Stained Glass Celebrates Library’s Centennial
In celebration of the Library’s 2008 centennial, the Lebanon Public Library Board of Trustees commissioned a work of glass art for display above the circulation desk.
Artist Valerie Sherwood Rask, a life-long patron of the Library, designed and fabricated the window. Dennis Ashmead of Ashmead Woodworking, Waynesville, crafted the oak frame and installed the piece.
The window is made in three sections. In the first section, a book is labeled 1908 for the year the Library opened. Also in the panel are The Wind in the Willows and Anne of Green Gables, both published in 1908 and still in demand at the Library.
In the center, the Library is depicted as it was in 1908. For accuracy, the artist referred to a front elevation view of the Library from the original plans.
On the right, 2008 is represented. One book is labeled Trilobite, since 1921 the name of Lebanon High School’s yearbook; another is titled Lebanon.
Ms. Rask achieved extraordinary detail in the work by incorporating glass fusing techniques in the work along with piecing and staining glass sections.
Funding for the project came from the Library’s Gift Trust. The trust was established in 1927 with the $2000 bequest of Newton L. Bunnell, a local business owner. In his will, Bunnell stipulated that the funds be used for the purchase of paintings, statues, or other suitable works of art. The will states that it is his “hope that the Library may have such articles in the furtherance of beautifying the interior of the Library building, with the view of instilling and inspiring in the hearts and minds of the people of the community a desire to acquire a knowledge, not only a training of the mind along the lines of literature but also to know and appreciate the everlasting beauties of works of art.”
We are certain that Mr. Bunnell would find that his wishes had been elegantly fulfilled.
