Full Text:

A Picture-Perfect Grand Marshal For The Parade

(with photo)

BY KAAREN VALENTA

David Merrill was not born in Newtown but his years of painting the murals in

Edmond Town Hall have linked him intimately with the town's history.

His framed lithographs of Newtown are hung in many homes and buildings; his

murals grace the walls of 18th Century houses as well as the staircases and

hallways of the town hall.

So when the Newtown Summer Festival Committee selected the theme "Newtown: A

Picture-Perfect Town" for this year's Labor Day Parade, it was only fitting

that they select the well-known artist for the honor of being the parade's

grand marshal.

The lives of David and his wife, Beryl, are firmly rooted in Newtown. "We

never plan to leave," both are quick to say. They live in Sandy Hook with

their 10-year-old shih-tzu, Brittany, and six cats; Beryl works in the office

of the town tax collector. Between them they have seven grown children and

nine grandchildren.

The couple met in 1984 when David was painting the first phase of the murals

in town hall.

"I worked two years nonstop, six days a week, 12 hours a day," Mr Merrill

recalled. "I noticed this lady who passed by me on her way to and from work

every day, and finally got up the nerve to ask her name. Then I asked if she

was married and found out that she was a widow, and I asked her to go to

dinner." That began a courtship that culminated with their wedding on

September 7, 1985.

Although David Merrill has always been known locally as an artist, he did not

realize it would be his life's work until he had graduated from high school

and joined the Army Corps of Engineers in 1954.

"I was based at Fort Knox in Kentucky and was searching for something to do

with my life," he said "I suddenly felt a great desire to begin painting. It

was like a compulsion. So I went to the base PX and bought what I could find

-- a paint-by-number kit that had brushes, paints, and three boards that I

could use. I painted my own designs over the printed design. I knew at that

point I wanted to spend the rest of my life painting.

"My mother was so excited when I sent my paintings to her that she boxed up

canvas boards -- without pre-printed designs on them -- and paints and

brushes, and sent them to me," he said.

During his three-year stint in the Army he met a young woman named Natalie who

would soon become his wife. They married and moved into a house in the Stepney

area of Monroe. Mr Merrill continued to paint, but to support his growing

family, he took a job in the shipping department of a steel company. A few

years later he became a vocational instructor at the Southbury Training School

where he was able to teach art and he began to have exhibitions of his own

work.

"My first show was at the Hoffman Fuel Company gallery on White Street in

Danbury in 1964. The show sold out," Mr Merrill said. "Then I did an

exhibition in New Haven at a regional mental health center. There were 27

paintings and 26 of them sold. The only one that didn't sell was a painting I

had done of a tombstone."

A New Career

By this time David Merrill's reputation as a painter had developed to the

point that on January 1, 1969, he began to work full-time at his craft.

"I had a vision of what my work could develop into if I had the time," he

explained. "I realized I made the right choice when in April of 1969 I won

best in show among artists from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York at

the Washington Art Association competition."

When he left the Southbury Training School he had commissions for 43

paintings, and he doubled his income in the first year.

"Mostly I sold my work at exhibitions," he said. "I think I was painting

subjects that people could relate to. They were looking for detail, realism,

feeling, every season, every mood."

In 1971 Mr Merrill decided to move his family to Hiram, Maine, a town of about

256 people about an hour's drive from the cottage where he had vacationed with

his parents since 1941.

"It was like stepping back in time," he said. "We had a 14-room Victorian that

was attached to a woodshed and a barn. I found Maine as a source of

inspiration -- the coast, the farmland, shingled barns weathered gray."

That same year his work was exhibited at the Fairfield Woods Library and he

met Douglas Jayne, owner of the Douglas Gallery in Stamford, an association

that allowed him to paint and not worry about having enough money to support

his family.

"(Douglas Jane) sold everything I sent to him," Mr Merrill said. "For seven

years, until 1974, I did 100 paintings a year."

Although life in Maine should have been idyllic, Natalie had been diagnosed

with Hodgkin's Disease. She died in 1972 at the age of 36. The Merrills' five

children were ages 7 to 14.

"My father was a big help after my wife died," Mr Merrill said. "My mother had

died so Dad was living with us and that helped a lot."

David Merrill decided to move his family back to Southbury, where he soon was

commissioned to do the mural in the Southbury Town Hall and another at the

Lutheran Home for the Aged. Next came murals in Monroe and paintings of the

New Milford Green for the historical associations of those towns and, finally,

the Newtown murals.

"Joy Martin was the manager of Edmond Town Hall at the time and she was

enthusiastic about the mural, but she also had a major concern about

graffiti," Mr Merrill said. "That has never happened."

In May of 1983 the town hall Board of Managers gave the go-ahead for the mural

and David Merrill began working on it on January 2, 1984.

"I'll never forget the day I started," he said. "The kids were off from school

because it was a snow day. Return of the Jedi was playing at the town hall and

the place was very, very busy. I was very nervous.

"But that morning I had looked out the window of my house, at the snow, and

saw a large animal that turned out to be a huge wild turkey. I figured that if

it had escaped being eaten at Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was a good omen."

The Mural Evolved

The artist admits he did not have a definite plan when he started the mural.

"Because I loved architecture, I began by choosing buildings that were vital

to the town and the town's history," he said. "There were a lot of red

buildings so I tried to use that color to carry the mural up the staircase, to

carry the eye up. I included the Yankee Drover even though it had burned down

in 1981 because many of the townspeople had such fond memories of it."

"I tried to bring in the spiritual aspect of the town, the churches, as well

as the old mills, the farms, and some of the scenic areas such as the lakes."

After the mural was completed, everyone agreed to wait to see whether it would

be damaged by vandalism.

"Six years passed before I began to contemplate the right side of the mural,"

Mr Merrill said. "I started it with a map of Newtown, and worked for seven

years until it was finally completed this year. When I started I didn't think

it would take that long but many other commissions came along, including the

mural in the Gastons' house on Main Street, and the Christmas cover for The

Bee. "

"The mural developed as I worked; it wasn't planned out," Mr Merrill said. "I

had to think and plan as I went. One of the first ideas that came to me was

the Liberty Pole, which was a ship's mast from the state of Maine. It was

wooden with yardarms and was (at the intersection of Main Street and Church

Hill Road) until about 1950 when the steel pole was put up."

"The Liberty Pole was there from 1914 to 1950, and for many years it was

maintained by a man named Burt Nichols, who used to shinny up the pole with a

bucket of paint whenever it needed painting."

Mr Merrill discovered he had so much space on the wall around the pole, that

he began to fill it in with notable people from the town's history, beginning

with the Pootatuck Indians who sold their land to the early settlers in 1705.

He incorporated the three governors who have lived in Newtown, and the first

woman to hold an elected office in Newtown, Susan Scudder, who served on the

Board of Education.

"I woke up in a cold sweat one night with the idea of adding the faces. I'm

not a portrait painter. But I thought it was appropriate to do something

different at that point, to really connect Newtown with a great portion of its

history," he said.

The artist said the great variety of subjects in the mural also led him to

other ideas such as incorporating the names of all of the first selectmen and

the borough wardens, as well as many of the celebrities who have lived in the

town.

There is a painting of the high school band marching past the Honan Funeral

Home, a message of the hope of youth as older generations pass away, he said.

Mr Merrill, 64, said his days of climbing onto scaffolding and painting large

murals like those in the town hall are over, and while he will always continue

to paint, he does not plan any more large exhibitions.

"I recognize that I was given a gift of something that I could give to

others," he said. "I've never kept any of my paintings, except for a few that

I gave to Beryl. I always think of the next one as the important one."