Home is where the heart is.
The Whitefield Library,
The building above would have been a dream come true for a bookworm growing up in Whitefield, Maine during the 1970s-1980s.
On May 3rd , I'm so honored they're hosting my benefit show Come What May on First Friday. My paintings will be up the full month for viewing and purchase; I'm donating 40% of all sales to the library. Since originals can be price prohibitive, fine art prints will also be available either in a vintage frame or matted and backed, depending on your style. The Whitefield Library is a project so dear to my geeky heart, and I am beyond grateful to have this opportunity. *
I'd have given anything for a public library! We had a bookmobile for a year or so which visited our one convenience store parking lot monthly, but it quietly stopped making the trips, and then there was nowhere to get kids' books outside of the school library...where there was pretty slim pickin's. [I remember sitting in a corner chipping through the Encyclopedia Brittanicas having read pretty much everything else in the little repurposed classroom.] We did a lot of re-reading. I can still recite chunks of A Wrinkle In Time, which was a shabby YA security blanket. Loved that book and THIS cover art:
Did this cause my nostalgic obsession with "customized van" decor?
Anyway, most families (including ours) lived below the federal poverty level, and couldn't get much by way of new books at the Scholastic Book fairs, either. I know we couldn't afford library cards to the nearby towns of Gardiner and Augusta most years, and back in the day there wasn't much by way of grants to get books into kids' hands. [Heck, we had science texts at Whitefield School which predicted that "one day man might explore the moon."**] Point being, we were dying to read books that just weren't there. Now, thanks to many generous donations, grants, and a lot of volunteers working terribly hard, there's finally a Whitefield Library. And it's exactly where I would have hung out for hours on end as a kiddo.
This is what the Whitefield Library USED to be:
The old Arlington Grange Hall.
There was another thing I wished for while growing up in Whitefield, but this time as a young adult. I wanted to be part of a creative community, and wished this very building would be turned into some sort of art school funded by (??)....I have no idea. When I was fifteen I went to a summer program for G&T artist and writer kids, and finally felt like I fit in somewhere. I pictured local Whitefield artists teaching in the old Grange Hall, which had been abandoned for years. No kidding. I love that it's the library, now. And they host all kinds of arts events, on top of homing 60,000 books; as of this year, so it's the best of both worlds.
If you'd like to check out the library, find out more about Whitefield community activities/events, and get yourself a card, you can find all that info and more right here:
~~ Rachel
*And so happy for all the geeky rural kids who finally can get their mitts on all the books their little hearts desire!
** Not a joke, ask any Whitefield librarian; they will confirm.
Here are some photos from the show:
I'll add more, later....Fact is, I hardly took any, so I need to go back and take some. It was a busy night; I got these few beforehand....Once this spread was unwrapped; it was amazing. Especially Suzanne's rhubarb punch.
To be continued.
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