Near the exit of our parking lot is a line of formerly plain concrete "jersey" barriers. They now mark the property line with style thanks to the efforts of painters from our community! Throughout the month of May, the artists painted their colorful designs onto the barriers, each interpreting the Summer Learning Program theme, "All Together Now," in a unique way. Enjoy the barriers as you exit the library each time you visit, and learn more about the artists and their designs on this page or download the PDF version.

This is the third year we have done this project. Take a look at the designs from 2021 and 2022!

The designs, images, and ideas reflected in this art are solely those of the individual artists. 

Desiree and Emilee Mehr: Barrier 1 (next to the stop sign)
Bio: Desiree Mehr (Mom) and Emilee Mehr (Daughter) are working together on this project. They both enjoy crafty and artsy endeavors. Emilee is in 8th grade at Eagle View Middle School and has a passion for drawing. She mostly draws people and clothing ideas. Emilee wants to learn how to paint landscapes, but hasn’t done many of them yet. Desiree enjoys watching Bob Ross and has recently tried painting for herself. Design: Desiree and Emilee have enjoyed the barriers the past two years and want to add their visions for this year. Their design features the world in the center of a bookshelf, with hands reaching towards the world. The hands will be all different colors representing the people of the world and show how we can all work together to make the world a better place. There are books that fill up the rest of the bookshelf. The books and the bookshelf are representing the library and its librarians and how awesome they are. Libraries and books unite the world and bring us “all together now.” The bookshelp also has the words “2023 Summer Reading Program” at the top so that people will know that it is a barrier mural for this year. On the bottom of the bookshelf, there are the words “All Together Now” for this year’s theme. The artists will be using acrylic craft paint and a sealant on their painting.

Tracie Houston: Barrier 2
Bio: Tracie Houston is a mixed media artist, custom cake baker, and healing salve creator living with her partner in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. For most of her 39 years, she lived in Central Pennsylvania. As a younger version of herself, she was always encouraged to be creative and influenced to pursue further education in the arts. These days, most of her creativity is directed toward her 12-year-old son, collaborative paintings, crafting, and sensory slimes. In her time off, she is often creating in PC games that permit craft building. Tracie has dedicated her life to experiencing art, and she is now making art her primary focus and career. She hopes to expand as a live painter at music events, build her brand, and have sellable arts. There is a childlike whimsy to her work, bright colors in and around and illustrative tendencies that vary from high-end furniture pieces to silly little critters with goofy faces. Tracie’s main goal is to have fun, be silly, and to keep it weird. She seeks the strange and encourages others to open their minds and fill their hearts. Design: Tracie pays homage to Heinz Edelmann, the Czech-German illustrator most popularly recognized for his work in The Beatles Yellow Submarine animated film. She was reminded of the song “All Together Now,” prompting her to Heinz artwork as initial inspiration. Shown in Tracie’s painting is a playful scene, with fluid movement. In this bright and cheerful scene of play and friendship, you’ll see rainbows, big story books, bees, birds, squirrels, and fish along with flowers floating through the background. A guitarist is playing for a friend in a mobility chair, and all kind of people are enjoying the scene. The painting is an original schematic drawing completed by hand and colored with Prismacolor markers. Colors will be bright and beautiful with some watery blending of the skyline and the water line and pond area. The artist’s hope is to convey a very animated scene with a nod to the psychedelic era of art that rose out of the 60’s storybooks and animated films. Acrylic craft paints will be used primarily with mixing mediums to improve the spread of the paint. Each layer will get an addition of a UV protective finish.

Leah Yeh: Barrier 3
Bio: Leah Yeh is in 9th grade at Cumberland Valley Ninth Grade Academy. She has been painting since sixth grade and drawing for even longer. She has participated in the Penn State Art Festival and plans to participate again this year. She works in a lot of different mediums such as acrylic paint, colored pencil and alcohol markers. Design: Leah’s design shows how the library brings people together and how it provides books to the community. Her design depicts three different scenes: The first is a child getting a book at the library; the second is a family reading together; and the third is two people sitting together while reading. The artist will use arcrylic paint. 

Laura Mumma: Barrier 4
Bio: Laura Mumma is a librarian at Simpson Public Library. She minored in fine arts in college but was only brave enough to take an applied art class her senior year! Over the past half century, she has dabbled in a variety of mediums: decoupage, mosaics, applique, embroidery and needlepoint, refashioning vintage jewelry, and macramé. Ultra-doodling, however, has been her recent preoccupation. That, and refurbishing/reimagining family heirlooms and furniture, so that she can pass them on to her millennial children, keeping these timeless treasures out of a yard sale or flea market. This is her second year participating in the Beautify the Barriers project. Design: Laura’s design features a host of woodland critters all reading books about other animals. Racoon is reading James and the Giant Fox, Rabbit is reading Of Owls and Men, and Skunk is reading The Bat, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Take a close look at Laura’s painting to see what other books the animals are reading! The overall message will be that even though we are all different, we can still enjoy shared times together while learning about each other. The artist will be using acrylic on cloth and then attaching the design to the barrier.  

