Munday Library

For this piece, my idea was sparked by the location of the gallery. When I heard it was going to be displayed in the Stacks Gallery in the library, I wanted to create work about the library… or lack of one. Ever since they decided to take away the books, I’ve always had a big issue with it. Growing up, the library was always my favorite place. I loved walking through the books and looking at all the different ones I could read or check out. When I came to St. Edward’s, the library was already a big downside. When I toured they only had one floor of books. I hated that, but I thought the pros of the campus would outweigh that. Then they decided to get rid of it all. It seems very dystopian and as the visiting artist, Justin Favela mentioned, it is reminiscent of book burning. I wanted to create a ghost library. Using my project proposal research from before, and my artist research, I decided to use transparent fabric. I originally wanted to embroider, but due to time constraints and also my lack of skill in that area, I decided to use paint. The books were painted onto the fabric using watered down acrylic paint. I used the same piece of drywall to paint each sheet on to have the shelves arranged the same way.