Ryan Stec

The Book of Emotions is colorful
The Book of Emotions is full of shapes,
but not always the ones you see
The Book of Emotions is not really a book

This book begins with six of our most basic emotions: sadness; happiness; anger; surprise; fear and disgust. These six emotions inspired six pictures.

These pictures make up half of the book. The first six pictures inspired another six. These pictures make up another half of the book.

Expressed with simple colors and shapes, the pages are unlabeled and open to each reader’s experience. While one type of picture is conceived as a whole composition, inspired by a single emotion, another type of picture, on the opposite side of the page, is always a part of something larger. These other type extend beyond the edges, the pictures drifting across other pages.

It is here that The Book of Emotions slips away from the title of “book”. Each of its pages is connected to another with a double hinge, allowing the reader to mix and match the
images, creating their own abstract narrative of colors and shapes. Pages unfold into one another, and like the mix of red and blue, happiness and sadness mix something new.