Collinsville Artist Volunteers Her Time To Repair Farmington Mural

Reported and Written by By Susan Schoenberger

For years after Farmington High School students and teachers painted an elaborate mural on the Route 4 overpass in 2008, taggers left it alone. 

"From what we were told when we did the mural, artists don't paint over other people's work," said Scott Zenke, highway and grounds superintendent for Farmington.

The mural of bucolic scenes that greets walkers and bikers just off the parking lot for the Farmington Valley Greenway trail was created, Zenke said, to save the town from having to repeatedly power wash and paint over graffiti. But this winter, the mural itself was defaced.

Zenke put out a call in April through Farmington Patch asking for a local artist to help repair the mural, and three people quickly responded. One of them was Collinsville resident and Farmington High School graduate Lauren Deming.

"Things worked out with Lauren," Zenke said as Deming painstakingly mixed colors and worked to cover the graffiti on Thursday.

Deming, who graduated from FHS in 2007, said her mother-in-law saw the article on Farmington Patch and sent it to her. She responded right away and volunteered what will amount to a full day of repairing the mural.

"I love the trail, and I live in Collinsville, so it's a big part of the community," she said. "I hated seeing it tagged, and I was very happy to help."

Deming, a graduate of Gordon College in 2011, works at Blick Art Materials in Plainville as she pursues her work in watercolors and sculpture. Her husband, Craig Deming, was there to keep her company while she worked on the mural.

"The repair part is mostly like a coloring book," Deming said, continuing to dab on paint as she spoke. The biggest challenge, she said, was matching the colors.

 "The paint is color faded," Deming said. "And I'm super, super meticulous."