Ellen's Work Blog

Ellen’s Work Blog
April 2024

As we move out of March and into April, I am making an executive decision to get back to work on the back-ramp gallery behind the mural. There are so many things happening at AMP, and there is a definite need to stay ahead of them. It’s good to divide my time between desk work and the mural itself. 

As I begin again in the studio, I am reminded how wonderful it is to work on a creative project, physically pushing pieces around and dreaming about how they will all come together and surround you as you walk through that secret back-ramp space. And, of course, there is so much area to cover, so much to do to make this all work. 

In my next life, I am going to paint miniatures.

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Ellen’s Work Blog
March 2024

February is normally a slow month, slogging through the last part of winter, long and dreary. But at AMP, February was all about activity. The number of new ideas we test-drove in these four short weeks was amazing. We also ushered in the 2024 LIVE @AMP season with Nikita. They are a fantastic group of talented musicians. They worked magic together and, as easily, threw in sparkling, tour-de-force solos. In addition, we hosted field trips, Teen Art Studio, the CHAMPS after-school program, and our fourth Friday piano hour.

On the last Saturday of the month, we had a special book signing with former NYPD lieutenant Edwin Raymond, who is depicted in the mural. Edwin talked and signed his book An Inconvenient Cop. We had a large turnout for the event, and many police officers and law enforcement workers from around the state attended, including Winsted’s own wonderful Chief of Police, Christopher Ciuci.

Edwin and I met in NYC in February 2016, the day he was promoted to sergeant. I had read an article about Edwin in The New York Times, and I knew I had found the person I needed to include in the mural. He was the one to represent all the great men and women in public service across the country. I had no idea at the time how rich my reward would be. Edwin is one of the most dedicated, principled human beings I know. His sense of fairness has put him in harm’s way on too many occasions, but he has never backed away from what he knows to be his sworn duty to lift up and protect those in his charge.

I am so proud we have the chance at AMP to make a loud noise for Edwin and every great American worker who stands by their convictions. This is the greatest gift we can give to our community—and one another.

Ellen's Work Blog

Ellen’s Work Blog
February 2024

For it being the dead of winter, we sure have rolled out a lot of activities for 2024. On January 18 we hosted a fabulous Manufacturing Ambassadors event with Paul Lavoie, Chief Manufacturing Officer for the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. I met some of the most interesting people doing remarkable work in support of manufacturing in this state. Many of them give professional advice to young people who are entering the workforce. I am looking forward to this group visiting again.

Last Friday, the 26th, we rolled out the first event of our Fourth Fridays Happy Hour Piano Series. Jazz pianist Jen Allen played beautifully for an incredible crowd. She is sheer talent. Everyone I spoke with announced they were coming back for the next Fourth Friday. We may have to purchase more chairs and fortify the bar! 

And now, on to February and the annual Friends of Main Street Bubbles and Truffles party. This year it’s at Winsted’s Little Red Barn Brewers on Friday, February 9, at 5:30pm. Come on out! It’s such a fun way to support our town.

At AMP, two long-awaited events are ahead this month. On February 17, the much-loved band Nikita opens up our LIVE @AMP season with some of the best R&B, rock, soul, and funk around. Can’t wait for that magic energy of the crowd in our giant space, dancing on all three levels. Nikita is guaranteed to make that happen. Get your tickets soon. I predict a sell-out. 

On the following Saturday, February 24, my friend Edwin Raymond, former NYPD lieutenant, will sign his recently published book An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight to Change Policing in America. Edwin is depicted in the mural and, over the past five years, I have come to know and admire him more and more. Edwin will talk and show a clip from the award-winning documentary Crime + Punishment, which features his story. Having read his book, I think of Edwin as this generation’s Serpico. His experiences in policing seem to exceed possibility for someone so young. I am so excited for you to meet Edwin!

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Ellen’s Work Blog
January 2024

What a fantastic year at AMP. 

We had 30 percent more visitors than last year. We launched the new LIVE @AMP series and had a blast all summer with kids from 6 to 16 creating amazing things—not only in our new program room, but also in the big mural space and up in the woods in our outside build area. We are learning every day how to make more happen on more days for more kids and adults in our community. 

