Re:Collections - share your library story!

Do you love libraries? Me, too!

Over the next few months I'm going to be collecting stories about libraries: memories, misadventures, anecdotes, maybe even tales of romance between the stacks! It's all part of a community arts project, Re:Collections, and everyone is invited to participate: adults, kids, seniors, school groups, and current and former library staff and volunteers. Although my focus will be on our local community of Prince Edward County, I welcome stories from anywhere across the globe.

Introducing Dewey Decimal. Illustration by Niall Eccles.

My love of libraries has been a life-long affair. Of course I enjoy reading and books, but libraries are so much more; they’re gathering places, spaces of refuge and community. They've played a huge role in my life, and I know the same must be true for lots of other people. Although libraries have been around since ancient times, the way people use them is changing. Libraries are adapting by embracing technology and providing new types of programming, making this is an ideal time to reflect upon the roles that libraries have played in our lives.

I'll be compiling the collected stories in three ways: creating a zine (small handmade magazine), a documentary theatre piece, and a creative display of stories to be unveiled at the next DiscARTed, the annual Picton art show of creations made from discarded books.

Dewey Decimal. Illustration by Niall Eccles.

Stories of any length are welcome but they should be personal and true. Participants don’t need to be experienced writers, and can even have their stories audio or video recorded if they prefer. Comics and illustrations welcome, too! Members of the public can share their stories with me in person at the following locations and times:

Milford library - Sat. April 11, 11 AM – 3 PM

Consecon library - Sat. April 18, 11 AM – 3 PM

Ameliasburgh library - Sat. April 25, 11 AM – 3 PM

Bloomfield library - Sat. May 2, 11 AM – 3 PM
Wellington library - Sat. May 9, 11 AM – 4 PM
Picton library - Sat. May 23, 11 AM – 4 PM

Mail stories to: Krista Dalby, 337 Clarke Road, Picton K0K 2T0
Email stories to: krista[at]smallpondarts.ca
Or call me to make other arrangements: 613.471.1322

Dewey Decimal. Illustration by Niall Eccles.

NEED HELP GETTING YOUR STORY STARTED?

Here are some ways your story could begin:

My first memory of a library is…

I remember one time at the library…

My favourite memory of a library is…

The most important thing I’ve learned at a library is…

I remember when libraries used to…

The strangest thing I’ve done in a library is…

I remember one librarian who…

The library of my childhood was…

Libraries have been important in my life because…

One time I lost a library book and…

The best library I’ve ever visited was…

...you get the idea!

Massive thanks to the Ontario Arts Council and County of Prince Edward Public Library for their support of this project.

Heat

"Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course."
– George Bernard Shaw

Last February we installed a wood stove in our dining room to supplement our winter heating with wood rather than burn tons of oil in the furnace. Sure, we're releasing the wood's carbon dioxide at a faster rate than if it were to decompose naturally over a long period, but we feel it's still cleaner –and it's certainly less expensive– than oil heating.

To prepare for the 2012/2013 winter we ordered two cords of hardwood (I wanted three cords, but the place we called would only give us two for some reason). So they brought and dumped a huge pile of wood which I slowly and neatly stacked behind our red shed and covered with a tarp, ready for the inevitable chill to come.

I brought the first batch of wood to the front porch via wheelbarrow (Vincent, to be specific) which I pushed onto the porch with the help of a ramp made from the door we removed from the Shit Shed before its renovation. I even planned ahead for hauling the wood in the snow: I bought a sled, attached ropes to it, and pulled the wood to the house like a stack of heavy children, all while singing along unselfconsciously to David Bowie songs.

But the winter wore on and, despite a few warm patches, was quite cold. And we were running out of wood.

Plot twist: we decided to burn the last of our oil at the end of the previous winter, hoping (in the summer or fall) to replace that furnace with one that ran on propane...but that didn't happen. So we had no oil in the tank and, to further thicken the plot, the furnace didn't pass a recent obligatory insurance inspection so we couldn't order more oil anyway. All we were left with was the wood stove, baseboard heaters in our bedroom, and a few portable space heaters. And hot water bottles. We love our hot water bottles:

Illustration by Niall Eccles.

Rather than reordering some more wood right away, I thought I'd first try something I believed to be mere myth –an old wives' tale used to scare little children so they don't become artists– and surely debunked by now. As the legend goes, finished watercolour paintings burn faster, hotter, and longer than chopped wood. That's gotta be bullshit, right? Well, I tried it out...

Taking an old watercolour painting I did way back in 2002 (Revolution) that was just sitting around taking up valuable gallery space, I unceremoniously shoved it into our wood stove, expecting to debunk the myth, but, at the same time, hoping it was true and that this crazy endeavour would provide us with some much needed heat.

