Lobby Installations

Since 2017, local artist Adriane Binky Donley has dreamed up breathtaking installations for the library lobby. Our community has benefited from her wonderful work—every time people walk through the front door and are greeted by thousands of hand-painted butterflies soaring from the ceiling or dazzling red umbrellas during spring rains or gigantic delicate snowflakes.

Her latest installation, “Space! The Milky Way, Two Ways,” was on view during the Boneyard Arts Festival, National Library Week, and the 2024 Read for the Stars! Summer Reading Challenge.

Space! The Milky Way, Two Ways

April–August, 2024

“My love of space started when I was in elementary school in Tampa, Florida. I rode my bike to school every day, and it wasn’t unusual for me to see the space shuttle take off during my brief ride. I also felt and heard the sonic boom on those early mornings. People flying to space was, to me, as normal as people flying across the country in an airplane. Florida has some wonderfully clear night skies, and I have many memories of laying on my driveway enjoying all the sparkle.

The beauty of outer space is awesome, in every sense of the word. It is stunning, dazzling, exciting, dramatic, and inspiring. It is glittering and mysterious. It embodies history, legend, and the future. It has the power to make us feel so small and at the same time part of something very big. Our Milky Way is a small part of this vast landscape—and I have tried to capture its beauty from two different points of view.

As teacher, mother, wife, and NASA astronaut, Christa McAuliffe (1948–1986), told us, ’Space is for everybody. It’s not just for a few people in science or math, or for a select group of astronauts. That’s our new frontier out there, and it’s everybody’s business to know about space.’ ”

—Adriane Binky Donley

Made possible with support from the Library Friends and Library Foundation.