My Library is a Garden
My Library is a Garden was a solo exhibition at the Buchanan Art Center, Buchanan, MI, in 2020. Below are installation images, video documentation and a statement about the work. The work grows from my Studiolo project, where further information about individual artworks in the exhibition can be found.
The Prairie style building the Buchanan Art Center occupies was originally designed and built as the home of the Buchanan District Library. Money for the building was raised by special committees established by the library's board and construction was completed in 1956. The new building, designed by the architectural firm, Roy Worden & Associates of South Bend, was an upgrade from the cramped space the library occupied within the City Hall building. The deed for the completed building was presented to the City during a dedication ceremony on June 17, 1956. During the ceremony, speaker William Ohait, President of the Michigan Library Association, addressed the assembled group, espousing the role of libraries as a site for the free expression and exchange of ideas. After almost 40 years and two expansions, the library outgrew this building, and moved just a few doors away to its present location at 128 East Front Street.
While the public services libraries provide communities today are incredibly expansive and varied, books remain the most iconic visual aspect of their activities. I've always found joy in walking through the stacks of any library and being physically surrounded by so much information on paper — all of it within reach. And I love the beauty of chance discoveries. Of finding something I didn't know I was looking for.
Just like books within a library, everything we experience is interpreted, cataloged and stored. I imagine we create internal libraries in this way. But in contrast to public ones, these internal libraries are built for a single patron.
Studies have proven that every time we access a memory, that memory changes when it is re-stored (re-shelved), indicating that our internal libraries are in a constant state of movement and transformation. Thoughts and ideas are blended, shelved, reexamined (remembered), and some are discarded. Nothing becomes a part of our library without first being transformed in relation to what's already there. And then transforming again. And again...
My work in this exhibition draws inspiration from this building's past, and makes manifest the ongoing growth and transformation within each of our personal libraries.
Special Thanks:
Special thanks to Buchanan District Library Volunteer Archivist, Peter Lysy, for the time he took allowing me to peruse the library's archive of photos and news clippings related to the 117 West Front Street building. Information I discovered there became influential on how this exhibition took shape. And of course, thanks to Danielle Wilborn and the BAC for this amazing opportunity to share my work.