New Glarus Public Library Receives Two Grants
The library received two grants from the New Glarus Community Foundation that will support community art projects for people of all ages to enhance the new library building.
The first grant of $5,353 will fund a community-wide art project encouraging residents to reflect on and share personal experiences of the year 2020. Titled, ‘Mapping Our Community: Perspectives and stories from a world transformed’, the project will provide materials and instructions for area residents to draw, paint or collage maps of New Glarus using various media on paper. Participants will record memories and tell stories on their maps, showing how their priorities have shifted in the year 2020. Each map will be shared on the ‘Mapping Our Community’ website and a number of these artful maps will be selected for long-term display at the new library.
Library Board Trustee Shelly Truttmann is excited to see art made by community residents; she stated, “When they’re exhibited together, the maps will reveal the interconnections that exist between all of us, even through times of isolation.”
The second grant of $2,932 will support a project titled, ‘Mapping Our Community: Middle School Perspectives’. A partnership between the library and the New Glarus Middle School will bring together art teachers, social studies teachers, experts, local artists and historians to help students learn more about their world. Students will work individually and collaboratively to draw, paint, stitch and carve maps of the New Glarus area using various media. These artistic maps will be installed in the new library to showcase youthful perspectives of the village of New Glarus.
Photos of the middle school maps will be posted on the ‘Mapping Our Community’ website. Also, the pieces will be presented to the public through “show-and-tell” events and installed for long-term display at the new library.
Library Director Holly Lague and Library Board Trustee Beth Blahut accept the award of two grants from the Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin. The grants provide a combined total of $8,285 to support community art projects for all ages that will enhance the new library building.