Art project honors new horizons library books offer

Open a book, and the world opens before you, says
artist Celeste Sotola.

Sotola, who lives in Basin, says, “The library is
a place of education, inspiration, contemplation and
meditation. A nation shaper. Trees turned into
paper enclose worlds of words, pictures and
ideas.

Things enclosed become open. Distances
disappear; in a moment we can go from
Africa to the Moon. Time unfolds…”

Story & photos by Jan Anderson, Courier editor

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Three-year-old Grace Nolte would probably
not put it quite like that, but she clearly
has the concept planted somewhere in her
mind.

“I like this one,” she says, unstacking a
huge pile of books she has carried – precariously
– across the Boulder Community Library.
Both the artist and the preschooler were at
the library last week to observe the donation of a
new piece of art to the library, part of a much larger
project that Sotola is carrying out all across the state –
and into the nation’s White House.

It all started with one tree in Saul Haggerty Gulch, says Sotola.

Her partner, Earl Martin, had spotted the tree in the forest.

Dying,
it would make perfect firewood, thought Martin.
Sotola had other plans.
For her, the bark of the dead standing Douglas Fir tree was an
inspiration. It would provide the perfect covering for art works
with great symbolism, she decided.

What Martin thought would be one quick swoop for firewood
turned into a prolonged task. “It was about three days of logging
on this one tree,” he recalls with a laugh.

When the cutting was done, Sotola had the beginnings of her
“American Nature Book Series.” http://sotolaart.com/
After taking photographs of natural places, Sotola paints scenes
from the photos inside sections of log and creates a diorama inside.

“Each diorama is created inside a log, where a world is captured
and recorded,” she explains. Covered in bark from the Saul
Haggerty tree, the diorama “becomes an icon, symbolizing the
birthplace of the book,” she adds.

It also pays honor to the 42 Montana libraries that will each
receive a unique diorama, designed around the local terrain, says
Sotola. Thus far, she has completed about eight of the dioramas,
for places including Clancy, Whitehall, Helena, and libraries at
the state prison and at the Montana State Hospital in Warm
Springs. Libraries in nearly every corner of the state, from Arlee
to Wibaux, have asked to be recipients.

One diorama also resides in the Montana Governor’s Mansion,
and Sotola says she has also been invited – via a surprising
phone call from the White House to her small abode in Basin –
to contribute one to Laura Bush that the First Lady can donate to
a library of her choice.

Funding for the project has come from the Montana Arts Council,
the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council
(where Sotola lived before coming to Jefferson County), the
Grace Nolte, 3, carries her
treasure trove of library books.

Montana Wood Products Association, and the Montana Logging
Association.
American libraries offer people a wealth of opportunities, says the artist. “The library has nourished me
for years, feeding a yearning to discover the person I wanted to become,” she explains. The daughter of a
military man, Sotola moved frequently
during her childhood, often
finding herself in places that
did not offer much in the way of
museums and galleries, she remembers.

But the library was always
near, ready to expand her horizons,
she says.
“’The American Nature Book
Series’ was created to thank all libraries
for giving to our nation’s
people the opportunity to open any
door we choose to pass through,”
says the artist.

“A library is a place for growing
the mind,” she concludes. “The
secret in the log is…a library can
change a life.”
Somehow, three-year-old
Grace Nolte already knows that.