Studyvin started painting a mural on the east exterior wall of the library in April. She worked on it through the spring and summer, eventually finishing it in early November.

The mural was a project funded through Keep Iowa Beautiful’s Paint Iowa Beautiful Grant.

“I just happened to see the grant online last winter,” said Gowrie Librarian Lacey Spece. “The grants can be artistic or they can be something in your community for upkeep.”

The Gowrie Public Library’s grant was one of 114 community projects awarded the Paint Iowa Beautiful Grant for 2020.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert All of the books in the painted mural on the side of the Gowrie Public Library are books that mean something to artist Haley Studyvin. "The Book Thief" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray" are two of the favorite book spines she painted.

The grant is a partnership between Keep Iowa Beautiful and Diamond Vogel paint company to provide paint for the projects.

With guidance from Spece, Studyvin designed the larger-than-life bookshelf featuring titles like “Les Miserables,” “Dracula,” “The Book Thief,” “Little Women” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

Studyvin chose some of her favorite books to paint for the mural.

“Each of them definitely mean something to me individually,” she said. “I had a different connection with each of the books when I read them and they’re all some of my favorites.”

The design of the book spines are more or less the same as the actual copies located just on the other side of the wall, but Studyvin did use her artistic freedom to make some small tweaks to the designs.

Spece said she thinks the mural turned out wonderful.

“It’s very cool, it’s very bright,” she said. “We get a lot of compliments and people excited to see it. They all thought Haley did a really good job.”

For Studyvin, the toughest part of the project was not being able to control who could see it when it was a work-in-progress before she finished it.

“I do a lot of art in my free time — it’s pretty much the entire basis of my life,” she said. “And I get to hide the in-between stages in all my personal projects. Something like this, it was a bit of a challenge having it open to the public and having it publicly accessible each step of the way in all of my progress.”

When people pass by the mural, Studyvin hopes they feel curiosity and nostalgia for the titles she chose to highlight.

“Each of those books I think has a specific impact on the people that read them and I gathered important messages from each one of them,” she said.

In the 17-year partnership between Keep Iowa Beautiful and Diamond Vogel, more than 11,165 gallons of paint for 1,000 community projects in Iowa have been awarded.