Jen Dorgan stands with Mayor William Reichelt in front of her mural celebrating West Springfield’s 250th anniversary.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo
WEST SPRINGFIELD — When 58-year-old painter Jen Dorgan watched her mural celebrating West Springfield’s 250th anniversary unveiled in the mayor’s office recently, images of the time, tears and ultimate thrill of creating her masterpiece were also flashing in her mind.
“It felt really good to do that for the town I love,” she told Reminder Publishing. “There’s something special about West Springfield and the people. I’m really proud of myself. I got through those tears and all those bad moments. It’s one of my bigger accomplishments.”
Dorgan lives in Westfield and is part of the artist community there, but when Jane Barrientos commissioned her to create the mural for West Springfield, she couldn’t resist — although she tried. Barrientos founded the Red Thread Network, a group of local artists promoting art in West Side.
“I said, ‘No.’ I was interested in doing it but, I knew it was a gargantuan project and I had a lot of other things going on. Jane would encourage, and coerce me, saying I could get this done, so I agreed,” said Dorgan.
Dorgan got the commission and a $2,500 stipend for materials and her time last October and proceeded to build a 14- by 7-foot wood frame with her husband around the Masonite surface she would paint on. She had a year to finish the job.
The mural is made up of four equally sized panels where images of Dorgan’s favorite west-of-the-river sites flowed from her paint brush onto the smooth surface of the wood composite.
She painted the Memorial Bridge, the community gardens, Majestic Theater, a gazebo, the flowered entrance to Mittineague Park, Storrowton Tavern, and the town’s police and fire badges.
The images aren’t confined to evenly scaled squares. Rather, Dorgan has taken freeze-frames of life and blended them together — the Connecticut River at dusk merging into a twilight sky on fire with strokes of orange and yellow acrylic paint.
On a breezy day, veterans are saluting something in the distance, with more than a dozen American flags at their sides, stretched wide by the wind.
There are yellow tomatoes, towering sunflowers and so many flowers — daisies, amaranth and yarrow — along with farm animals like cows, chickens, horses and sheep. There is also the Big E.
In the beginning, Dorgan tracked her time, curious to see how long it would take to do the work.
“I was counting, but then it got crazy because I’d work on it for half an hour, and another time for 10 hours. I stopped counting, but I’m positive it was thousands and thousands of hours,” she said.
Dorgan worked on the mural during the day and odd hours at night. She paints in a home studio, so she’s close to her art when she has an idea.
“There were a lot of issues and problems I had to work out to make things flow properly, and sometimes those ideas would come at me in the middle of the night, and I’d have to get on it before I forgot them,” she said.
Dorgan was alone most of the time when she was painting, redoing images, even redesigning the whole thing when she realized her original five-panel design wouldn’t work because it would cover a light switch on Mayor William Reichelt’s wall. So she reduced the size of the mural by a panel.
When she agreed to the commission, Dorgan didn’t realize the commitment would change her life for a while.
“There were some tears. There was some head grabbing, and some, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ There were a few really bad moments,” she revealed.
And while she was alone, there was little chance to get feedback from anyone, other than a couple of family members.
“I was sequestered in my house and literally didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t see anybody. I had to paint. I missed a lot of things. And not having a lot of feedback, you think to yourself the work is crap,” she said.
When Dorgan was nearly done with the mural, Barrientos came by to take a peek. That was a good visit.
“Jane came to see it when it was about 80% done, and she cried,” Dorgan recalled. “I finally realized this was good. Until then I was thinking of how much I sacrificed, and what if it wasn’t good?”
Dorgan had put much of her business as an art teacher on hold to work on the mural. Normally she teaches classes in her Westfield studio for adults. She also works for people who want her to paint a pet, family member, wedding portrait or some other commissioned piece.
The mural is now hanging in the mayor’s office and can be seen by visitors any time during office hours. After convincing Dorgan to do the work, Barrientos was pleased to see it hanging in Town Hall.
“The mural is absolutely stunning. The detail is fantastic, the colors are warm and make the office welcoming. It brightens up the space,” Barrientos said. “We wanted to do something for the town’s 250th anniversary that would be permanent, so that in 50 or 100 years, the new residents could see some of what we are about. This is a big demonstration of what can be done to support arts in a meaningful way.”
Dorgan has created other pieces for cities and towns, near and far, painting several fiberglass statues including two bears for Easthampton, a terrier for West Springfield, a C-5A military transport aircraft for Chicopee, and a turtle for St. Petersburg, Florida.
While Dorgan was born, raised and lives in Westfield, she has spent much of her life visiting friends and attractions in West Springfield. Before she began working on the mural, she went about town, taking pictures of her favorite things, and then flowed them onto her mural — her tribute to the town.
“I love West Springfield. It’s been a big part of my life. It’s gorgeous just knowing what it has to offer, seeing all those places and trying to get the best of everything in the mural,” she said. “This project has meant everything to me. It was a labor of love.”
