Winhall Memorial Library invites you to create a piece of art that relates to or illustrates an aspect of the book Little Red House, a novel by local author Liv Andersson. The setting is Shelburne, Vermont and the fictional town of Nihla, New Mexico.
Pieces will be exhibited at the library on Lower Taylor Hill Road, Bondville, VT during June and July 2023, with an opening reception to meet the author and artists.
Artist may choose to loan their work, sell their work and donate a portion of the proceeds to the library, or sell their work and donate 100% of the proceeds to the library.
Artists of any age or ability may participate. You may also loan or sell a piece by another artist from your collection if it relates to or illustrates an aspect of the book. Works should be to the library prior to the exhibit construction May 30th.
Haven’t read the book?
Draw from either selection below
Click HERE for the submission form
Vermont setting:
I lit up, took a drag, and stared off into the distance. The house loomed from the top of the hill, it’s white Victorian facade glaring down on Lake Champlain. A strong breeze blew the cigarette smoke toward the house, and I watched it dissipate into the cool air. Even though it was April, small mounds of snow and ice still dotted the ground in the wooded areas, and I pulled my fleece tightly around me, suddenly chilled. From here, I could see the lake through the trees. It would have been a perfect vista—the choppy blue waters, the majestic Adirondack mountains in the distance, their peaks snow-covered, but I could feel Eve’s presence like a malignancy that couldn’t be excised….
….I slid back into the car.Dave drove through the gate and up toward the house. I rolled down the window. There were few things I missed about Eve’s house, but I loved the smells and sounds of the lake. Nature was waking up, and I could already hear the frogs and birds whose calls would get louder as the day melded into night.
Dave held the door for me as I climbed out of the car. I walked slowly across the sprawling porch to the house’s French-doored entrance. From there, I could see the soft peaks of the Green Mountains and the rugged White Mountains of New Hampshire beyond. I understood why Eve stayed here. I didn’t understand why she chose never to leave.
A seagull called out from the shoreline, and I watched it fly overhead. The breeze had kicked up the waves, and the lake’s surface was angry and white-capped. As a kid, I’d waited for Champ, the mystical creature that was said to live in the lake much like the Loch Ness Monster haunted the waters of Scotland. Champ never showed.
The only monster I’d known was my mother.
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New Mexico setting:
It took me another twenty minutes of driving to find Mad Dog Road. It was less of a residential street and more of an afterthought. Only three houses sat along the dusty stretch. The first two huddled close together, bright-blue-doors, rectangular adobe twins fighting off the encroaching desert. Farther down the road, a handful of short, twisted trees were interspersed by low shrubs and cacti. Mountains rose up majestically in the far distance, but the land here was flat, flat, flat. A chain link fence marked property lines.
It wasn’t hard to spot the home Eve had bequeathed to me. It stood alone at the end of the road, a good mile from the blue-doored twins. A low-pitched roof capped a tiny red rectangle; the only bits of folly were the white picket design below the roofline and the black framing around the door. Two ancient metal chairs sat on a concrete slab out front, next to a wheel barrow filled with crushed Coke cans.
I killed the engine and looked around. Behind the house sat another building, this one smaller, flat-roofed, and also red. An empty chicken coop perched next to a small raised-bed garden. The ground for miles was dirt, brown and barren, but directly around the house I saw green. Green shrubs, green potted plants, green trees. Interspersed within the green were beautiful pieces of furniture: a small round bistro table fashioned from tiger maple, a backless bench, what looked like a low chair carved from wood and padded with a red cushion. It was as though someone was fighting nature and winning one small victory at a time. Yet there was something distinctly off-putting about the property. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
Winhall Memorial Library 