Earlier this year, the Orion Art Center partnered up with the Orion Public Library to purchase and place seven Little Libraries throughout Orion Township.
These Little Libraries are free to use for anyone. Just take a book you like and leave one you’ve already read.
They may be cute and prominently located at several parks in the area, but they are meant to be used by all ages and reading levels.
Meet the artists who put their time and energy into decorating these free libraries for everyone to enjoy (information provided by Karen Starick, Orion Art Center Director):
Artist Name: Julie Sugg
Little Library Location: Orion Oaks Dog Park
Julie has a Bachelor of Studio Art from MSU, with an emphasis in sculpting and painting. For her Little Free Library, she used hi-flow acrylic paint and miscellaneous embellishments. Julie has a love of dogs – she finds them pure and inspiring – and this art represents some of the dogs that she has loved and lost, including a rescue of a 5-year old Great Dane, Brynhildr, and a Boston Terrier, Lucky, who is now in heaven.
Artist Name: Kelleny Peake
Little Library Location: Jesse Decker Park
Kelleny is self-taught. She started painting on and off two years ago after deciding to fight the voice inside saying she couldn’t. Although she mainly paints on shoes, she enjoys painting almost anything her hands fall on. For her Little Free Library, she used acrylic paints. Her inspiration came from Van Gogh. Each side is a piece (or two) of his famous paintings. The front is a quote that connected with her the most. She started painting because she didn’t think she could paint and wanted to prove herself wrong.
“Never believe that you are incapable of something if you have never tried it. Sometimes you’ll be surprised how much you enjoy it.”
Artist Name: Kimberly Santini/Emerson and Sophia Brown
Little Library Location: Children’s Park
Kim is a working artist with several degrees in art and has been working out of her home studio for 18 years. She used acrylic paints for her Little Free Library. Emerson and Sophia Brown have volunteered to keep this little library box filled with books for the past year-and-a-half, so they helped Kim come up with the idea of the book characters that are on this box – Peppa Pig, Angelina Ballerina, Captain Underpants, Velveteen Rabbit, Pinkalicious, etc. They also gave Kim their self-portraits done in crayon and marker and Kim copied them onto the box. Kim always created a special time to read to her kids to peak their imagination and visualized these characters on the box coming to life. She had a lot of fun with this and love that the girls already had pride of ownership in this box, but now they have even more.
Artist Name: Kristen Carter
Little Library Location: Orion Center
Kristen has a Bachelor of Fine Art from Adrian College and has been painting most of her life. She used acrylic paint for her Little Free Library. Kristen loves to paint trees in every day art and nature is her inspiration, so she thought this would be perfect for this outdoor project. Kristen is glad to be a part of this project. As a mom, she doesn’t have much time to paint, but likes to be involved in the community and this was a perfect opportunity to do that.
Artist Name: Laura Gabriel
Little Library Location: Green’s Park
Laura took a few adult enrichment classes and met people who introduced her to many mediums, including painting and sculpting, of which sculpting is her passion. For her Little Free Library, she used acrylic house paint. Laura is a scuba diver, which trumps her art passion, and loves all things ocean. “I am a mermaid”. She is happy to have done this project and hopes to do more community art in the future.
Artist Name: Patricia Alessandro Campbell
Little Library Location: Downtown Parklett
Patty took leaded/stained glass classes and really enjoyed them. She started with mosaic bowling balls and turned broken gazing balls into mosaic works of art. She likes the freedom and different mediums that can be used in mosaic art and used stained glass, glass globs, slate, tile, marbles, and grout on her Little Free Library. She wanted to do something to feature the lake with a dragon theme and saw a dragon eye on Pinterest, which inspired her design.
Artist Name: Sarah Roberts
Little Library Location: Friendship Park
Sarah has no formal artistic training. She does it for fun only. She used acrylic, wood embellishments, and a little school bell on her Little Free Library. Sarah has been an employee for the Lake Orion Schools for 19 years and thought that this box would be a great canvas for all of the Lake Orion School logos utilizing last year’s school theme – “Dragon’s Unite”. — M.K.