For the second year in a row, artist
Sarah Peters has launched her singular
Floating Library on Cedar Lake in Minneapolis. Patrons need to arrive via flotation device, kayak, canoe or paddleboard. But, yes, you can check out the books--many of which are encased in waterproof wrappers. Or you can enjoy reading them on right there, on the raft, on the water.
After putting out a call for books, Peters accumulated her library. The Floating Library is a wooden raft, eight feet square, stocked with about 80 titles--mostly handmade artist books. Peters has four drop-off boxes on land, for those who don't want to paddle out again to return their books.
Peters is a book-maker herself and teaches at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. She also works with Northern Spark and participates in the Art Shanty project every winter. Describing the impetus behind the Floating Library, she told the
Star Tribune that, “Art books are not a widely known art form. And so there’s an element of delight and surprise."
"First of all, canoeing along and coming across a library. And then having it stocked with books that are totally unique. It’s like this double whammy of inventiveness. It can expand people’s ideas of what art is."