We’re reading on land this summer.

 

Dear floaters and readers,

This is an unprecedentedly late update to inform you that the Floating Library is taking a hiatus for the summer of 2019. There is a lot going on in life! Job changes and store openings and much-needed vacations and lack of funds (lack of energy for fundraising, tbh) all contribute to keeping the Library in dry dock this season.

Our wish is that you don’t let the lack of the Floating Library stop you from floating and reading.  You don’t need us!  The boat rental is there and waiting for you already!  Any book will do, or you could drop by a couple of the fantastic shops in town who peddle in artist books and pick up a copy of something:

Just don’t forget a ziploc bag to transport your reading from shore to waves and back.

While you are paddling and reading this summer, please stay in touch. If you have hopes, dreams or ideas for the future of the Floating Library, we want to know about them. Drop a line to thefloatinglibrary@gmail.com.

Thank you for your love and understanding.

 

Books in photo above left to right in a circle:
Plant out of Place, from BRAINWASHING from PHONE TOWERS, 2019 by Sarah Nicholls; Settlement by Susy Bielak and Fred Schmalz, 2018; METEORITES by S. Brook Corfman from Double Cross Press, 2018; Rebound Restart Renew Rebuild Rejoice by Timothy Otte, 2019 from Lithic Press; This is a Church by Alex Pears, 2019 via Zebra Cat Zebra monthly subscription.

SATURDAY, AUG. 4 FLOATING LIBRARY OPEN HOURS CANCELED

Edward William Cooke, “A Dutch Poon, Running for the Port of Harlingen, Is Driven in a Heavy Squall Outside the South Pier Head,” Oil on Canvas, 1858. Image from the collection of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, MN.

We are sad to announce the cancellation of Library open hours on Saturday, August 4. The weather reports call for 100% chance of rain and strong winds this afternoon, making for soggy to dangerous conditions for reading on the water.

As Co-Captains we have a duty to keep our volunteers (and books!) safe.

We’re hoping the weather system brings it on strong today while we’re closed and leaves us with clear skies for the final day on Sunday, Aug. 5th!

 

 

Artist-in-Residence Spotlight: Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen

When I met with Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen last October to brainstorm ideas for an artist-in-residence project at the 2018 Floating Library, I walked away from our 3 hour lunch with a notebook full of ideas.  She shared memories of walking around Como Lake with her family as a kid. We talked about poetry and the problems of publishing. We talked about the complexities of contextualizing and honoring native land while making a project about immigrants and refugees. We talked in metaphor about “catch and release” as a strategy for healing. We talked about boats as vehicles of freedom, survival and life.

Over the winter months of continued conversation and as Anh-Hoa participated in the Twin Cities PBS MN Remembers Vietnam 360 Library Series, what emerged as her piece for this year’s Library is a hybrid visual art, poetry, engagement project. Waves Enfolding: A Paper Memorial invites the public to help fold a collection of 1,000 paper boats to commemorate the lives lost during the Vietnamese refugee waves of 1954 and after The War in Vietnam and South East Asia from 1975-1992.

By sitting and folding paper together, we create a representation of a person that was unaccounted for – father, mother, sister, brother – while prompting a consideration of the refugee crisis that is currently taking place on other waters in other boats.

Several boat folding workshops and discussions took place this spring, including the one pictured above at the East Side Freedom Library. During the run of the Floating Library, come fold boats or read about Vietnamese refugee journeys on Lake Phalen Beach: Sundays, July 22 & 29, 1-4 pm.

Waves Enfolding concludes on the final day of the Library with a closing reception and lake-side reading.

Sunday, August 5
2:30 – 4:00 pm – Final Boat Making & Reception at Minnesota Humanities Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, St. Paul, MN 55106

4:30 pm – Reading/Ritual at Lake Phalen beach

 

 

 

 

calling all bookish makers

The Floating Library’s inuagural collection, 2013

The 2018 Open Call for Books is Open!

Calling book artists, zinesters, bookish graphic designers, comics drawers, chapbook-penning poets, and printed matter-makers of all stripes… 

When you are a maker of multiples, extras tend to pile up after a project. Maybe you have 1 or 100 copies leftover from an ambitious edition, or maybe just 2 or 3 copies laying around, but you’re so tired of looking at them. Or perhaps you are taking advantage of the fresh energy of spring and cranking the letterpress (or riso, or xerox, or squeegee) right now, soon to be holding a new brilliant bookish creation that you want to get out into the world.

No matter your situation, the Floating Library is here to help.

Each year we’re on the water, the Library conducts an Open Call for Books to refresh the shelves and give new artists an opportunity to have their works presented at the lake. Nearly all the materials in the Library’s collection come in through the Open Call and are donated by artists. This generosity is the backbone of this project. Without artists near and far who are willing to risk sand, lake spray and sunscreen to their printed matter, we’d have thrown in the (beach) towel years ago!

Take a read through the Open Call to see what we are and aren’t looking for, and mark your calendar for the May 25 deadline to submit.

We’re excited to see your books!

