Enter Sheffield’s Central Library and Graves Art Gallery and, just before the entrance to the Lending Library, stop and look up. What you see above you is Blue Bird by Japanese-born, Sheffield-based textile artist Seiko Kinoshita. Made from paper yarn which is hand-dyed and woven, this wonderful work is said to be inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1908 play, The Blue Bird, about the search for happiness.
Here is Seiko Kinoshita’s website, where you can read about what inspires her and how she works.
Loved this. Great writing and fine pics. Nice contrast with the longer reading journey material. Could there be something to say about the excellent quote behind the Blue Bird from Jorge Luis Borges about paradise being a library?
The photos were quite difficult. I had to lean out over the stairwell. I wanted to take one photo looking straight up but this would have meant lying on the floor in front of the lending library entrance. I was afraid of borrowers falling over me and librarians worrying that I was ill.
The Borges quote in full is: ‘I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.’ I’m not a great fan of Borges but I agree with this and have always imagined Paradise as a place for effortlessly catching up with my To Be Read pile. My current research about the history of public libraries in England has been fascinating for the links to the great reforming and civilising Acts of Parliament on public health, education, culture etc following the 1832 Reform Act – and of course sad to contemplate in the light of 21st century austerity!
I’d have been more worried about the fall than being fallen over! Fair comment about Borges. He isn’t my cup of tea either. I wonder how many authors have, like him, been librarians at some point? Fertile ground or too many distractions?