The Noyes Children’s Library in Kensington, MD has been closely intertwined with me all my life. It's the oldest public library in the Washington D.C. area. My late-mother Jan Jablonski frequently took me there to read and check out books, daily, when I was a child. In 1991, the Noyes Children’s Library Foundation was formed, because of the fear of closure due to lack of funding. Until 2016, when she passed away of ALS, she was a co-president that encouraged young readers to discover the world of books.
Currently, Noyes is undergoing a renovation that will enable it to be 100% ADA accessible and have all three floors finished, a fifteen-year aspiration of the Foundation. This will maximize the Jan Jablonski Early Literacy Training Center (est. in 2017), serving childhood educators.
Now I'm a Board member, following in her footsteps. I’ve made a lot of promotional material for Noyes’s fundraising events. Many of the artworks below were reviewed, if not, designed by me. When I made my rendition of the library (shown above), I separated its iconic Great Horned Owl, perched in the tree, from its home, near the top of the dormer to enhance its whimsicalness.