 

 

Ship Ahoy! The Floating Library returns

It is National Library Week so no better time than the present to announce, finally, that the Floating Library returns this summer to Lake Phalen on the east side of St. Paul. Hooray! We’ll take up residence on the water for three weekends: July 21-22, 28-29 and August 4-5.  Mark your calendars now. 

Our return to Lake Phalen is for several reasons, foremost that it was easy and pleasant last time, and if we’ve learned anything over the course of this public art project on water experiment, it is to repeat what works. So we’re happy to be working again with St. Paul Parks and Recreation on raft and book storage. Their fleet of canoes, kayaks and paddleboats* will be ready for you as soon as it stops being winter.

We are also excited to continue our partnership with the East Side Freedom Library, who will be hosting a paper boat folding workshop with Floating Artist-in-Residence Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen on Sunday, May 20 from 1-4 pm. Stay tuned for more information on Anh-Hoa’s project.

For now, start dreaming of summer and preparing your submission for the call for books!

 

*A superior watercraft for reading while paddling, it turns out.

 

 

 

THE FINAL WEEKEND IS UPON US! LOOK AT WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR…

IMG_1230

We’ve had a fine time on the calm(ish) waters of Lake Phalen so far. It’s hard to believe there is only one weekend left* of this season’s on-water reading. We’ve been joined by hundreds of patrons and dozens of floating volunteers, we’ve paddled against some mighty winds, and luckily had only one day of epic rain during which we were smart enough to stay home.

Here are some highlights from the Captain’s Log thus far:

  • We’ve read aloud and dissolved 5 pages of Paul Ramsay’s tingFloa tingsWri
  • Jessica David’s felted The Deep Murky Green-Brown Lake has delighted nearly every patron.
  • Ditto with our trio of Prince-related books, two of which were commissioned this year.
  • Utopias of Southern California sought to relieve its drought by going for a swim.
  • We had our first ever sailboat patron.
  • A sailboat race took place on the lake as we set up shop on the 3rd weekend, dotting our view with lovely striped sails. We made friends with Jim, the motor boat driver assisting the sailors. He was impressed that one of the librarians was also a pirate, and he pulled a still-in-the-package pirate eyepatch out of his bag for Elle to wear. He also towed the Floating Library with his boat, and dropped us near a buoy.
  • Floating Librarian Elle dressed up as a pirate. Nuf said.
  • People returned their library books!
  • Many families arrived by paddle wheeler, perhaps the best watercraft for reading and the worst for steering and speed.
  • Sarah Stengle kayaked out with a handmade, waterproof Finnish harp and played “Happy Birthday” for a library patron during two afternoons of serenade.
  • A sailboat collided with the Library during the sailboat race, but the collection and the raft held fast. 
  • Another patron impressed us all by flipping his kayak not once but twice. 
  • The clouds in the sky have been astounding.
  • Our canoe escaped and it was heroically saved by our guardian poet angel, Molly Van Avery. And the next day, when this happened again, it was saved by another pair of heroic paddlers in a canoe. 
  • We welcomed a kid sitting in a canoe inside a strawberry-sprinkle donut-with-a-bite-taken-out-of-it pool floaty. 

Overall, Floating Library patrons never cease to amaze, impress, and make great conversation on the water.

Visit the 2016 photo album to witness some but not all of these incidents. Of course, the only way to really experience it is to paddle out yourself! There’s only one more weekend of boating around a lovely lake and reading artists’ books. *Make a plan now to visit during our final open hours, 1-7 pm, Saturday, August 6 and Sunday, August 7.  Boat rentals are 50% off thanks to support from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. 

Come see the dissolvable book disappear before your eyes!  Learn animal words in Hmong! Practice tying knots with our waterproof instructional manual! Discover the mathematical mysteries of a hexaflexagon!

 IMG_1218

Floating Music at this weekend’s Floating Library, July 30 & 31

floating kantele

This weekend while the sun is high in the sky and the water is cool you’ll find an additional element to your bookish experience on Lake Phalen: harp music. Of course!

This weekend only, Sarah Stengle joins us in a kayak with her kantele, a small handmade harp based on those of Finnish origin.  She has been making inventive kanteles from materials such as found furniture, wooden tools and metal. She’s played them in uncommon concert venues, such as a frozen lake during the Art Shanty Projects.

Sarah is a St. Paul-based artist (West Side!) whose laminated books have been read at the Floating Library by boaters and swimmers since our beginnings in 2013.

Paddle out between 1 and 3 pm this Saturday and Sunday to catch the music. The Floating Library is open from 1-7 pm.

Stentle_Kantele_Jorgensen15_2016Lo Res Stengle_Blue Kantele 2016LOREs

the floating library opens today! saturday, july 16, 1-7 pm

IMG_3229

Yesterday we assembled the Library’s raft shoreside at Lake Phalen and the set-up crew paddled it like champions from the boat launch down to it’s overnight resting spot at the dock.

By 1 pm today we’ll be open for business! Paddle out and read!

A few notes:

  • don’t forget sunscreen!
  • boat rental takes place at the Phalen Beach House, 1400 Phalen Blvd, St Paul, MN 55106 for your GPS.
  • the weather today looks good, but should it turn sour at any point, check the FL’s social media for real-time updates: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

See you on the water!