The Pollard Memorial Foundation Presents - Linda Greenlaw - Thursday April 28, 2011, 6:00PM

Linda Greenlaw, renowned author and fisherman and America's only female swordfishing captain, is author of three New York Times bestselling books about life as a commercial fisherman: The Hungry Ocean (1999), The Lobster Chronicles (2002), and All Fishermen Are Liars (2004). Linda is featured in the hit Discovery Channel series Swords: Life on the Line. Greenlaw's latest book Seaworthy: A Swordfish Boat Captain Returns to the Sea is a chronicle of her return to swordfishing after ten years as a lobsterman and marks her return to non-fiction and high-seas adventure. Greenlaw first came to the public's attention in Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, where Junger called her "one of the best captains on the entire east coast." She’s been featured on Good Morning America, Today, CBS Sunday Morning, The Martha Stewart Show and National Public Radio. She lives on Isle au Haut, Maine. Donations for this event are $40 per person. Proceeds from the event will support library programs.

The Author Night with Linda Greenlaw will take place in our beautiful 2nd floor Reference area, also known as, Memorial Hall. 

In advance of the event we've made it easy for you to read your favorite Linda Greenlaw book—check out our display on the 1st floor of the library.

The Pollard Memorial Library Foundation was established in 1994 as an independent financial resource to support the programs, activities, collection, and services of Lowell’s public library. For more information about the Foundation please visit www.pollardml.org/foundation

So please, come down on April 28th at 6:00PM to support your library and meet, Linda Greenlaw. There will be a book signing, and wine and Hors d’oeuvres and most importantly an opportunity for you to catch an evening of great conversation!

Stenciling Restoration at the Library

Good news abounds. With the temperatures in the 50's it's beginning to feel like this winter is finally over. It's Friday afternoon. What could be better?

Well, here's a heartwarming story about a beautiful restoration project on the handstenciled wall trim in the southeast corner our Memorial Hall Reference Room on the Second Floor of the Library. This project was recently completed by our very own, multi-talented reference librarian, Monica McDermott. You should come down and check it out...she's really done an amazing job matching the paint color and brushwork. Below are some pictures and a short essay by Monica about the history of the stenciling and the restoration process:

The Reference Room wall restoration, 2011

by Monica McDermott

The room that is now the Reference Room was originally Memorial Hall, an assembly hall with carved oak panelled walls. It was destroyed by a fire in 1915 and restored with decorative stenciling and the Civil War paintings by Paul Phillipoteaux. During the 1960s and 1970s the room was used as office space by the Lowell School Department and the stenciling was painted over a drab light green. This layer of paint was removed in the 1980s when Memorial Hall was used again as an assembly room.

In 2010 some work was done to repair a water damaged wall in the Reference Room. The plaster repaired the wall but erased some of the decorative stenciling. Restoring this small corner area gave me a true appreciation of what an incredible task stenciling the entire room must have been.

These photographs show the stages of painting and stenciling, and trying to get 2011 to match 1915.

This is what the wall looked like after the work had been done to mitigate the water damage. As you can see the fresh coat of plaster was rather unsightly.



The first step was to match and fill in the green paint of wall behind the stenciled stripe itself.

Next step was to match and paint in the brown that backs the entire stenciled stripe.



Next up was to match and fill in the two paralell green stripes that inset the stencil.



And finally to re-hand-stencil the gold and green leafwork pattern of the inside of the stencil.

A book I found very helpful for this project, The Complete Stenciling Handbook, by Sandra Buckingham, is one of many books on stencil work in the Pollard Memorial Library collection.

For more information on the history of the Pollard Memorial Library go to www.pollardml.org/libhistory