Well, it was too big, for starters, so I had to tear it in half, separating the kid reading from a history book from the Revolutionary War soldiers engaged in selfsame historic battle and, lo and behold:

Super fire!

I had barely closed the door when the painting burst into flames, spurred on simply by the nearly dead embers. With the air intake fully open we were able to heat the house from the dining room all the way to the gallery (which is usually pretty chilly in winter because of the cement floor).

The burning painting was still blazing six hours later, about half as long as it took me to paint it.

With the myth confirmed (i.e. a finished watercolour painting will, indeed, burn faster, hotter, and longer than wood) we no longer had to worry about our rapidly diminishing wood pile...and we're keeping cozy while simultaneously making room for my new paintings by getting rid of old stock in the gallery.

Here's a video demonstration:

Stickfest

"Should you sit around waiting until something’s become a tradition, or shouldn’t you rather roll up your sleeves and get to work developing one?”
– Rainer Werner Fassbinder

In 1988 the citizens of Epping Forest, a small town in the UK’s Essex County, held their first celebration in honour of the common stick. With the slogan “Rectus Extra Vester Porta” (right outside your door) and beloved mascot Hickory Dick (designed by Niall Eccles), the festival was a sensational hit, attracting media attention across England. Eventually, more English towns caught Stick Fever and it soon became known as the International Festival of the Stick, with festivals throughout the UK numbering in the dozens. The rest of Europe soon followed, bringing appreciation of the lowly stick to more and more people each year, and by 1996, more than thirty-five countries were hosting stick festivals.

But not really.

We made it up.

We decided that the International Festival of the Stick would be an inclusive, community-oriented event that everybody could afford to attend, the price of admission being one stick. As an early-bird promo, when people visited us, we put a stick under their windshields that had written on it "This stick is your admission to Stickfest 2010 at Small Pond Arts”. Likewise, these stick invitations were left in mailboxes, at local cafés, etc.  Our initial idea was that whoever brought that stick to the festival got a treat, but then we decided to just give treats to everybody. When someone arrived without a stick, that was okay; we gave them a stick.

Krista spent a week trimming branches from the fallen Hesperus to make the River Styx out of sticks.

Another outdoor stick-based installation was Caitlin Dalby’s beautiful giant nest. This was made back in May and is a permanent installation on our artists’ trail in the woods. People love climbing into it and having their picture taken.

The centerpiece of Stickfest was The Museum of the Stick in our barn where we featured all kinds of sticky items:

I made three drawings --using lipstick-- of musician Tony Levin playing the Chapman Stick.

Local illustrator Carl Wiens contributed an illustration of The Amazing Stick, encapsulating the versatility of sticks since their very beginnings.

My sister, Lena, had made some delicious mini sticky buns for all to enjoy:

Also in the food part of the display were a beef stick, Fun Dip with its famous hard candy Lik-A-Stix, and Hickory Sticks in all their salty goodness.

In a series of three shadow boxes were displayed a lipstick, a deodorant stick, glow sticks, incense sticks, matchsticks, chopsticks, a memory stick, a ChapStick, and a glue stick.

Krista’s Punch puppet is holding a slap stick, there’s a joystick, a traditional East Coast ugly stick, a pogo stick, a candlestick, and a beautiful talking stick carved by Belleville artist Peter Paylor.

Other museum items included a pair of drumsticks (the musical kind, not the part of a fowl’s leg…or the ice cream confection), another beautiful carved stick by Peter (this time a salmon carved into a piece from one of our own trees that fell over this summer), stickers, a walking stick, a didgeridoo from Australia, a yard stick, a rain stick, and an Olympic hockey stick.

Then there’s my favourite part of the museum: the Mascot Gallery. Children from all over created extremely imaginative interpretations of Hickory Dick.  I really wanted to have a children’s component to the museum and I was so happy to receive and install so many amazing pieces of art.

We also set up a painting station where visitors could decorate their own sticks, all the while listening to sticky music on the stereo (including Gregory Hoskins and the Stickpeople, musicians playing the Chapman Stick (including Tony Levin), and, of course, Styx). Some of these painted sticks were later incorporated into the River Styx.

When the crowd was at a critical mass, we began the entertainment portion with readings. I was up first with a reading of The Trees by Neil Peart, Krista read her poem Sugar Maple, and finally, Colin Frizzell read a brilliant piece which he wrote specifically for this Stickfest, called The Glory of the Stick.

In the bottom right of the photo above is Dianne Lee, who created Stick Cozies, complete with instructions, for people to keep their sticks, well, cozy.

After a while, folks gathered around the fire pit (fortunately no sticks were burned that day) and partook of carrot and celery sticks. Some people even took to whittling sticks and knitting.

Some people even learned to walk on big sticks.

We were really impressed that our community so willingly took to Stickfest and came out in such great numbers.  We’re already looking forward to Stickfest 2011 – aren’t you?