You may know that Jessamine County Public Library’s creative space has expanded. What you may still want to discover is what that means for you and how you can use that space. We spoke with Community Connections Librarian Les Lehman to get all the details.
What’s most exciting about the Creative Space?
The library is not just paying homage to creativity with this space. We are going beyond that to offer new tools and an inspirational place to spend hours being creative and making things. I love the fact that there is a collaborative aspect to this space. With our small group classes, you get to see how people go through the same process in such different ways.
Tell me more about you. What kind of crafts do you pursue?
I love to cook, and I was a cake decorator for a long time, and I made some crazy cakes. I love to make clothing and costumes, especially large-scale costume builds where you do some sort of special effects and some wild, you know, walk on stilts and the whole shebang.
My heart belongs to metalsmithing, where I spent four years of my undergraduate degree. And honestly, if you name a material or a crafting process that is done with your hands, I’ll probably give it a go.
And my ultimate craft, of course, is the art of being a librarian.
How do you get inspired?
My creative process is usually initiated just by seeing something out in the world that excites me. A lot of times, these things are plants or animals.
Sometimes it’s designs that other people have created that spur me to think, “Oh, what if I change this and this and this? Then I can do this!”
Sometimes I’m inspired just by the idea of wanting to go through a certain process. So, some action appeals to me, like crochet or felting–the actual tactile experience of doing the work excites me and inspires me.
When did you realize you loved creating things?
I was probably four years old, and when I was a kid, I used to run free around a farm for most of the hours of my day. Whether it was walnuts or bits of grass or rocks, I would collect them and put them in a little box. And then I would try to figure out ways to put them together and create things out of them.
I have an affinity for creating creatures, which I passed on to my daughter. From an early age, she kept a giant journal of fantastic creatures. She gave them these fancy names and then she would have a scientific name for them. And I remember just feeling like, wow, who knew that you could inherit such a strange, creative spark.
Feeling inspired yet? Learn More about the Creative Space