Personal views of peace going on display at NLR library

Dan Noble and Debra Wood, both with the William F. Laman Public Library in North Little Rock, work Wednesday on an exhibit called “A Peace of My Mind,” which opens Friday and runs through June 8.
Dan Noble and Debra Wood, both with the William F. Laman Public Library in North Little Rock, work Wednesday on an exhibit called “A Peace of My Mind,” which opens Friday and runs through June 8.

How people from different walks of life view the meaning of peace is the focus of an exhibit opening Friday at North Little Rock’s William F. Laman Public Library.

“A Peace of My Mind” is a collection of black-and white portraits and short biographies of 52 individuals - among them a Holocaust survivor, a Somali refugee and an oil company executive - with a summary of each person’s thoughts on peace.

The exhibit is free and runs through June 8 during regular hours at the Laman Library’s second-floor Exhibit Hall, 2801 Orange St. The library will be closed Sunday for Easter. Library hours are available at lamanlibrary.org.

“What I like about it is that it’s not a big, flashy exhibit,” said Dan Noble, the library’s public-relations manager - a change from recent, much larger exhibits that centered on the universe and the 9/11 recovery project. “There are no dramatic videos. It’s just photos of people who talked about what peace means in their own minds.”

The subjects were photographed and interviewed by John Noltner, a freelance photographer in Minneapolis. Each 24-inch-by-36-inch canvas panel in the exhibit shows a photo of the person interviewed with a short description of the person and a 250-word excerpt from longer interviews with Noltner about what peace means to them, Noble said.

The project took two years to complete, according to exhibit materials.

“I think the exhibit will have a very powerful impact on visitors,” Noble said. “The exhibit is of people we might never meet in our lifetimes, people from different backgrounds and different ethnic backgrounds.

“And it isn’t too much for young people to grasp,” Noble said. “I think it will have a very powerful impact on anybody.”

The traveling exhibit began in 2010, funded by a grant for the Minnesota State Arts Board. More than 60,000 people have visited the exhibit in major cities with displays put on at private galleries, community centers, libraries and universities, according to the project’s website apeaceofmymind.net.

The exhibit has been shown at New York University, Bucknell University and the Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality in St. Paul, Minn .,according to the project’s website.

“It’s been shown at more than 40 venues, but this is the first time it’s ever been in the South,” Noble said.

The exhibit moves to Atlanta after North Little Rock.

Noltner’s photos and interview excerpts also were published in 2011 as a book, which earned a gold medal in the Midwest Book Awards and a silver medal from the Independent Publishers Association, according to the website.

Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/17/2014

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