Seattle yogi Jennifer Abel and Italian artist Emanuele Scanziani recently published a beautiful little art book together, Metamorphosis. Jennifer spent a year living and working in Chennai in South India, where she met yoga practitioner Emanuele. Together they took an artist’s perspective on yoga to create this book, inspired by the many asanas named after animals. Metamorphosis contains 21 black and white drawings by Emanuele, each accompanied by a short text by Jennifer.

The drawings are playful, and what I enjoyed most about this book was the creative and light-hearted look at how we can use yoga poses to move beyond the body and feel a pose from the inside. My favorite is the Hanumanasana sketch–some yoga poses can really be a leap of faith:

The small but beautifully crafted book would make a great gift for anyone interested in yoga. It’s close to my heart to support local yogis and artists, so if you get the chance take a look at this book. (For more ideas, check out the page Support Local Artists.)

Metamorphosis was published in October 2008 on Tara Books, a small publishing company based in Chennai, India. Jennifer Abel is their US publicist. You can buy the book on Amazon.com, or through the Tara Books web site.