If you want to stretch out and read a book, why not do it on a bench that looks like a book?
The Clinton County Public Library has teamed with several local artists to create a series of park benches painted to pay tribute to some classic books and the joy of reading.
A while ago, I had seen somebody sitting on a park bench and working in a library.
You notice people are reading.
So I was like, Oh, it would be really nice if we had benches in the shape of a book, kind of decorated like a book that these people could sit on and read and enjoy nature.
This project, once our foundation board decided to do it and fund it, happened very quickly.
We are fortunate the city of Covington had a grant that fit right with what we were trying to do, which was bring art to life in the city of Covington.
We applied, we didn't receive that grant, but they liked our project so much that we received additional funding from the city of Covington to do the project.
We have six benches in total.
We did a call to artists in January.
All artists had to be local as we had to deliver the benches to them.
We had 38 submissions and we narrowed it down to the six finalists.
Our librarians put together a list of about 30 books for the artists to choose from.
Containing classics like Alice in Wonderland and some kids classics.
Artists have the opportunity to select what inspired them and create their benches from that.
We have lots of great books with all different kinds of art interpretations of them, and they're just fabulous.
I can't imagine, though, where the Crawdads Sing Bench being anywhere except for Baker Hunt.
Baker Hunt's a beautiful place for people to come together as part of the community to take art classes as you can take kitchen classes, cooking, yoga, ceramics, textile classes, kind of.
If there's a creative endeavor, we try to offer that here in the city of Covington.
It's just a gorgeous spot.
We have these Japanese cherry blossom trees.
They're weeping.
All of the grounds here are very intentional.
A lot of love throughout the years has been gone into putting these flowers here.
We maintain them weekly with our volunteer gardeners, as well as the staff who helps maintain the grounds.
Gabrielle Simon is one of the artists who created this bench.
She put her love, passion for reading and her artistic expression into the project.
I think anything we can do to encourage reading, especially in our youth, whether it's through reading a story or doing a hands on craft or painting a bench that people in the community can enjoy is important.
Really beautiful.
According to the Clinton County Library, the rest of the benches are in the process of being delivered to several locations around Covington.