MuralFest: The momentum is over the top
Funds, ideas, pouring in
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
If you touched any part of the “MuralFest Night of Giving,” you would see sparks fly.
Momentum and the excitement that it encompasses all of northeastern Connecticut are an understatement.
“It feels like momentum!” said Community Coordinator Elaine Turner.
MuralFest Putnam is a public art collaboration that welcomes The Walldogs, legendary sign painters and muralists from across the country/world, who will capture Putnam’s rich history in a series of privately-funded, storytelling murals. This massive project engages local artists, students, teachers, municipal and non-profit organizations, as well as town leaders, businesses, and the community-at-large, according to MuralFest. The artists will descend on Putnam in June 2028.
Efforts include fund-raising, gathering 200 volunteers to help in every way, including helping the Walldog artists, selecting walls in Putnam for the murals, choosing what parts of Putnam’s historic past will grace the walls. Oh and, yes, more fund-raising.
More than $51,000 was raised in the last two weeks, according to Executive Committee, Marketing and Communications Chair Linda Colangelo. That’s more than $96,000 to date, which is 39 percent of the goal.
Turner said the “last $50,000 to $60,000 to $70,000 is in-kind, so we could actually be halfway there.”
Committee members said, “We’re off and rolling like a Walldog’s paint roller!”
Emida Roller, the project coordinator for Walldogs, said, “It’s really taking off.”
The History Committee brainstorming its way through Putnam’s extensive history. Chair John Miller said topics include:
Quinebaug Shetucket River Corridor, Native Americans in The Last Green Valley, General Israel Putnam, immigration and culture, Asa Cutler, underground railroad, “yellow blinds,” Flood of 1955, magnesium explosion, Putnam Redevelopment, Mayor and Governor John Dempsey, Congressman William St. Onge, Rose Bove Larose, suffragettes, Windham County Infirmary(became Day Kimball Hospital), Cady Copp Cottage, Bill Shaw Tavern, Manasseh Cutler (wrote the Northwest Ordinance), Gertrude Chandler Warner and the Boxcar Children, Bradley Playhouse, the railroads and the trains (including presidential visits), Chickering House, the Putnam Inn, The City Hotel, Thomas Taylor, the towns that provided the land to create the town of Putnam, the mills
The History Committee includes: Susan Larose, Carmine Angeloni, Diana Lee, Val Iamartino, Nicole Flagg Nichols, Kathleen Zamagni Jeannie Benoit, Elaine Turner, Pat Hedenberg, Jimi Gothreau and Paul Desautels.
Turner said one important aspect of the effort is the adjoining towns. ‘I need the adjoining towns to come in and be part of it from Pomfret to Thompson and Killingly. They were all part of Putnam and part of telling a story should cross town lines. It should cross all barriers that we’ve created to keep people separate because this is a mutual story. Let’s face it; Israel Putnam did not come from Putnam.”
Maureen Nicholson, Pomfret’s first selectman, echoed those thoughts saying: “This is a game changer for northeastern Connecticut. It’s bigger than one town.”
Nicholson suggested the Air Line Trail abutments/tunnels as a possible site for a mural. The Air Line Trail runs from East Haddam to the Thompson town line and beyond. It has two bridges and three tunnels. Currently resurfacing is underway and the creation of a ramp at the Breault foot bridge will complete the connection to Thompson. “The trail is a huge economic boost for Putnam and the area,” she said. She anticipates the trail work will be completed in 2028.
The abutments/tunnels “are just crying out to be a canvas,” Nicholson said. “I’ve been dreaming about murals for these abutments, for these tunnels. So when I heard about this project, I thought, well, six of them are in Putnam.”
Nicholson said the trail is state property, the Air Line Linear State Park, and she inquired about murals with the state. She said the state is “receptive” to murals being painted on those walls.
Donations
The MuralFest Night of Giving included: Linemaster Switch Corporation of Woodstock with a donation of $20,000. And Joseph Carlone Sr. of Linemaster and his wife Betty matched the Linemaster donation with $20,000 for a total of $40,000 and the promise to house artists at their Mansion at Bald Hill.
The Putnam Economic Development Commission Trust Fund donated $5,000 and is also in agreement to donate another $5,000 next year, for a total of $10,000.
In addition a donation of $1,113 came from Nicole Ouellette Reigler and family, a longtime family friend of Colangelo and Crosetti.
Fund-raising continues with visits to area businesses and more. Colangelo said “We had a boatload of confidence. We had a basket full of prayers and we set out (fund-raising) and when we can literally say, it was like someone flipped the switch.”
“We are becoming part of history by becoming part of this project,”
Recent Donations
From left: MuralFest's Linda Colangelo, Linemaster Switch's Joe Carlone Jr. and Tim Carlone and Joe Carlone Sr., MuralFest's Laura Crosetti and Elaine Turner and Putnam Economic Development Commission Trust Fund's Paul Grenier. Linda Lemmon photos.
Air Line Trail tunnel rendering
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