Aliens Invade Local Library
Today I finished a project that has been in the works since the middle of November: An Alien Invasion for my local library here in Portland, CT. We came up with a way to involve the patrons of the library with my artwork. It was born out of a little experiment I did for my Fall Art Exhibit. I called it Paint by Value. Jenn and Patty at the library were intrigued and we worked together to create three unique one of a kind images that reveal themselves as the patrons color tiles. Each patron will ask for a tile and then color it using the value numbers indicated. The color doesn’t really matter…just the value. Then the librarian will staple their tile to the bulletin board.
As an added incentive, I donated 170 postcards to the library to hand out when a patron colors a tile. The idea is after they color the tile and hand it back into the librarian, the librarian gives them a random postcard. There are 17 different postcards so they can try to collect them all!
We were a little afraid that three images might be too many for the patrons of this small library to color. The reading program will run for 8 weeks though and all together there are 147 tiles to color. Which, when you do the math, means that each week they only need 19 patrons a week to color a tile to finish all three images before the end of the reading program. I might encourage a few friends to go in and color a tile or two every week. And then I may or may not show up on a Friday or Saturday to volunteer to color a few tiles myself. I’m thinking that this might be necessary in the beginning until the exhibit/activity gains some traction.
To make it feel a little bit more like an alien invasion, I created large aliens to go around the bulletin board and a little explanation about Value. I especially love the blue alien who is hanging upside down and looking like he is just peeking into our world to see what is going on. If you live local, go check out the artwork in person…just like original art, the picture doesn’t do it justice.
January 3, 2022