With unrest and divisiveness in various parts of our world at the moment, I am so grateful we have created a place in Winsted where good things happen year round. And we are learning tons about how to make it all work better. I walk into AMP on any given day and everyone is psyched about whatever project or activity is happening in the space.

As we move into the new year, I want to thank you all for the support you have given, in all the forms it has taken. Some of you have been right there with us for so long.

Now, wait until you see what we have planned for 2024!

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Ellen’s Work Blog
December 2023

Holidays are upon us and there are plenty of exciting things to do everywhere I turn.

As I drive home from AMP in the evenings, it is great to see all the new businesses in Winsted lit up and so warming. I remember not too long ago when all those store fronts were dark. It cheers me up to see all this activity in town and think about a future for this area infused with all kinds of new initiatives and talent. I am going to make it a goal of mine in 2024 to visit, or revisit, all these new places and start to exchange ideas on projects we can do together.

Limitless possibilities and we can have so much fun giving new things a try.

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Ellen’s Work Blog
November 2023

October was a fantastic, busy month at AMP. We hosted Sustainable CT for a fun evening as they presented their CT Towns Awards. Our CHAMPS after-school kids contributed to the creation of a giant bowhead whale with Kat Owens. We had a blast with a sell-out crowd for our Recycled Runway. And we ended the month with 100-plus fellows from Fund for Teachers with a full-day seminar in their honor. These back-to-back events pushed all our buttons, but everyone on staff and all our volunteers and interns worked seamlessly through all the events, the projects, some additional field trips, and regular weekend visitors' days without a glitch.

November will be a little less hectic, but we are already setting up for the Recycled Runway exhibit. For anyone planning to visit this month, you will have extra fun checking out these incredible outfits on display on all three floors. And I have plenty to keep me busy working on the back ramp installation, now ablaze with light thanks to Tony and Michael from Vision Electric.

Never a dull moment at AMP!

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Ellen’s Work Blog
October 2023

I always hate the end of summer, giving up shorts for blue jeans, the end of swimming and tennis as temperatures drop. Then again, as fall begins, there is a certain energy that accompanies those chilly morning runs and an inexplicable joy watching the Cardinals upset the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, going way back to years of rooting for an underdog.

 This month I am going to double down on the back-ramp gallery installation. With every screw I countersink into the plywood, another kid’s piece becomes a permanent part of AMP, and we are closer to opening this new space to visitors.

 One of my all-time favorite events at AMP will be back on October 21: the Recycled Runway. This year's event promises to be as much fun as our first. Having seen some of the designers’ entries, I can say these creations will more than stand up to the marvelous pieces we saw in 2019.

 Best of all, this event emphasizes what we foster every day in all of our kids' programs. Creativity and fun are a given, but there is also a strong message, more important than ever, about saving the planet. At AMP one thing never changes: working together to make positive change. And having a blast doing it.

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Ellen’s Work Blog
September 2023

August was not the sleepy summer month I anticipated. AMP continues to move in exciting directions. The staff is busy making plans for fall programing and is looking ahead to 2024. As a group, we are excited as we discuss our favorite moments from this past year and decide what will be most fun for next summer. Michelle, Abigail, and Olivia continue to expand on program ideas for all ages, and now some of AMP’s adult visitors are asking if we might schedule a few similar programs for them. Why not?

 I have been working hard to finish the installation of the Washington project we did in 2012 with eight schools in DC. More than 800 kids were involved and each of them created their own silk-screen piece honoring a family member working in a government job. I am pulling the pieces out, one by one, and inserting them slowly into one major wall area in AMP’s back ramp gallery, which will draw people in behind the mural.

 As I climb higher on the ladder, drilling these assemblies into place, the whole space is transformed. All these three-dimensional pieces, full of color and light. Each one is special. All together they make up the most thrilling, collaborative work of art.

 I can’t wait for you to walk up the ramp and take all of this in. A giant part of AMP, with all these wonderful contributions from kids from all over the country, is still hidden from view behind the mural. But hopefully not for long. Get excited!

