The Reading Nest

If you haven’t yet experienced the Reading Nest in Cleveland Public Library’s Eastman Reading Garden, we suggest you drop everything and head downtown before it’s too late. The 30 foot wide, 12 foot high interactive art installation will be in the garden until mid-October. The nest is built with over 10,000 pieces ofdiscarded wood collected from local, industrial and manufacturing sources located throughout the city. It was completed in June and will remain in the space until the library closes the garden for the season.

A Library visitor admires the Reading Nest, by Mark Reigelman

The enormous, fairytale inducing nest is created by Cleveland native, New York-based artist Mark Reigelman and is inspired by objects in nature that have always been associated with knowledge and wisdom. Trees of enlightenment and scholarly owls have been particularly prominent in this history. The Reading Nest symbolizes growth, community, and knowledge while embodying these mythical roots.

Its golden color is inspired by the legendary Griffin. This king of beasts, with the rear body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, is said to have made its nest of pure gold–which it then had to protect ferociously. The Griffin is regularly seen sculpted from stone and standing guard at the entrances of civic buildings including The Cleveland Public Library.

The Reading Nest is the fourth installation of the annual See Also program, which brings temporary works of art to the Eastman Reading Garden at the Main Library. Each year a new theme is chosen and an artist is selected based on his/her representation of that theme. This year, artists were asked to submit proposals interpreting their vision of Big Ideas in Small Spaces.

See Also is a collaborative effort between Cleveland Public Library and LAND studio. The program is funded through an endowment established by the late Lockwood Thompson, a trustee of the Library and avid art collector.

We would also like to give a special thank you toSheffield Bronze Paint Corporation and G&M Pallet Company for their generous contributions to this project.