Fantastic Figures Await The New Felton Library

Art Installation Heralds the Coming of the Library

On Saturday May 20 from 12-4, the Felton Library Festival will feature an art installation of “Fantastic Figures” on the new library site next to the Felton Post Office. The free event will include art activities for all, food, information on the library project, a drawing, and the beginning of the online auction for the figures. Music will be by Patti Maxine and Friends, Ben Lonesome and the Highway 9ers, Dave McClellan and Friends, and Young People’s Theater singers.

The small town of Felton, gateway to the San Lorenzo Valley, has been waiting for a new library for many years. The current library has long outgrown its tiny location in the historic Belardi building. Groundbreaking for a new larger library just down Gushee Street on a large vacant site next to the Post Office will be in 2018.

“It has been a long wait,” says Marilyn Robertson, longtime member of Felton Library Friends. “Now we are very excited and feeling rather celebratory.”

A dozen “Fantastic Figures” will open to the public, heralding the coming of the new library. The garden art figures, conceived by a group of local artists, Robertson and Felton Library Friend, Nancy Gerdt, will consist of a dozen larger than life figures “planted” in the field in anticipation of the coming library. The figures symbolize the broad spectrum of waiting library users, and also the tremendous breadth of qualities and worlds a library brings to the public.

The “Fantastic Figures” will be designed and constructed by local artists from the areas served by the Felton Library. The figures will be placed throughout the site facing the street. Each figure will be completely different and materials will vary according to the artist’s vision. The concept of the waiting figures was the inspiration of Ben Lomond artist, Eileen Murray, who has constructed two such figures in her garden.

“I adapted the idea from the African nkisi, fascinating protective figures covered with hardware and nails, placed in front of properties in the Congo,” Murray explained. “They are very primitive and beautiful. The African figures are meant to scare people away, but ours are meant to entice. They are garden art.”

The Fantastic Figures will be donated by the artists and will be auctioned off online over a period of several weeks, starting on May 20.

Participating artists include Murray, Karen Asherah, Eleanor Carolan, Alexis Spakoski, Karen Close, Jennifer Hennig, Janet Silverglate, Sophie Webb, Bill Jurgens, Nina Moore and Lise Bixler.

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The funds raised will benefit the new Library and the beautiful outdoor areas. The eBay auction details will be at www.feltonlibraryfriends.org