Thank You, Wells Fargo

Thank you, Wells Fargo for the recent $1,000 donation to the Friends of Smyrna Library. The picture below shows a selection of fantastic math books we purchased with this donation. Books will be added to the adult, young adult and children's collection. Special recognition goes to Dean Price of the Atlanta Road Wells Fargo for nominating the Friends of Smyrna Library for this donation.

FIRST SUNDAY LECTURE: The Dixie Highway in Georgia: A Short Trip Down a Long History

Today’s guest speaker was Sandy Lawrence from the Georgia Department of Transportation. She presented a detailed history of the Dixie Highway.

From peaches, pecans and bedspreads to attractions, motels and restaurants, the Dixie Highway allowed travelers to experience southern hospitality and helped shape Georgia’s early twentieth century history. The Dixie Highway began in 1915 as a way to get northern automobile tourists to Miami. The combined divisions of the highway extend almost 4,000 miles from Michigan through Florida, including Georgia which had 1,500 miles of the Highway at its peak in 1926. Georgia Department of Transportation’s Sandy Lawrence reflected on the road that started it all.

Biography:

Sandy Lawrence has an M.A. in Historic Preservation from the University of Georgia and is currently the Cultural Resources Section Manager for the Office of Environmental Services at the Georgia Department of Transportation in Atlanta, Georgia. In this role, she supports the archaeology and history teams at the Department in the performance of their responsibilities under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and the Georgia Environmental Policy Act.

The First Sunday Lecture series is sponsored by the Friends of Smyrna Library and Smyrna Library.

Photography by Myrtie Cope Opens at Smyrna Public Library Art Gallery

The October/November art gallery exhibit for 2016 has opened - Photography by Myrtie Cope.  Ms. Cope’s exhibit is on display until January 2. The art gallery is located on the 2nd floor of the Smyrna Library. The art gallery exhibits are sponsored by the Friends of Smyrna Library.

Artist Statement:

Myrtie Cope is a fine art photographer in Atlanta with a focus on architecture, nature and quilting. After careers in the office furniture industry and as a retail fabric store owner, she took the leap to turn her love of photography into a career opportunity. She spent five intensive months studying photography at Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Missoula, Montana. While there she explored the beautiful photography opportunities in Western Montana, Idaho, and Washington. Back in Atlanta, her focus has turned to architecture including churches and cemeteries, fine art, and nature. Another aspect of her photography includes the love of beautiful quilts photographed in unique places for clients and friends.

She is a graduate of Florida State University and Rocky Mountain School of Photography.

Clients include Wilma Lofts, Missoula, MT; Hodges, Ward, Elliott, Atlanta, GA; Northside Drive Baptist Church; Bass Hair Salon; Pursley, Lowery, Meeks LLP; Working Buildings, LLC; Table One Dinners; CThree Group; Jean Ann Quilts; and Giacomo-Schleicher Law Firm

Juried Exhibits and Awards include: Two Views - Joint Exhibit at UUC Atlanta 2009; Slow Exposures 2010; Trees Atlanta 2010 - My Favorite Tree - Honorable Mention; Crossroads at Jill Celeste Gallery, 2010; Southeastern Flower Show 2011 All Things Musical - Third Place; Okefenokee - Joint Exhibit at Judie Jacobs Gallery 2011; Women in Focus XVII 2010; Women in Focus XVIII & XIX at Mason-Murer Gallery, juried by Brett Abbott; WIF XX at Mason-Murer Gallery, 2013, juried by Jane Jackson; WIF Portfolio Show at Seen Gallery juried by Jerry Cullom, 2013; Two landscapes selected by Georgia Council for the Arts The Art of Georgia exhibit to hang in Georgia State Capitol and selected as cover for Governor's Budget Report, 2013; Two landscapes selected for Picturing Georgia exhibit at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport International Concourse, 2013; Architectural photos published in SouthXSoutheast Photo Magazine, January/February 2014; Northeast Atlanta Georgia Nature Photography Association, 2nd Place in Wildlife and Norcross Cultural Arts Award; Johns Creek Summer Serendipity Art Show Sponsor's Award; Slow Exposures 2014; Women in Focus XXI, 2014, juried by Fay Gold; GNPA Native Animals of the Southeast Exhibit at Fernbank Science Center; WIF Juried Exhibit at Art Institute of Atlanta - Decatur.

Custom Folded Books by Cynthia Elliott Opens at Smyrna Public Library Display Gallery

The September/October display gallery exhibit for 2016 has opened - Custom Folded Books by Cynthia Elliott.  Ms. Elliot’s exhibit is on display until October 31. The display gallery is located on the 2nd floor of the Smyrna Library. The display gallery exhibits are sponsored by the Friends of Smyrna Library.

Artist Statement:

As a fine artist, artisan and mother of 4, I want to leave a creative legacy for my children while being an entrepreneurial role model. I produce decorative art that doesn't impact the environment. The books we use are upcycled, unless otherwise requested, to create visual works of art that enhance the timelessness of the written word.

Adult Fiction Pop-Up Sale

Adult fiction in hardback and paperback for sale this week in the Smyrna Library atrium. Everything is just 50 cents each.

Thank you, Croy Engineering

Thank you, Croy Engineering, for underwriting the purchase of classroom sets of blocks needed to launch "Block Party"! 

The next party is on Tuesday, Sept 20 at 10:30am.

First Sunday Lecture: Poisonous Fruits of Political Corruption: The Infamous Yazoo Land Fraud and Its Impact on Georgia, The South, and the Nation, 1795-1848

Yesterday’s First Sunday Lecture guest speaker was Dr. George Lamplugh.   He spoke on the Yazoo Land Fraud and how it dominated the political culture of Georgia in the early 19th century.

The Yazoo Land Fraud of 1795, one of the most significant events in the post-Revolutionary history of Georgia and the United States, was overturned by Georgia’s first political “boss,” James Jackson, in 1796. Six years later, Jackson and his allies transferred the Yazoo lands (roughly, present-day Alabama and Mississippi) to the national government for $1.25 million.  To Georgians, though, the key provision of this Compact of 1802 was the national government’s promise to extinguish as quickly as possible all remaining land claims of Native American peoples (Creeks and Cherokees) within the boundaries of Georgia, when that could be done “peaceably” and “on reasonable terms.” 

Like the proverbial pebble thrown into still water, the consequences of the Great Land Fraud rippled out over more than a generation, helping to divide the nation’s dominant political party; pave the way for Indian removal in the 1820s and 1830s; create an agricultural “Black Belt” from Georgia through the new states of Alabama and Mississippi; and establish a theory of “state rights” as a supposedly “legitimate” response to the overweening power of the national government, which underlay many of the incidents on the long “road to the Civil War” between 1848 and 1861.

The First Sunday Lecture Series is sponsored by the Friends of Smyrna Library.