Oakesdale art students create bookmarks for library patrons

Oakesdale art students hold a basket of bookmarks in front of the library. The students put together over 100 colorful markers to be given out free to library patrons.

Oakesdale students have been snipping, gluing, tying, beading, dotting, and coloring since the first day of school to create over 100 original bookmarks for the Oakesdale library.

“They’ll be hard to lose,” said Oakesdale librarian Michele Wright of the thick, elaborate bookmarks. The library received them Wednesday and will pass them out free to patrons that use the one-room library.

Students in Patty Mills’ art classes were instructed to “pursue the fundamentals of art” in creating the masterpieces. About 27 students each put together five bookmarks.

Dangling from bookmarks are plastic beads, feathers, string, glitter, and a rainbow of colors. Some of them are very elaborate.

Michael Conklin, a junior, worked up a sketch of a big-chinned superhero muscling a building off the ground. Conklin said he got the idea from a project he made last year- the same rendition of a superhero made out of clay.

“I do enjoy art,” he said.

Mills said she wanted to have her classes complete the bookmarks to give back to the community which is “supportive of the school.”

“What about bridging art to them? What better way?” she said.

Other bookmarks included a little green paper turtle dangling off a beaded string, a sunny landscape portrait of Palouse wheat hills cut from waxy paper, and the simplicity of a moon with stars.

Eighth grader Jaycee Headley said she too had fun making her bookmarks. Some were abstract with pink sparkly paper and flowers, and other designs more literal with a light bulb.

“It was fun,” she said.