The Living Alphabet has grown bolder and more brave in book three, as it wades into some of life's most intractable words. Here, the Letter Creatures take on more visual clarity, often with bright single-colour backgrounds cheering them on, as each of them continues to duke it out for their individual say in whatever word they find themselves, sometimes impervious to standard dictionary definitions.
Jerome Austin McNicholl: Oil painting found him at age eleven, tap and creative dance at the age of fifteen, piano and music at the age of seventeen, and by the time he was twenty, already an interdisciplinary artist, was writing poetry.
Having graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1963 he apprenticed in the stained-glass studio of Yvonne Williams. He then spent three consecutive seasons painting sets and costumes at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, which had a profound influence on his work. For the past thirty years he has divided his time living, teaching, and exhibiting in Canada and France.
The Living Alphabet work began in 1975. New York editor and publicist Peter Burling recognized the potential of the work in 1982. This marked the beginning of what are now four books: Before Alphabets, Quite Early One Planet, A Secret Life of Words, and Word World.
