What’s Happening at the Library: Art, crafts by Lynn Insko on display
Art evokes memories. Everyone experiences memories, associations and flights of imagination while looking at painting or sculpture, listening to music or reading books.
People naturally associate their immediate experience with the past.
For some of us who work at the library and for many patrons who come into the library during October, the work of Lynn Insko on display in the lobby will evoke great memories, funny anecdotes and admiration of artisanship.
Insko was a wonderful man who was remarkably talented, funny, personable and wise.
Take some time to look at his work the next time you walk through the lobby. You will be astonished by the variety of objects he made: leather and metal work, woodwork, blacksmithing and toy-making.
All the objects on display show his unique wit and his devotion to precisely crafting a beautiful object.
From leather, he made belts, harnesses, a leather salmon and a Minihans saddle, considered by many to be the best of all riding saddles.
From wood he made everything from a green-giant-sized spoon to a house.
Using his metalwork and blacksmithing skills, he crafted animal and human figures, knives, candlestick holders and belt buckles.
He not only did his own work, but he also helped other local artisans finish their work. I’m wearing a beaded belt Julie (Maruskin) made for which Lynn did the leather work and while I was standing in the lobby admiring Lynn’s display, Suzanne Mesta told me how Lynn did the leather work for the beaded belts she made.
Lynn could teach you how to raise a flower or straighten your bent iron pry bar. If it can be done by hand, Lynn knew how to do it well.
I always remember sitting next to him while we listened to a state agronomist talk about grafting trees. As we did, Lynn turned to me and whispered, “That’s knowledge. This,” he tapped his forehead, “is wisdom.” After the talk, Lynn showed me how to graft with half the fuss and bother.
He doesn’t call every January now to chide us into starting our tomatoes, but we hear him.
I want to thank his wife, Judy, for letting the library show his work, and Debbie and Joe Barnes who helped her set up the display. It’s a pleasure to be able to walk out to the lobby and remember him.
Come into the library this month and take a look at the work of Lynn Insko, a great Clark County craftsman.
Classes and events for this week include:
— Monday: Happy Birthday P.G. Wodehouse, an author who like his fictional characters spread sweetness and light.
— At 2 p.m. Wednesday, Kentucky Picture Show presents a 1953 horror classic starring the inimitable Vincent Price. An associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives to become vengeful and murderous. Rated PG.
—At 7 p.m. Wednesday, reference librarian Jeff Gurnee will be burnin’ down the Engine House Pizza Pub with trivia challenges.
— At noon Thursday, Book Lunch book readers discusses “The Uninvited” by Dorothy McArdle. Two Londoners buy a house on a cliff that turns out to be haunted … but by whom and why?
-— At 10 a.m. Friday, Write Local meets to review stories about moonshiners, shopping carts, Ouessants, assassins, and Theremins. What’s on your page?
— From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Outside the Lines Coloring Group challenges autumn foliage for best hues.
You’ll never have to rake the leaves of a library book.
John Maruskin is director of adult services at the Clark County Public Library. He can be reached at john.clarkbooks@gmail.com.