Art

Embracing, engaging and curating our local creative community.

Featured Gallery

  • Mirrors and Windows
  • Mirrors and Windows Mural at Richland Library Main
  • Mirrors and Windows Mural at Richland Library Main

Mirrors & Windows

Tom Feelings, Joyce Hansen, Dinah Johnson and Tyrone Geter
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Richland Library Main

23’ x 9.5’ | Digital Reproduction, Vinyl

Books, like mirrors, help reflect what we observe and know about our world. Reading, listening, or watching a story about someone like you is a powerful experience. But books also allow us to view and understand lives that are different from our own, like a window looking onto others’ lives. To succeed as mirrors and windows, books must tell a wide range of stories—and they must include a diversity of people and worlds. After all, stories shape who we become. 

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Richland Library's galleries inspire, engage and enrich our customers, local artists and community partners through the visual arts. We believe that access to and interaction with art is essential to nurturing a growing, thriving, culturally and historically rich creative community. We a variety of flexibile, gallery spaces, the library is able to exhibit and promote local artists as well as welcome nationally recognized artists, illustrators and traveling exhibitions.  Request to Exhibit

Artist-In-Residence: 

Richland Library’s Artist-in-Residence Program aims to connect the community with local working artists and to provide creative and educational opportunities to the community in a way that supports cultural and artistic exchange. Learn More

Miles Purvis Workshop

Partnerships:

One Columbia works with Richland Library's executive leadership team, board members and community members to select proposals for art that fit with the needs of each of our library’s communities. Selected artists conduct workshops for the community related to their craft.

 

Public Art:

For each library, 1% of the construction budget is going toward public art. Inspired by our brand promises, we’re encouraging artists to serve the public good and nurture communities. One Columbia for Arts and History is helping us build your library by coordinating the selection of new pieces of public art for all of our renovations.

Ballentine Hyperbolic Crochet Wisteria Sculpture

Ballentine | Barbara Streeter

A stunning, kaleidoscope of color and energy, the Hyperbolic Crochet Wisteria Sculpture is a community driven project of knitted and crocheted yarn creating a sculpture that showcases the strength, individuality and diversity of the local community.

Ballentine Enid Williams

Ballentine | Ayako Abe-Miller


A textile/fiber installation of ephermal organza cubes where one side of every cube holds a "memory" provided by members of the Ballentine community.
 
Cooper Art

Cooper | Loren Schwerd


Arcadia is a fabric sculpture inspired by a graphite rubbing taken from the trunk of a large felled tree. The crinoline used creates shadows and patterns and sparks imagination.
Where the Wild Things Are Mural

Main | Michael Hagen

Spanning nearly 40 feet, this unique mural was produced by Michael Hagen, Mr. Sendak's stage and set designer. It is the first and only Sendak-authorized mural of his work.

Free standing wild things

Main | Michael Hagen

Maurice Sendak's stage and set designer, Michael Hagen, has brought the imaginations of thousands of children to life with these free-standing, three-dimensional Wild Things. 

Kimi Maeda Shadow Tunnel

Main | Kimi Maeda

Kimi Maeda is a Japanese-American theatre artist based in Columbia, South Carolina. She created a "shadow tunnel􀂵 that leads into the new children's storytime room. This interactive art piece enables children to create puppet shows and play with shadows.

Marius Valdes Mural

Main | Marius Valdes


Marius Valdes created a permanent art installation made from more than 5,000 hand-drawn bookmarks on a 50 x 9 foot entrance wall in the Teen Center. Many of the bookmarks were created by local community members of all ages.

Public Art

Main | Enid Williams

Staff fell in love with the work of SC artist Enid Williams. Our design team connected with Enid Williams and Milliken & Company and voila, custom flooring based on Williams' work was produced for the Main Library renovation.

North Main Public Art

North Main | Laurie Brownell McIntosh

Columbia-based artist Laurie Brownell captured the spirit of the participants' community in -panel installation composed of their deconstructed and reassembled creations.
 

Public Art at Richland Library

St. Andrews | Jarod Charzewski


The project titled The Band Shell comes from every community's basic need to meet, an intuitive human nature to create and perform. The structure is a performance space that will give the St. Andrews community a lasting sense of identity.

Jarod Charzewski Water Tower

Blythewood | Jarod Charzewski

"The Water Tower Pavilion was inspired by the Blythewood steam train water tower. This tower was a figure in the town's history and serviced the Blythewood railway industry. The pavilion nourishes the community and its culture while embracing its historic beginnings.

Local Artist Directory:

Learn more about local artists with a little help from our friends at One Columbia Arts and Culture. Select an artist below to explore their work, and search the full directory on the One Columbia website.