Katlyn Baer and Green Ridge Elementary School Fifth Grade Students: Barrier 5
Bio: Katlyn Baer, an elementary art educator at Green Ridge Elementary in Cumberland Valley School District, is passionate about community-based art education. Providing students with learning opportunities outside the walls of a classroom is vital to developing a well-rounded arts education. Collaboration within our larger community fosters deeper connections and understandings to the people around us and prepares students for life and work in the 21st  century. Students develop not only artistic skills but also qualities that help them in all areas of life including persistence, leadership, collaboration, creative thinking, and problem solving, as well as agency, self-discovery, and self-expression. Perhaps most importantly, community-based art projects provide our youth with a platform through which they can share their voice which is Katlyn’s continued calling as an arts educator. This is Katlyn’s third year participating in the Beautify the Barriers Project with her students. Design: Green Ridge fifth grade students will work collaboratively to complete the mural design. The piece depicts all hands in, symbolically representing the team effort and collaboration that goes behind many great feats in our community. Our students are frequently faced with challenges and opportunities to highlight their personal skill sets and strengths within collaborative settings. This mural is designed for each student to create their own unique mini painting that serves as its own stand alone artwork. When pieced together, the mini artworks will create the final mural, encapsulating what it means to be “All Together Now”. The approach to this mural is inspired by The Canada Mosaic Mural project, a national mural project including all provinces and territories, 100,000s of paintings, and 150 individual murals that when united will form one gigantic mural mosaic. The mural, if ever connected, would be the width of four football fields! Our mural design will be painted on a thin mural fabric with acrylic paints, allowing the mural to be separated into miniature 4-inch square paintings for students, and then later assembled together and installed on site to the surface of the barrier.

Becking Family: Barrier 6
Bio: This year’s Becking family barrier painting project is led by Katherine, who is studying civil engineering in college, learning the properties and potential of concrete. At Simpson Library, she gets to make concrete beautiful! She drew the design and chose the color scheme. Rachel, her sister, graduates from MASH in 2023 and will study something in college as yet undetermined at press time. She contributes humor and a fresh artistic perspective. Sarah (mom) suggested the concept of an anthill and manages logistics. Chris (dad) provides motivation, helps paint, and rewards the team with ice cream. This is the family’s third year participating in the Beautify the Barriers Art Project. Design: Who works all together better than an ant colony? Ants prefer paperbacks. But because they can carry many times their body weight, if they work all together, they can carry the weightiest tome to share with their friends, relations, and community. The Beckings’ painting depicts ants returning completed books to their anthill library. An adult ant reads to a group of young ants, while a butterfly and maybe even the flowers listen in. Everyone is glad to see their caterpillar neighbor borrowing a book. Stories are even better when we share them! Colors include green, brown, blue, and other accent colors to suit the aesthetic. The artists will use acrylic paint.

Molly Goehring: Barrier 7
Bio: Molly Goehring is a multi-disciplinary artist who utilizes two-dimensional and mixed media techniques to explore her own life as well as the inherent drama of color.  She has exhibited both locally in her home state of Pennsylvania, and internationally as part of Lacuna Festivals. She was voted Harrisburg Magazine’s Best Mixed Media Artist in 2022 and is one of the founding members of Japansylvania, a virtual exhibition of artists from around the globe. This is Molly’s third year participating in the Beautify the Barriers Art Project. Design: Inspired by Matisse’s painting, The Dance, Molly’s design celebrates the diversity and vibrancy of the local community. A variety of figures join together in a dance in which all are welcome, regardless of race, age, ability, or background. 

Karen Spidle and the Cheddar Paws Dog Artists: Barrier 8
Bio: Karen Spidle, Natahnee Miller, and Erika Coover are part of an art group, Cheddar Paws Dog art. All thirteen artists in the group help overlooked shelter dogs get adopted by painting portraits of each dog. Since August 2019, the group has painted over 350 dogs! Local businesses that put up “adoption walls” and feature the paintings to give the dogs exposure. Each family who adopts a painted shelter dog then receives the portrait FREE!!! See their artwork on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CheddarPawsDogArt  Design: Karen, Natahnee, and Erika created a composite of all of their dogs reading books at the library. In this fun painting for the barrier, all the dogs featured belong to the artists! The artists used acrylic paint.

