Bookmarkable
Convenience Delivered by Couriers
You’re busy! We get it. You don’t have time to drive to De Soto for a book if you live in Leawood. You can’t easily get up to Corinth for that DVD if you live in Gardner. No worries! Our Library Couriers are on it Johnson County Library’s Courier drivers provide timely and reliable service. So much so that we may sometimes take for granted the measures needed to ensure that your holds are handled and bundles of bookmarks are delivered on time.
They are behind the wheel before the crack of dawn each day picking up magazines and newspapers from the post office. They’re transporting whatever you just put a hold on to your favorite location. They’re ensuring that the Youth Services librarian gets her storytime kit. The Library Couriers have at some point carried, transported and delivered – with a smile – items related to every single area of our functioning. JCL simply could not provide the very popular services we do without their timely and strenuous efforts.
During the past year, the Courier team has designed and conducted strategic experiments to analyze fleet efficiency and refine their services where necessary and appropriate. They have each rotated driving all of the daily routes, which total hundreds of miles to each of our 14 locations. The insights gleaned from their efforts will help keep our Library running smoothly.
Meanwhile the Couriers are on their appointed rounds, lifting tubs, carting books, hoisting mail bins and delivering the mail. Look for them in our colorful courier trucks, and give them a wave. They deserve your thanks!
A Special Jocohistory Halloween Slideshow!
Halloween costumes are always so much fun! The creativity, the jokes, the craft of it all. Year after year, Johnson County folks have dressed up for Halloween. See over 60 years of costumes! Which is your favorite? Discover the story behind these images and details at jocohistory.org It's your place for Johnson County, Kansas History!
Music Monday: Danielle Hennerberg
Overland Park, Kansas, resident Danielle Hennerberg is a musician, composer and sound engineer whose love for jazz runs deep. Her music turns elements of jazz, rock and R&B into a musical expression that's entirely her own. In this interview, Hennerberg describes how jazz continues to inform her work, especially the works of Herbie Hancock and Clifford Brown, as well as how she's learned to overcome creative blocks by listening. Enjoy!
*
MakerSpace Closed Tuesday, Oct. 30
rack • et 1
- a loud noise or clamor, esp. of a disturbing or confusing kind; din; uproar.
- social excitement, gaiety, or dissipation.
If you've been in the MakerSpace, you know that all that machinery - and human enthusiasm! - can create quite a racket (we prefer definition #2). On Oct 30, we'll be installing new acoustical panels similar to those pictured to dampen sound waves bouncing around the MakerSpace. The MakerSpace will be closed all day, Oct 30, for this installation.
Best of elementia!
We are proud to have just released our 15th issue of elementia, the library's teen literary magazine! Since 2005, we have published over 700 teen authors and artists from around the Kansas City metro area and around the world. And it is time to celebrate that accomplishment and look back at the magazine's humble roots.
So this Fall, we will release a Best-of special edition of the magazine. Over the summer, our teen editors will be looking at the past 13 years of writing and art and selecting the best of each issue! Follow elementia on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with the project and stay tuned for reception for this very special issue.
JoCoHistory: the Shawnee Indian Cemetery
It might be hard to spot – plenty of local residents may not even realize it exists – but nestled in an unassuming Shawnee neighborhood is a significant piece of Johnson County history. The Shawnee Indian cemetery, located near 59th and Nieman, houses the remains of a few dozen members of the Shawnee Indian Tribe – some of Shawnee’s earliest founders. The cemetery is small, easily mistaken for a backyard or vacant lot, but its story tells us much about the county’s origins and the people who made it what it is today.
Head on over to JoCoHistory to read more »
Now Showing at Leawood: Alexandra Ames
Alexandra Ames describes herself as an artistic “jack of all trades.” Her art draws upon elements of art nouveau, science fiction/fantasy art, music and the natural world. Much of her work offers vibrant depictions of various animals in their natural states. While she is a gifted painter, sculptor, graphic designer, animator, and a creator of video game art and assets, her real passion is for writing and illustrating.
*
Introduce yourself and describe your work and the media/genre you work in.
My name is Alexandra Ames. I have been creating, writing and drawing for my entire life. I am a writer, illustrator, sculptor, animator and graphic designer. I write fantasy children's stories and Science Fiction and Fantasy novels. The majority of my paintings and illustrations are acrylic on canvas or India ink and gouache on paper. I create sculptures out of Super Sculpey and other mediums. I am always trying to learn new or more efficient ways to create things.
Talk about the work that will be on view. What would you like people to know about it?
The work that is on view is all acrylic on canvas. They are all stylized animal or nature paintings. This collection is a compilation of a lot of experimentation, frustration, deep thoughts, intuition and fun.
What’s the most challenging thing about your creative process?
The most challenging thing about my creative process is knowing when I'm finished and not pushing things so far that I ruin it.
Who are the other artists you look to for inspiration? And what about their work do you like?
I find inspiration everywhere with other artists in all mediums and genres, but the artist that I have been inspired by my whole life are Alphonse Mucha and Frank Frazetta.
*
Alexandra's book and music recommendations:
Books:
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
The Firebird by Mercedes Lackey
Music:
Author Wilma Yeo and her legacy
You may have seen a statue we have at Corinth of a young girl reading to a young boy. The girl in the statue is author Wilma Yeo. Over the past weekend we had a special visit - Wilma's great-granddaughters came for a visit, and we snapped this photo of them by the statue of Wilma!
Now Showing at Shawnee: Glyneisha Johnson
Glyneisha Johnson is a recent graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute’s Painting department. She is also a recipient of Charlotte Street Foundation’s 2017-2018 studio residency program in Kansas City, Missouri. She has exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions in Kansas City, including Undergrads Underground at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center and The Writer's Place. Through collage, painting, and drawing, Glyneisha Johnson’s work echoes nodes of black culture and her experience of being raised in the South. The work also acknowledges the importance of Black domestic spaces within a society that often overlooks these spaces and the people who inhabit them. She uses the language of collage as a metaphor to describe the dislocated, collaged nature of black history due to colonialism.
*
Talk about the work that will be on view. What would you like people to know about it?
The work on view is a photoshoot of a black couple that follows the chronology of a breakup in relation to a personal breakup of mine. The positions of the figures, the curation of the home and the couple’s expression outline one emotion before, during, or following a separation.
What’s the most challenging thing about your creative process?
The most challenging thing about my creative process is finishing work to meet the demand of exhibiting or selling. My artistic practice has really turned into meticulous mark making. The process for me is very ritualistic and sometimes removing myself from that process can be hard.
Who are the other artists you look to for inspiration? And what about their works do you like?
I have always admired artists Romare Bearden and Kerry James Marshall. In a lot of ways, I actually look toward them as father figures. Bearden’s use of colorful collage that is set during the Harlem Renaissance really speaks to the use of collage as a metaphor to describe black culture. My collages actually started by recreating and looking really closely at Bearden’s work through different materials. Marshalls black and white interiors with figures really helped me think about representation through the abstract in my work.
*
5-10 books, music and/or movies that have inspired you:
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins
Everything is Love by the Carters
Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash
