NORTHAMPTON — Author and illustrator Esmé Shapiro celebrated the unveiling of a new mural she designed and painted in the Youth Programming Room at Forbes Library on Tuesday, joined by several dozen children, parents, and library staff.
The mural is a scene of whimsical forest creatures painted in a cool palette with pops of red tones. The creatures — a baby porcupine playing a violin, a trio of bumblebees, a mushroom holding onto flowers, and more — are painted at a large scale to give visitors the feeling that they are all on the forest floor together.
“I loved bringing this mural to life,” Shapiro told the audience. “I mean, how many times do you get to be at the same height as an owl? Or, for some of us smaller ones, at the same height as a snail?”
Forbes Library staff put out a call for mural proposals in December.
“Art and expression are a big part of what we do here. I think a mural was just a no-brainer for that beautiful arched wall,” said Julia Cornick, social media coordinator and a children’s and young adult librarian at Forbes.
The mural committee expected 10 or 20 applications, but they received dozens, including some from non-local artists. Though Shapiro isn’t from the Pioneer Valley —she was born in California, went to school at the Rhode Island School of Design, and now lives in Catskill, New York — she has ties to the area and wrote “the most beautiful application,” Cornick said.
“I know firsthand that a young person’s relationship with their library can illuminate all of the possibilities life has to offer — and that this bridge to one’s imagination can continue through all stages of life,” Shapiro wrote in her application. “Just as I have felt supported and uplifted by the institutions in this region, I’m so excited by the potential of this mural to speak to Forbes Library’s profound purpose. It would be an honor to contribute to the cultural life of Northampton by creating a work that reflects the creativity that emanates from the town.”
When Shapiro was creating her mural design, she contacted Laurie Sanders, co-executive director of Historic Northampton to make sure that the plant, animal, and insect species she featured were local to the area. Those include Jack-in-the-pulpit berries, an ostrich fern, New England asters, and more.
Though she’s also spent time here personally, Shapiro has a number of ties to the Pioneer Valley through local museums. Art from her book “Alma and the Beast” is currently on display at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art’s exhibition “Sprites, Spells, and Splashes: Magical Beings in Picture Book Art,” and she’s hosted several readings at the museum, including as recently as last Friday, April 17. The Yiddish Book Center owns some works created by her great-great-aunt Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein, who also wrote for children.
“I’m really excited that my life is going to become way more involved with this area,” Shapiro said.
As part of the mural presentation, Shapiro read from her book “Ruthie,” a book about a fluffy dog who sees himself as a prince and decides to venture outside of his cozy “castle” — the home where he lives with his “queen,” who is actually his doting elderly owner.
After Shapiro was finished reading, children’s and young adult services librarian Sarah Johnson presented her with a surprise made by Carefree Cakery in Amherst: a funfetti cake with strawberry icing inside, decorated to look like Ruthie.
“Are you serious?” Shapiro exclaimed. “I’m gonna cry!”
After that, visitors got to enjoy the cake and do a craft activity decorating tall paper crowns like Ruthie’s while Shapiro signed copies of her books in a nearby room with decorations inspired by “The Wizard of Oz.” Inside every book, she drew an animal — in one book, an owl; in another, a sheep; and, in another, a truck with a cat in the window.
Cornick said that what she likes about Shapiro’s art is that it’s “whimsical and imaginative,” she said. “Something we were really concerned with was making the mural something that would appeal to all ages, which is a pretty tall order — 0 to 17 years old is a pretty wide range of developments.”
The committee wanted to make sure that “no one would walk in and feel like they’re at their pediatrician’s office; no one would walk in and feel like, ‘Aaah! What’s that dark creature on the wall?’”
Now that the mural is here, “Everyone’s just so happy to see it,” she said. “We’ll bring people by, like, ‘Oh, do you want to come see it?’ They’re like, ‘Wow, it’s so beautiful!’ And Esmé did a really good job picking such durable materials and paints, so it’s really going to last for a really long time and be so beautiful forever.”
