Sept. 20, 2022 | Doc Pruyne dpruyne@thereminder.com

Library Director Hannah Paessel and the mural, “Past is Present is Future.” Reminder Publishing submitted photo

LEVERETT – Children visiting the Leverett Library these days can meet children who lived a long time ago. Kids from the olden days gaze out from a new high relief mural, “Past is Present is Future”, that displays the town, its people and landmarks, in a timeless collage.

The clay tile mural by Judith Inglese, a resident of Ryans Hill Road, was created for the town’s 250th anniversary. The mural emphasizes the timeless nature of the town by featuring Leverett residents from several eras, including painter Erastus Salisbury Field and Mashalisk, a Native American woman. Inglese also included many children in the mural, a symbol of future generations that also refers to families of the distant past.

“I was given some pictures, historical photographs,” Inglese said. The images helped her portray the town’s first schoolhouse and some of its early students. “They were integrated, which surprised me totally. There were some black children and white children … so I put them in.”

Inglese wanted to catch the essence of the town, a combination of culture and nature, because the human residents of Leverett so much enjoy the local wildlife, birds and fish, and the beauty of the land. Inglese used iconic fish and bird tiles to convey the sense of a shared landscape. That landscape is complicated, the mural has lots of details, yet it retains an open and inviting quality.

“So many times with art, it becomes wallpaper. People see it once and then they just walk by it,” Inglese said. “I wanted people to not just walk by it, to see something they didn’t see before, so that it becomes a kind of interactive or discovery experience as they’re walking in.”

Those who enter the library every day, and walk past the mural, still get a charge out of it. Library Director Hannah Paessel reconnects to the pleasures of getting outside with her children.

“I especially enjoy recognizing places,” Paessel said. “Leverett Pond is in there, which reminds me of the times I’ve spent there with my own children. It connects stories and timelines together.”

The town is fortunate to receive the fruits of Inglese’s work, Paessel said. Word has spread. People come to the library to gaze at the mural, don’t even walk through the door. That’s fine with Paessel because the library is still fulfilling its purpose.

“Libraries offer both information and opportunities for connection,” Paessel said. “Public art is both informing and inspiring future artists, and providing information, in this case, about local history.”

Inglese included the First Congregational Church of Leverett and the Peace Pagoda, two important landmarks built hundreds of years apart. Musicians sit with fiddle and accordian as the painter, Field, centers the mural. Pushed to the right edge is a group of Native Americans and an apex predator, a black bear.

“Mashalisk, who was a Pocumtuck, a sachem, a leader, she actually sold land to the English, which has become Leverett and Montague and Deerfield, Wendell [and] Sunderland,” Inglese said. “She was really interesting because here was a very powerful female figure.”

Another powerful figure fills the lower right corner. An elderly man reads a book to a boy. The figures represent the continuity of culture, that each generation teaches the next, using art and language, to pass on the richness of the locale and of being human. The mural reveals many touching images, a mother hugging a baby, a family out for a walk with the dog, that may in the coming decades become library patrons’ favorites.

Inglese turned to working with clay tiling decades ago and received her first major commission from the Washington D.C. Zoo. The process of working with clay fit into her life as a mother, allowed her to finish steps in short bursts of work. The long-lasting permanence of tile murals was another reason Inglese took up the clay and glaze.

“I was committed to that,” Inglese said of making community art, “for people who couldn’t afford to put art in their house, or even go to a museum. I really do think it changed neighborhoods, and people’s concepts of their community, so it felt nice to be doing it.”

Inglese begins the tile-making process by sandwiching clay, heavy with sand like terra cotta clay, that is pressed between rollers into thin sheets, “like a pasta machine.” The clay is cut into shapes, glazed, kiln fired and mortared to a plywood backing, with mortar also between the tiles.

“Sometimes I’ll refire a piece because I actually don’t like the color, or it just doesn’t feel intense enough, or the right kind of blue,” Inglese said. “So I’ll refire a piece, which one can do, and sometimes it works out nicer because it gives it depth.”

The dedication ceremony for Judith Inglese’s mural, “Past is Present is Future,” is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 24, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., with music provided by Cynthia Thomas and Craig Hollingsworth. Refreshments will be provided.