An artist bought a building and spent 22 years creating a massive mural honoring American workers. It’s soon open for viewing

In 1999, Sharon artist Ellen Griesedieck visited a Boeing aviation plant, watched several men working on a jet engine and had a brainstorm. She wanted to create an artwork to reflect both the honor of those working men and the vitality of their work.

She tried and couldn’t do it. “I stretched a canvas as big as my studio, and that wasn’t big enough,” Griesedieck said. “I wasn’t happy with what I could do, but I wanted to keep going and figure it out.”

Her vision morphed into something bigger, an enormous mural that would pay homage to not just aviation workers but to all working people. Griesedieck made it her life’s work. “The minute you get an idea like this, it kind of takes over,” she said.

She bought an old, vacant woolen mill in Winsted to house her massive artwork. She considered a place where people worked to be the perfect venue. “It’s a tribute to work. These are the cathedrals in this country,” she said.

She spent 22 years creating it, aided by countless schoolchildren and by a crew of the same sort of men seen in the mural. “I love that it’s a tribute to everyone who works, and the only way to get it up there is working with these guys,” she said.

Griesedieck, now 74, is finally finishing it. The American Mural Project, at 120 feet wide and five stories high, will be open to the public three days a week starting June 18.

The mural is the crowning achievement in a long career in visual arts. Griesedieck worked as a photographer for Sports Illustrated and the NFL. As a graphic designer, she is most famous for designing the original label for Newman’s Own salad dressing. Paul Newman was a friend of Griesedieck’s husband, architect and race car driver Sam Posey. In her spare time, she painted, and got inspiration and advice from her friend, artist Frank Stella.

Workers

The spectacular collage is a salute to aerospace workers, police officers, firefighters, truckers, sailors, schoolteachers, heart surgeons, athletes, dockworkers, musicians, fishermen, electrical linemen, railroad workers, foundry workers, writers, construction workers, press operators, automakers, metalworkers, miners, farmers and other workers.

“If you are going to come, by the time you leave you will have found yourself in there somewhere,” she said. Guests even can literally find themselves in the mural, by standing in a hole in the middle of the collage for photographs.

The artwork is so big it requires three viewing levels to fully experience it. As part of the mill conversion, Griesedieck installed a catwalk platform that hugs the sides of the building, winding around the mural, to give various angles to contemplate the artistry.

Guests are even permitted to examine it close up and — unusual for displayed artworks — to touch it. “I want people to appreciate the textures,” she said.

The textures come from a variety of media used to create the images: acrylic paint, metal, blown glass, found objects, marble, spackle, ceramics. The far righthand segment of the mural honoring Habitat for Humanity homebuilders is made from chunks of wood from real Habitat projects, including one autographed by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.

Parts of the piece show the George Washington Bridge, an abstracted Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, with windows colored in iridescent shades.

Friends

Griesedieck made a point of getting to know all of the people she depicts in her mural, traveling around the country to meet and spend time with men and women at work.

The towering centerpiece of the artwork is a 16-foot-tall depiction of NYPD Officer Edwin Raymond. Griesedieck met him after seeing him on the cover of New York Times magazine. She admired the story, about his lawsuit against the NYPD. “He wasn’t getting enough collars. ... He didn’t want to arrest people. He wanted to help people,” she said.

The firefighter to Raymond’s right is named Melissa, who looks upward with a look of concern, in her blue-and-yellow jacket. Manley, Pete and Jeff are three men who work on a fishing boat. Griesedieck painted their portraits after spending a day on their boat.

In the center of the work is a class of Fairfield sixth-graders, with teacher Kathy Reddy. She pointed to a boy in a blue hoodie. “He’s a senior in college now,” she said.

In the upper left-hand corner is a brilliant blue image of a man on a metal girder. “That’s Bob on the beam. He was constructing the Westside Highway,” she said.

The piano to the left of Raymond is dotted with musical scores lent to her by supporters — such as cellist Yo Yo Ma and Teddy Gentry, the bassist for country band Alabama — or chosen from an archive. A bit of the Beach Boys hit “God Only Knows” is among the scores on the piano, demonstrating that song’s distinctive instrumentation. The son of one of the members of the Wrecking Crew helped her get that.

Griesedieck compared her mural to a still life painting. “People might think that putting all these images together would cause chaos and confusion. But it’s kind of like a still life. You put together a banana, a baseball and an orange and you arrange it to make it work as a painting. I am doing that,” she said. “There is a rhythm you have to create to make the piece work as art.”

Children

Schoolchildren helped Griesedieck create the artwork, including that sixth-grade Fairfield class and many others who visited during its creation. One figure in the lower left-hand corner of the mural, a fiery yellow and orange image of a foundry worker wielding a huge mallet, was made entirely by kids. “It’s a ceramic piece. Kids like to stick their fingers into things,” she said.

Other than workers, Griesedieck wants her project to honor children. In addition to kids helping her create the mural, they also created artworks installed on the wall behind the mural, along the catwalk. That phase of the project will be ever-changing.

She plans to offer school, after-school and summer programs and has taken on 10 teaching artists. “I want to see an ongoing list of activities involving kids,” she said.

After unveiling the artwork to the public, Griesedieck said her work is not done yet. “I can’t say anything is complete until I’m in a box,” she said. More renovations have to be done to the building, and the building behind it. They will be connected by a walkway

The work was done with $4.1 million in funding. Of that, $1 million came via a state challenge grant that former Gov. Dannel Malloy pledged when the project had raised $1.4 million. The remaining funds are donations from corporations, foundations and individuals.

Griesedieck said one of her favorite aspects of the project was the collaborative spirit between her and the crew members who lifted the immensely heavy pieces into place and secured them onto the metal framing structure.

“I can get so down about the world. ... It’s dispiriting. Here, we never talk about [political] parties. All anyone cares about is how to work together to get things done,” she said. “What we do here is better because we do it together. I wish people all over the country could feel that. It’s a real high.”

American Mural Project is at 90 Whiting St. in Winsted. Beginning June 18, it will be open year-round Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Thursday hours are planned for the future. Admission is $12, $10 seniors, $5 students, ages 4 and younger free, $25 for a season pass. A gala, The Art of Work, will be held Sept. 17. americanmuralproject.org .

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com .