Former Andrews Library clerk leaves her mark

A cheerful scene painted across the children’s area at the Andrews Library is now a permanent reminder of the talented young woman who spent three years working, learning and creating there. 

Emily Seitter, who joined the library team as a circulation clerk at 16, completed the painting, signed it and set out for a new adventure at the end of last month. It was her first job, and she has now memorialized a piece of that chapter of her life in a place that became dear to her. Among the mural’s rolling hills, sprawling tree branches and whimsical creatures is a world filled with memories of the people that became part of Seitter’s life at the library.

Now 20, Seitter has left the Andrews Branch Library to pursue an exciting opportunity on the other side of the country. Her last day at the library was July 29. A few days later, she hit the road with her parents, headed for a 10-month internship with Sonoma Land Trust Outings in California. 

In her resignation letter, Seitter described the Andrews Library staff as a team she was grateful to have worked alongside and said the kindness, support and friendships she found there had made the library a home.

A mural full of memories

The idea for the mural began, appropriately enough, with a memory from Seitter’s own childhood.

As a student at Andrews Elementary School, she remembers a mural in the fifth-grade hallway that she loved looking at. Years later, she wanted to recreate some of that same feeling for a new generation of children visiting the library.

The walls of the library’s children’s area were “really beige,” Seitter explained, with limited opportunities to use color. She wanted to bring some life and imagination to the space, and she decided to “wing” much of the design.

Her answer was a world of flowers, wildlife, colorful landscape and adorable gnomes.

The mural also contains a number of personal details that visitors may enjoy discovering. A little bookstore is meant to represent the library itself, and the figures on its railing are actually members of the Andrews Library team: Branch Manager Hailey Davis, Olean Avant, Tiffany and Gladiola Hemingway. A figure in a Kansas City Chiefs hat represents Robert Burriss of Facilities Services. Look up toward the roof, and there are more familiar faces: IT staff member Jon King and his trademark hat, Brentley Turner from the Bookmobile and Seitter herself.

Seitter also tucked members of her family into the mural, including her parents, Brian and Kelly.

Elsewhere in the mural, a group of gnomes make their way through cities tucked inside the trees, where they can hide from predators.

Originally, Seitter had hoped to include even more local flora and fauna, but time ran short. Still, the finished mural became a colorful collection of the people, memories and imagination.

Learning beyond the library

While the mural may be Seitter’s most visible legacy at Andrews, the lessons she took with her go far beyond art.

During her time at the library, she learned patience, how to work with children and parents, how to plan activities from a child’s perspective, and how to work as part of a team. Arts and crafts, posters and community interaction became part of her everyday experience.

Andrews, she said, was a particularly pleasant place to work because the community knows one another and the staff feels like family.

“I really like my job there,” Seitter said in a recent interview. “I really miss it. If I could bring the whole library, all the employees with me, I think I would.”

That sense of community has followed her into her next chapter.

Seitter is continuing her education online through Southern New Hampshire University, working toward a Bachelor of Science with a focus in environmental studies. She has developed a particular interest in watersheds, habitat restoration and conservation, with a desire to help protect native species.

She is now putting that interest into practice with the environmental internship in California. It will give her the opportunity to gain hands-on experience through fieldwork and hiking.

It is an opportunity that Andrews Branch Manager Hailey Davis is especially proud to see her pursue. Davis also submitted a letter on Seitter’s volunteer work on the mural to the Nucor Foundation Scholarship, and Seitter was awarded the scholarship.

For Davis and the many community members who have watched Seitter grow from an ambitious and self-described “impulsive” 16-year-old into a young woman pursuing her future, her departure is bittersweet.

But perhaps the mural is the perfect way for Emily to say goodbye.

It is bright, playful and full of people she cares about. It captures a little piece of Andrews Library as she experienced it — and gives the children who walk through its doors something new to discover.

Emily may have moved on, but she certainly left her mark.

And somewhere among the trees, gnomes and tiny hidden cities, a 20-year-old artist is still there, smiling back at the community that gave her a start.

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