WEYBURN – It took a large group effort on the part of the library board, Weyburn Artists Workshop and volunteers from the public to get the centennial mural for the Weyburn Public Library completed and hung.
The mural is now on display in the Allie Griffin auditorium, and features scenes from the library as well as some favourite book titles from those who volunteered to help paint it.
Library board member Jan Stadel noted the board decided in January a year ago to put together a community mural to help mark the centennial of Weyburn’s library.
“I volunteered to speak to the artists workshop who were meeting regularly if they could help with this project. They were excited about working on a mural. I asked them to think about the size of this art project, and they came back with the idea of six separate panels,” she said.
She and the Artists Workshop members decided the mural would be about eight feet wide by four feet high.
“We figured that we would have six different pictures for the mural. Three of them would depict the stacks at the library, meaning the shelves of books, and the other three would be photos of the interior of the library as it looked like in 2022,” said Stadel, noting staff member Krista Klemmer provided the photos of the library.
The scenes depicted include the children’s area, the circulation desk at the front, and the young adult’s area on the upper level.
The Artists Workshop members cut the photos into 12 pieces for each of the six parts of the mural, and drew each part of the pieces onto eight-by-eight-inch canvasses for the public to paint. They numbered the pieces, so everyone could see what colours to use with help of the artists.
The other three parts depict book spines on the shelves, and the public was invited to paint in the names of some of their favourite books.
There were three Saturdays in May set aside for the public to come in and paint panels, and then two more sessions were held in September to finish up the mural.
“The artists group thought that the scene representing the children's area was too complicated for the public to do, so Dorothy Whitell volunteered to do it herself. At the end of May, we stopped for the summer and resumed in September, needing two more Saturdays to complete the work. Dorothy finished the children's area in early summer, and she passed away unexpectedly on July 16 at the age of 87,” said Stadel.
Stadel and her husband put the finished panels onto plywood, and with the help of board member Randy Bangsund, the mural was finished and hung up in December.
“I am so happy at how it turned out,” said Stadel.
