By Elizabeth Wolbrink

The winner of Miller Library’s LibraryPrize 2009 was a shadow box called “Goodnight Miller Library” by Kayla Brown.

The second, third, and fourth place awards are the painting “For the Love of Books” by Katie Selden, the sculpture “Our Family Tree” by Josh Perkins and Josh Webb, and the poem “This is Late Night” by Jorge Jaramillo.

Brown received a $50 Meijer gift card, while Selden, Perkins, Webb, and Jaramillo are all winners of $10 Meijer gift cards.

The World’s Largest LibraryPrize was held Nov. 13 – 20 at Cornerstone University’s Miller Library.

Inspiration came from many places for the paintings, poems, sculptures, and other forms of art featured in LibraryPrize.

“My artwork was based on the popular children’s book Goodnight Moon,” Brown said. “It was one of my favorite books as a kid and my mom would read it to me before I went to bed. That was my inspiration for the piece. I wanted to make it a little more at home for CU students so I made the setting almost identical to the book, but instead added a laptop with the infamous blue chord to make it a little more personal for CU campus.”

Other artists found different areas of inspiration for their pieces.

“The piece of art I worked on was a representation of a tree made out of paper Mache’ and cardboard,” said Perkins. “The piece was sitting on a box covered in colorful and chaotic colors that represent our deeper thoughts as you move up the piece it becomes more uniform and colorless. The tree itself represents our outer thoughts and emotions. [LibraryPrize] was great. I’d do it again, and I’d encourage other people to enter next time because the more artists we that enter, the better it’ll be.”

LibraryPrize was a great opportunity to show off artwork. “I really enjoyed participating. It started off small this year, but I think it will grow and bring the CU campus closer together as a unit,” Brown said.

Even students who did not enter artwork into the competition had opinions about LibraryPrize.

“LibraryPrize was a creative addition to the activities at Cornerstone University,” said freshman Kalee Stegehuis.

Eric Bradley, outreach and instructional services librarian at Miller Library, said, “LibraryPrize went well.  We were very happy with the community reaction.  There was quite a bit of excitement from students: several students came in immediately on Thursday night, November 12th when the entries were first up, and the entries caught the eyes of most students coming into the library.”

LibraryPrize was very similar to ArtPrize in that any Cornerstone University artist—from freshman to seminarian—had the opportunity to show off their work.

 The library was looking for art that incorporated the libraries’ new midnight hours and upcoming Late Night with Miller Library that will be held before finals week on December 13. Artwork ranged from drawings to paintings, and from sculptures to poetry. All type of artwork was accepted and encouraged.

The LibraryPrize winner was chosen by the Cornerstone community through a public vote via the Internet, similar to how ArtPrize did not have any formal judge or jury.

 The Library became an art gallery filled with creative works exhibited throughout the 150,000 volume library collection and offered display and lobby cases, as well as open wall space for framed displays.

Bradley said that on a Monday morning he woke up trying to think of an idea to use their display cases. He tried to think of a transition to late night at Miller Library and thought of LibraryPrize because he loved the idea of ArtPrize.

“Our staff sees LibraryPrize as a new and innovative way to engage and support the Cornerstone community. We share Eric’s vision for encouraging everyone to discover Miller Library and explore the creative spirit of the CU students,” said Library Director Fred Sweet.

Bradley said LibraryPrize “so far has been of excitement and hesitancy. Many cannot believe that we are willing to open our doors up to such an experiment, fearing a stereotypical librarian will strike down any creative work that comes its way. This is exactly why this project is needed now.”