Portland Public Library Digital Commons

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  Billy Goat the Counselor: Altered Book

  Billy Goat the Counselor was created as part of the Instituting Art: Altered Book Project, a joint venture between the Portland Public Library and the Maine College of Art in 2005 exploring modern society’s relationship to both books and art.

  The altered books created by the Maine College of Art students and faculty were on exhibit at the Portland Public Library’s Lewis Gallery in Spring 2005.

  Following the exhibit, the works were added to the Library’s collection and were available to patrons to check out.

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  Confucian Scholars

  This pair of Confucian Scholars come from Kyonggi-Do province in northwestern South Korea, on the Yellow Sea. In Confucian society, scholarship is revered and these statues were tomb markers, although not necessarily marking the graves of scholars but possibly court officials or nobles. 15th or 16th Century

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  Fu Dog

  This statue is actually a Buddhist lion and pup, with a pearl under the lion’s foot. These date from the late eighteenth century, given to the Library by Governor Percival Baxter around 1930. These lions traditionally came in pairs, and acted as sentinels on each side of the door of an important building. This one is the female and is usually at the right side of the door.

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  Golden Yin and Silver Yang

  Given to the Library by Dahlov Ipcar, the eminent Robinhood ME illustrator.

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  Library Continuum

  A mosaic of aluminum tiles commissioned by the Library in 1991. Originally hung in the Children’s Room on the lower level, it was reconfigured on the Library’s main floor after our 2010 renovation.

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  Little Water Girl

  The Little Water Girl is a copy of the London Memorial to the Temperance leader Lady Henry Somerset. The Portland copy was dedicated to Mainer and National Women’s Christian Temperance Union leader Lillian M. N. Stevens. It has been at the Library since 1979, having also graced Congress Square and Deering Oaks. The London original, sculpted in 1887 by George Edward Wade, was vandalized in the 1970s and restored in 1990, using measurements and photos of the Portland memorial.
  
  See also, The Little Water Girl: an essay by Cliff Gallant.
  
  

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  Longitudes

  Also known as "Exchanging Longitudes in Mid-ocean." Stanwood was a Portland native and specialized in marine art, having gone to sea as a young man. The figure on the smaller ship holds a longitude board marked 74.50, fixing their position west of Cape Horn.

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  Montgomery the Moose

  Montgomery the Moose had graced our Youth Services area since 1985. He is a wood sculpture by Nantz Comyns. For his 25^th birthday he was given a restoration including new leather parts, some restaining, and a light coat of Glitter.

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  Overdue

  Altered book art created in our Teen Area in 2012.

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  Phoenix

  Our “Phoenix” was created by young Portland Library Patrons in 2011 in a Summer Reading workshop with artist Nantz Comyns. The phoenix is a mythological bird that is able to be reborn from its own ashes. The city seal of Portland is a phoenix.

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  Portrait of James Phinney Baxter

  James Phinney Baxter was Mayor of Portland and President of the Portland Public Library 1891-1921.

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  Readers

  This painting echoes and was inspired by the Library’s renovated façade, and reflects the diversity of our readers. Andre LaPorte says he is “fascinated by architecture, animals, farmlands and people”; two of his favorite themes are explored here. Oil and acrylic on canvas.

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  Seven Sentinels

  Commissioned by the Library in 1986. The artist evokes a long tradition of symbolic guardianship on public buildings, appropriate to a library. The ideas of ambiguity, contradiction and confrontation are manifested in compositions of hard and soft edges, contrasting colors, unexpected linear relationships and unusual shapes. The public library, with its accessibility to all ideas, regardless of opposition or contradiction, is an appropriate setting for these paintings.

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  The Feathered Hand

  The multi-media installation "The Feathered Hand" by Maine artist Alison Hildreth takes its inspiration from poetry, puppetry, lenses and glass vessels. It is at once complex and beautifully simple, ever-changing as the day unfolds and the light changes.

  The sculpture is suspended in the sun-lit Main Library Atrium near the Elm Street entrance and is comprised of glass and plastic puppets, lenses, metal wire, sand, insects and carborundum; it measures 20′ x 6 x 24′.

  Hildreth states: “The puppets are seen hanging with groups of lenses that can enlarge or diminish them. They are interspersed with alchemical vessels of varying sizes and shapes. The installation reflects a long-term interest that I have had in puppets since childhood, a time in our lives when our imagination is so vivid and we can invest our dreams and aspirations in inanimate objects. Much of my work has its genesis in books, and I am so very happy to have The Feathered Hand in the Portland Public Library.”

  The piece takes its title from a poem by Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert entitled “Chosen By The Stars”:

  It is not an angel it is a poet he has no wings only a right hand covered by feathers he beats the air with his hand flies up three inches and immediately falls again

  When he has fallen all the way he kicks with his legs hangs for a moment waving his feathered hand…

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  Three Apples Fell From Heaven

  This bronze sculpture was commissioned by the family of Agavney Johnson in her memory, and presented to the Library in 1984. The work is inspired by Armenian calligraphy, and its title refers to a traditional Armenian folktale ending: “Three apples fell from heaven: one for the story teller, one for the listener and one for the whole world.”