Two intriguing exhibits – The Saint John’s Bible: Illuminating the Word and Springfield and Beyond: The Art of Bill Morrison – are featured this month at The Salt Lake City Library.

Seventeen giclee prints, taken from the original pages of the first handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned since the printing press was invented more than five centuries ago, are featured in an exhibition sponsored in conjunction with the Utah Humanities Book Festival.

The project, commissioned by Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota and the Saint John’s Benedictine Abbey, exhaustively follows the medieval production process of a scriptorium, complete with vellum paper, quills, hand-made inks and pigments, and gold leaf. However, the advantages of modern printing technology also afford reproductions of the original that reflect the exceptional quality of the handwritten Scriptures.

Although other world religions including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism still actively produce calligraphic originals of their religious writings, the Saint John’s Bible is the first handwritten project commissioned since the end of the 15th century.

Visitors will note the contemporary expressions in the illustrations, heavily infused with symbolic imagery, as well as the text that has been scrupulously translated into the English vernacular. The prints featured in the current exhibit represent selections from both testaments including the Book of Genesis, the Psalms, and the bridge between the Old and New Testaments. Of particular note are the cultural blending of images taken from Western and Eastern artistic and anthropological traditions.

The original – comprising seven volumes 15 ¾ inches wide by 23 ½ inches tall – will be completed in 2009 and will be used for liturgical purposes and exhibitions. The total cost is an estimated $4 million.

Meanwhile, the work of Bill Morrison – the award-winning cartoonist and the first art director for the Simpsons – is featured in an exceptionally diverse exhibition in the fourth floor gallery of the library.

The exhibition represents virtually every aspect of Morrison’s oeuvre, including the Simpsons, Disney projects, Futurama (another project with Simpsons creator Matt Groening), and Bongo Comics. He also has created his own comic book series – Roswell: Little Green Man – as well as Heroes Anonymous with Fillmore, which he created with fellow cartoonist Scott Gimple. And, he has written a Captain Carrot miniseries for DC Comics.

Morrison, who is no stranger to Salt Lake City comic book lovers, will participate in a free conference — Word Balloons/Thought Balloons: Comic Books and Literacy — on Nov. 10 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the library, sponsored in part by Night Flight Comics which has one of its stores in the Library plaza. Morrison also will give a gallery talk following the conference. He has appeared at other library events in 2003 and 2004.

These latest exhibits help continuously reinforce the Library’s outstanding community reputation as further justification of its designation last year as Library of the Year by Thomson Gale and the Library Journal.