  It professes to be a unique and  engaging treatment of a timeless topic.
 
Jean-Pierre lives with his wife, Rachel Rotenberg, a sculptor, in Baltimore, Maryland, where they raised their five children.

Jean-Pierre Weill 3506 Bancroft Rd. Baltimore MD 21215;  tel.  443- 691-3098
www.jean-pierreweill.com;   www.vitreography.com