By now you know I’m a book person. 

I’m even one of the lucky ones — during college I worked in a public library for several years. I only left that job because I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree and had secured a teaching position. (And a huge, life-changing bonus — one of my closest friends is a woman I met at the library. She still works there, and we’re still friends.)

So, naturally I had been wanting to visit The American Library by Yinka Shonibare CBE RA at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. (If you’re in L.A., the exhibit closes on Sunday, September 1st, so don’t delay.)

From the Skirball’s website:

“This exhibition creates a library setting where the shelves are filled with more than six thousand books individually wrapped in Shonibare’s signature Dutch wax-printed cotton textiles. Each book bears a name on its spine of a notable American individual. First- and second-generation immigrants and Black Americans affected by the Great Migration are featured alongside one another.”

Six thousand books, wrapped in colorful, eye-catching textiles. It’s rather stunning — the bold colors, the row after row after row of books.

Also from the website:

“An imaginative portrait of a nation, The American Library by internationally recognized artist Yinka Shonibare explores how ideas of citizenship, home, and nationalism hold complex meanings.”

The exhibition is meant to spark a conversation about immigration, about culture, about a sense of belonging. 

And while all that is quite powerful, I found myself scanning the shelves, imagining what it would look like, and what it would feel like, to see my name on the spine of a book (though not a book wrapped in vivid textiles) . 

Years ago, when my high-school-aged son was a little guy, a package arrived containing an anthology which included one of my personal essays. I was quite excited for the book to arrive, and I remember my son helping me carefully open the package and remove the book. 

He looked at the front cover, flipped it around to check out the back cover, looked at the spine, and told me he couldn’t find my name. I explained the book was an anthology, a collection of many stories and poems written by many different people, and my name was inside. We looked at the Table of Contents and found my name. We turned to the page where my essay began and found my name under the title. We found my name in the back of the book, where each contributor’s biography was listed. And I remember telling my son that for now my name was on the inside of books, but that one day my name would be on the outside — on the spine and on the front cover as the sole author of the book. 

I’m still working to achieve that goal. 

I continue to query agents. I continue to search for that one person who will grant me that one “yes,” that will be the gatekeeper to help me move along to the next stage of my writing journey — the publication of my memoir-in-essays. 

Maybe all this sounds selfish. My husband and I went to the Museum, stood among this striking, immersive art installation, and my thoughts turned to my own future book.

Then again, that’s the power of art — the way it can touch each individual in such a personal way.