The new Boyle Public Library has decorated its walls with some local art to recognize those who have donated to the new building.
During their donor appreciation gala on Oct. 6, the library unveiled their new “honour bookcase” and Pembina Pipeline children’s zone mural during the celebration. Both pieces of work were designed and painted by local artist Tatyana Beer.
“I’ve been kind of working on it in bits and spurts over the summer,” Beer said, when asked how long the piece took to create. “Most of the time with most of my murals, I like to be able to get in one day and just get it done. But some of them are a little more complex.”
The painted four foot by eight foot framed-shelf recognizes all the sponsors and donors that supported the library, by painting the names on the spines of each book. Each self-labeled the donation category – from bronze donations that ranged from $100 to $250, to “Friends of the Library” donations that came in over $25,000.
Boyle library board chair Cheri Garbski noted that they had roughly $100,000 worth of upgrades with include new furniture, computers and book shelves.
“We wanted to make sure we let them know how thankful we were,” Garbiski said.
This isn’t the first time the Beer has done artwork for the Village of Boyle. She said she painted the sidewalk in front of the old community centre, and she has painted a few other murals around town. Beer said it was mostly “word of mouth” that helped her net the mural job.
“We knew she was a local artist, and we’ve seen some of her work throughout the community,” said library manager Kathy Bulmer. “We approached her and asked her if she’d be willing to do it and she said ‘Yes.’”
“It’s great, I really love doing this,” Beer said. “Everyone is so kind and appreciative. It’s been really neat to be able to do some of these projects and donate these things to the community like that.”
More of Beer’s work will be on display in Boyle’s new Municipal Centre building. She said her next mural project will be a tree painted right onto the Wildrose Villa wall, also honoring the many donors that helped fund their new centre.
“Next I’ll be doing theirs and it’ll be going right on the wall,” she said. “It should be fun.”
