Author: 
We were given the task to go into the library and draw what interested us, to sit in some locations and draw what caught our eye.
In keeping with last weeks theme of misunderstanding the tasks presented to me, I once again set off into the library with a different image in mind than was perhaps desired. I went down to the ground floor and sat on a sofa toward the back, I found very little here that interested me, but still, did a few drawings nonetheless, awful though they were.
I moved into the newer, pristinely white extension on the bottom floor and sat by the window, people started to pass me by and as they did they looked in at me, looking out at them. For a brief moment we were interacting and then they went on their way to live their lives, meanwhile I began to draw them as best I could from memory.
When I first took a seat, there were three people, attempting to assemble some sort of gazebo, the two men quickly went inside whilst the woman set up the rest of the display, she caught my eye especially because sat near to me were two people, both discussing this woman, the woman at the table seemed to speak of her as though they knew each other, as did the man, however they seemed to do this with everyone that passed, which meant they were extremely social, or were playing a game in which they make up scandalous stories for everyone who passes, as many of the stories involved drug habits, drinking problems, love affairs and sordid threesomes.
Regardless of the yarn these two were spinning of this woman’s elicit affairs with several men, as well as her tendencies to drink too much on the weekend, she interested me, she had long flowing hair and a tight fitted jacket that made her look important, as though she may have meetings to attend later today. Soon I began (just as the couple a table away were doing) creating a life and a story for this nameless woman, whom I have now named Jessica.
Jessica struck me as the sort of woman who was confident, yet humble about her own abilities and assets, but would not allow others to make her feel like less, she struck me as the sort of woman who rarely asks for help with anything, which although admirable, is one of her weaknesses, as it means she can struggle for some time when the problem could easily be resolved with assistance. She strikes me as an optimist, with a happy-go-lucky outlook on life, but despite her outgoing charisma, she’s still an introvert and likes to stay in on weekends. She’s probably very tidy, and organises things by colour or letter, or sometimes both. Jessica also plays the piano to a reasonable degree, but doesn’t always enjoy it, as she feels inadequate about her ability to improve in this particular area, feeling as though the practice is not paying off. She’s private but not easily embarrassed, she has not spoken of either gender in too much detail to suggest anything either way, and with no known romantic history at university, her sexuality is a complete mystery to those who do not ask. She is scared of heights, likes mango juice and prefers cats to dogs.
It wasn’t long before I was getting carried away with myself about who Jessica was to me, so much so that I hadn’t really noticed that she had actually left the site of the gazebo. Soon after, a woman passed by who resembled what can only be described as a female version of BBC’s Sherlock, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. The hair, the coat, even the scarf made her look the spiting image of that character, genders reversed of course.
Next to come along was a somewhat confused Asian woman, wearing a camel coloured coat with a fluffy white hood, she had large glasses with square frames and carried a white and cream satchel, what caught me eye about her was that she walked past the building, then stopped suddenly, standing very close to the large window next to which I was sat, she stared in, as though she had not seen this part of the building before, although it was a reasonable amount of time into term, I wondered to myself if there was a chance she had simply not been here, or not passed this building since the work had been completed.
After a few moments, she realised that people had begun to stare, and walked off briskly into the distance, and yet something about her demeanour really stuck with me. Although I was not compelled to write her a name, or a life, because in some way, I preferred her to be a mystery. Which in some ways, I think is very much like a lot of people at the library… We spend so much time there as individuals, and we can spend hours around complete strangers, sat less than a metre away from them, and we never so much as say hello or make any kind of contact. The Library is a place for anonymity, and linking into this is a facebook page dedicated both to the library, and to anonymity.
Spotted: Lincoln Uni Library
https://www.facebook.com/spottedlincolnlib?fref=ts
A page where patrons of the library are openly encouraged to submit secret admirations, hatred, confessions of embarrassing incidents and photographs of odd goings on, all anonymously of course.
From admissions of love
To weird goings on
Moments of vulnerability captured through comedy
Ironically, the most common submission seems to be the request for silence.
…and my personal favourite…
The library is a place full of humanity and that inspires me a lot, especially when combined with technology, social media, and photographs, the library is incredible in that it is one of the only places that people will go to in order to create, learn, study and achieve, and yet it is the home of distraction, procrastination and boredom. The first thing that everyone does when they arrive is log onto a computer, go to facebook, tell everyone that they are in the library via this medium, the next thing they do is take photos of themselves on their phones or laptops, or of their friends, and upload that to facebook. Many people will not spend as much time working as they will interacting through social media or by using their phones. It is this aspect of the library that I wish to study, what the library does to bring people together, as well as set them apart.
When it came time to show the aforementioned drawings to the class, it became apparent that everyone else had drawn parts of the building, not the people, so out of embarrassment for having misunderstood the question, I did not show my drawings, a decision I later came to regret, as after speaking to my tutor about this, I had been told there was no wrong way to interpret the task, a point I shall try to keep in mind in the future.
Here’s to Jessica.
