Communications Department - (360) 943-5001 - Fax 586-6838 - 415 Airdustrial Way SW - Olympia, WA 98501
Reference & Information line: 704-INFO in Olympia area or toll-free 1-800-562-6022. 
TRL Web site: http://www.timberland.lib.wa.us  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contacts: Leanne Ingle, lingle@timberland.lib.wa.us; 360-704-4508; Victoria Rexford, North Mason Timberland Library Community Librarian, 360-275-3232.

The North Mason Timberland Library will have an open house for the public from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, March 22 to celebrate a new artwork by Oregon artists Carol Chapel and Marilyn Reaves. The work is a mural composed of hand-lettered lines from a poem by Belfair library pioneer, Dorothy Harper, and paintings inspired by local wildlife. The event coincides with the fifth anniversary of Belfair’s library building.

Festivities include light refreshments and a reception to offer area residents a chance to visit with the artists and the poet. The mural was made possible by the Friends of the North Mason Timberland Library who are also sponsoring the open house. A framed piece with Harper’s picture, brief biography and complete poem will also be shown.

The artistic process that Chapel and Reaves have completed for the enjoyment of the community is a detailed one. After lines of poetry were selected, calligraphy was chosen as the letter-style most suitable to the message. The artists visited the site—the library’s meeting room—to determine appropriate letter size. Then illustration styles and colors were selected collaboratively. The artists made paper patterns with small holes for transferring a faint outline of the calligraphy and illustrations that they followed while painting. Chapel and Reaves will bring examples and handouts about the process for people to see during the reception.

Carol Chapel studied art at Wichita University in Wichita, Kansas. She has exhibited paintings and drawings throughout the U.S. For the past 25 years, she has owned and operated Watermark Signs in Corvallis, Oregon. She specializes in logo development, hand lettering, and signs of sandblasted wood, sandblasted glass and gold leaf.

Marilyn Reaves received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Visual Design from the University of Oregon. Since 1990 she has been a Visiting Assistant Professor in the University of Oregon Art Department, teaching classes in design, letterform, drawing, and watercolor. Reaves’ special areas of interest and expertise are brush lettering and watercolor painting. She has worked for many years as a freelance designer and lettering artist, and is coauthor of a textbook, Brush Lettering (Design Press). She has taught numerous workshops in calligraphy and design throughout the U.S. and Canada and has been on the faculty of several International Calligraphy Conferences. Her work has been exhibited in various juried and invitational shows.

Belfair library pioneer and poet Dorothy Newkirk Harper was born in Bremerton in 1925. She went to school in Belfair and graduated from South Kitsap Union High School in 1941. She received her Pharmacy degree in 1947 from the University of Washington’s School of Pharmacy. In 1950 she opened the first drug store in Belfair. The Mason-Thurston library group asked her to open a branch of the library in her store. This was Belfair’s first community library, which eventually became the North Mason Timberland Library. It was from the joy that Dorothy found in books that she wrote the poem, "The Gates to Adventure," in 1988. These are the lines from the poem that have been used in the mural:

Once upon a time,
A mystical, magical phrase,
Opened the gates to adventure,
Where we could be lost for days.
Each page we turned,
In the books that we read
Pleased us with marvels
As we soared in the clouds of our minds.

The North Mason Timberland Library is located at 23081 NE State Route 3, Belfair. For more information, people may call the library at (360) 275-3232.

Timberland Regional Library serves Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, and Thurston counties at 27 community libraries and 6 school-based cooperative library centers. Mason County residents can telephone Timberland’s Central Reference Service librarians for information on any subject at 1-800-562-6022. From Shelton: 704-INFO (704-4636). Or they can "Ask a Librarian" online at http://www.timberland.lib.wa.us/asklib.htm. Anyone needing special accommodations to participate in a library’s program may contact the library 4 days in advance.

Revised 03/07/03