American Mural Project close to funding goal

WINSTED — The town could be a “national tourist attraction” by the spring of 2017 if the American Mural Project can wrap up its fundraising campaign by this Christmas, according to project founder Ellen Griesedieck.

Griesedieck, the impetus behind the large-scale artistic tribute to America’s working class, thinks that the project can raise the remaining $300,000 needed in order to get a $1 million matching grant from the state.

Last year, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy pledged the state matching grant if the project could raise $1.5 million by this September.

The state extended its deadline for the project to raise funds to the end of December.

Griesedieck said construction in the project’s Whiting Mills space could then begin next spring.

“We’re standing in the space where the mural will be,” Griesedieck told visitors gathered for an open house on Sunday, Oct. 18. “The floor you’re on will go out, the walls go out, the roof is coming off, and we’re going up 30 feet. The space will be as big as the Parthenon.”

The murals will consist of projects from all 50 states, many of them created by young people and Griesedieck said it will be the largest indoor collaborative artwork in the world. The murals will be five stories high and 120 feet long, and in three dimensions so that one will be able to “walk into the art,” said Griesedieck.

After searching all over the Northeast for “a space big enough to house it,” she settled on Winsted, in part because it was close to home, but also because of Winsted’s history. 

After briefly considering putting the mural out west, she realized it should go in an old mill because “that’s where work was done. Not only that, every time we save one of these buildings we’re saving a piece of ourselves and our history.” 

The project has 4.5 acres at the Whiting Mills site and in addition to the murals themselves, Griesedieck plans lecture series, workshops and camps. 

She said that already many volunteers have come forward to help with the project. 

“There will be a visitor center and gardens that reflect all 50 states created by children,” she said. “Children who come will not only look, but create. They will walk out with something tangible. I know that we’re getting somewhere because last week I was invited to the White House. People are realizing how important the arts are to education.”

The Mural Project’s first state project, the Foundry project, involved kids from eight schools in this Tri-state area. Griesedieck spoke of how Hotchkiss School students and Puerto Rican students in Harlem were initially wary of each other, but after throwing clay together, one Hotchkiss student said to her “That’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“I realized that I had to get children involved because my own were disconnected from art,” she said. “Fifteen years ago I was doing large paintings of working people and I came home effusing about the welder I was working with, 200 feet up. When my son didn’t really want to hear about it, I thought that they’re growing up without a real sense of who we are in this country and what we’re doing. It’s about all of us. You’ve got to be in there somewhere, If not literally then in spirit.”