Green Library art exhibit celebrates creativity of library staff

Behind the scenes of Stanford’s libraries, a dedicated staff works tirelessly to make resources and services run smoothly. From conservation units and administration to a digitization lab, these individuals and their work are often unseen by students or the larger community. 

To bridge this gap and celebrate the creativity and talent of the library staff, Stanford Libraries and the Department of Special Collections organized the “ART/WORK | Creative Pursuits of Stanford Libraries Staff” exhibit, which opened Feb. 20 in the Peterson Gallery and Munger Rotunda in the Bing Wing of Green Library. Displaying librarians’ creative work, this exhibit’s mission is to foster an environment for staff members to more fully express themselves and display their creative hobbies that may otherwise go unrecognized. The exhibit will be on display 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. every day through April 27.

Manager and designer of exhibitions Deardra Fuzzell produced and designed this exhibit with assistance from exhibits designer for Stanford Libraries’ special collections Elizabeth Fischbach. “The last time that we did a show of staff artwork was 10 years ago, so it’s been a little while, but it was so well-received, and everyone was so happy when we did it previously that I was waiting for an opportunity to reprise the show,” Fuzzell said. 

Special Collections invited current Stanford Libraries staff to submit creative work for the exhibit in the summer of 2024. Over 100 pieces were submitted and blind-reviewed, and 50 were ultimately chosen to be displayed. Creators of selected pieces were then asked to write an artistic statement about their work and what it means to them, according to Fuzzell. 

Fuzzell is inspired by the creativity of the library community across different mediums. “It’s just fascinating for me, and really — a really fun, joyful thing to go through all of these entries, engage in this process with everyone and just hopefully bring a little bit of light in people’s day,” Fuzzell said. 

In her artistic statement for her piece “Mobius Radial,” a blue and white quilt made with cotton fabric, thread and batting, associate university librarian Julie Sweetkind-Singer expressed how she uses quilting to tell stories. 

“It’s important to me to be doing work that connects me to something that women have been doing for thousands and tens of thousands of years,” Sweetkind-Singer said. Because working with thread, fabric and quilts was “seen as women’s work, men tended to ignore it, and so women were given a lot of agency in terms of what they did,” she said.

From this creative process for the exhibit, Sweetkind-Singer learned the importance of continuing to challenge yourself to improve and have fun with something you’re not an expert at, she said. “It’s important to express who we are wholly and fully in our lives as much as we can,” Sweetkind-Singer said, adding that she values creativity for exercising another part of her brain. 

Academic technology specialist for the Department of History Anne Ladyem McDivitt’s piece “Gremlin Cats,” needle felted depictions of her cats, is also displayed in the exhibit. Although McDivitt has only been needle felting for a year and a half and doesn’t consider herself an artist, McDivitt appreciated the opportunity to be included in the exhibit and its broader purpose of humanizing the library staff, she said. 

“It gives a kind of a human face, face in quotation marks,  to us as library staff because you may not necessarily interact with us often,” McDivitt said. For her exhibit, McDivitt said she hopes to spread joy to viewers. 

Sweetkind-Singer emphasized how impressed she was by her colleagues’ artistic talents and also hopes the exhibit will have a humanizing effect. 

“[A lot of people across campus] come to their jobs or go to school or do whatever they do, and yet they go home and they express themselves,” Sweetkind-Singer said. “We’ve been given the space to show ours, which feels really fortunate.”

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