Tara and Gabrielle Sheibley: Barrier 9
Bio: Gabrielle Sheibley is in fourth grade at PA Cyber school. She enjoys spending her time creating art of all types including drawing, paper quilling, origami, and clay pottery. She also loves spending time learning about all types of animals. In the future, she plans to study to become a veterinarian. Gabrielle’s mom,Tara, teaches strings at Saint Joseph School and at her private studio in Mechanicsburg. When she is not teaching music, she spends her time with Gabrielle teaching her 4th grade. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and spending time with their dogs. Design: Their artwork for the theme “All Together Now,” shows that we all need to come together to help the environment, animals, and people. We all need to work together and show kindness towards each other.

Mallory Shelley: Barrier 10
Bio: Just a local artist residing in the Borough of Mechanicsburg, Mallory Shelley works at The Smith Gallery & Fine Custom Framing in New Cumberland, PA. She specializes in figurative drawing and acrylic painting; however, she is always curious to learn new techniques and experiment with assorted mediums. Mallory is mostly self taught; however, she did attend Pratt Institute for a year. Observing the work of Salvador Dalí, Claes Oldenburg, and M.C. Escher are what inspire her to think outside of the box. Art world aside, she has a dedicated family (partner and two children) and a pug to love. She also enjoys running, playing puzzle and board games, researching Mid-Century Modern design, and spending time outdoors! This is Mallory’s second year participating in the Beautify the Barriers Art Project. Design: For this year’s theme, Mallory gathered inspiration from the song “All Together Now” by The Beatles. She included many colors of the rainbow in the background, similar to their album artwork of Yellow Submarine. She will write words that describe this year’s theme of kindness and unity and form them into the symbols “Peace, Love, and Read”. Mallory will be using Golden brand acrylic paint to create the barrier design.

Kai Gulde: Barrier 11

Bio: Kai Gulde is in seventh grade at Mechanicsburg Middle School. He loves spending most of his free time drawing, and he has developed many varied styles, from cartoon to realistic. He has published two books in his comic book series on Amazon, including Crab Comics: Clash of the Tiki Warriors and Crab Comics: The Great Adventure. You can also borrow them from Simpson Library! Kai loves playing soccer and basketball, skateboarding, surfing, reading, drawing, playing violin and cello, and hanging out with his friends. Kai is currently designing his own line of skate wear, and when he grows up, he wants to be a graphic designer for a skateboarding company or run his own business. Design: Kai’s design depicts how people come All Together Now to form a community in times of need.  When everyone offers a piece of their heart, it heals all wounds. In all our diversity, we have the same basic love and compassion in every one of us.
 

Barrier 12: Lily and Cora Gulde

Bio: Lily Gulde is in 8th grade at Mechanicsburg Middle School. She loves the ocean and can spend hours surfing and taking in the endless beauty of the ocean and sky. She is an avid reader and writer and uses both pastimes as a way to explore her world, deepen her knowledge of it, and process her experience within it. Lily plays violin and piano, and she has had her compositions performed by York Symphony, when her compositions won the Young Songwriter’s Competition two years in a row. She loves drawing as a way of creating a warm, fun world for herself. When she grows up, she is interested in working for the FBI, working in medical research, or something different entirely! She is still coming up with as many possibilities as she can. 

Cora Gulde is in 3rd grade at Shepherdstown Elementary. She loves drawing, sewing, gardening, playing piano, violin and guitar, basketball, reading, swimming, and surfing. She lived at the Jersey Shore for a year, where she loved learning about the local wildlife, including egrets, seagulls, humpback whales, bottlenose dolphins, grey seals, hermit crabs, and diamondback terrapin turtles, among others. She learned to surf year-round, even in the winter! Cora loves all animals, especially cats. Cora loves seeing marine wildlife out in nature, and she enjoys visiting them at aquariums, as well. Cora is interested in being a veterinarian or an artist when she grows up. Design:  Lily and Cora’s barrier design shows how animals in the desert come together at the watering hole. All living creatures have the same basic needs and community happens when we are All Together Now. We go from meeting our most basic needs to building an enriching and diverse community.
 

Special Thanks to:

The Arts for All Partnership, a partnership between the Cultural Enrichment Fund and the Greater Harrisburg Community Foundation, a regional foundation of The Foundation for Enhancing Communities for a grant that helped make this project successful. 

Brian Edmondson, owner of Art Depot in Mechanicsburg, for sponsoring this project and offering a discount to the painters.

Additional Thanks to:

Andrew Hayter for taking photos of the painted barriers and the artists for the program, library website, and to display in the library.

Brian Gross for allowing his jersey barriers to be painted and straightening one of the barriers that it could be used.

Boy Scout Troop 55, Lemoyne for cleaning up weeds around the barriers in Spring 2023

Trent Mellott for painting the white base coat on the barriers.

Zimmerman Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning for donating bottled water for the reception on June 4.