Ellen's Work Blog

Ellen’s Work Blog
August 2023

I can’t believe it is August. I need to squeeze in another summer, this one is flying by so quickly.

For the past few weeks, I have been working primarily on preparing installation sections for the back ramp gallery space. Every project I pull out to organize takes me to an earlier time in AMP’s history. I remember the states we visited, fabulous artists, teachers, and mentors who worked with us to complete these projects. I remember the kids—all the kids—involved. There is no question students all over this country have added a dimension to this project that defines it. And these days when I get a chance to meet and occasionally work with kids visiting AMP, collaboration is so clearly the driving force behind every project. More than ever, when there is so much to do in this world to change direction, fix things, save the environment, and help so many who are food deprived or needing companionship—I come into AMP and feel we have some magic happening in this space. There is no question something special is happening here.

Ellen's Work Blog

Ellen’s Work Blog
July 2023

I can’t wait for what is ahead.

Summer @AMP began last week for our kids, inside and out and when campers are around the atmosphere is electric. I will spend more time working on the back ramp gallery largely because everything on site is so lively. Kids run up to our build space with Chip and Christine. Ed’s music group plays all things percussive; the rhythms wafting through the main space defying anyone around to stand still. The grow boxes come alive with plants as Meredith and her crew fill another section of the garden. Wild creations emerge all over our new program space where Shana encourages use of any and all materials. There is nothing left for these campers but to go for it.

Can’t wait to see you all this summer at AMP.

Ellen's Work Blog

Ellen’s Work Blog
June 2023

On most days over the last eight months I have spent some of my time at work positioning 10,000 watches face up on 28 yards of aluminum wire mesh, immersing them, section by section, in polymer, 19 gallons total. On Wednesday, May 24, John Jacquier, Don Breslauer, and Justin Truskauskas met me at AMP to install this mother-load of watches on the concrete block and brick walls surrounding the elevator shaft in the mural building. Like some kind of Dr. Seuss creature wrapping itself around the elevator and up the stairs, the last section was installed on the third level about 10 feet from the roof. I will spare you the full description of how John, Justin, and Don got that last one up there.

As projects go, I have to be honest and describe it as one of the most tedious creative pieces I have ever done. Yet every time I put my knee pads on, started pulling the watches out in massive piles and, one by one, finding a perfect fit, a sweet juxtaposition, there was this momentary sense of accomplishment. Every watch belonged to a person who gave their time to help someone else. And every night when I got up to leave the studio, the pile of completed watches growing, I thought of the cumulative effect of all that help. At heart, we are still a country of people who want to give back. Sadly, in today’s world, it doesn’t make the front page.

At AMP, it does. 

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Ellen’s Work Blog
March 2023

I am halfway through assembling more than 10,000 watches as we head into March. I can see the finish before we get to spring. As I continue to lay them out, my mind wanders. There are so many stories here—these watch donations span decades. Here is an unorthodox medium that is turning into an amazing art assembly, and a great symbol of collaboration. Once we get this installed, the overall effect is going to be something very special.

Also special is our new series of music events in the mural building—and I am psyched. Mark Saturday, April 1 on your calendar. You do not want to miss this. I have been listening to the KC Sisters as I work in the studio and it brings back memories of growing up and singing with my sisters, Carroll, our alto, and Judy and I, who were first and second sopranos. How much fun it was as siblings to create harmony together, and the KC sisters take this to a whole new level. Add one of our favorite female vocalists, Theresa Thomason, singing Motown and gospel and, together, these women are going to bring down the house.

That’s a promise. Reserve your tickets now.

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Ellen’s Work Blog
February 2023

In my world, February is the last grey, frigid month of winter. Valentine’s Day is two weeks away and I am getting psyched for all the colorful and exciting things to come: the music, the special events, the next steps on the back ramp installing more impossible sections. And, after spending weeks with a glue gun, it’s exciting to think of how 3,000 tongue depressors will look once they are installed overhead.

There is nothing I love more than starting a day with ideas that will take me somewhere in the hours ahead, but I have yet to understand how it will all end. Some of the most exciting things happen when you don’t know, at the offset, the exact conclusion.

Welcome to 2023. How cool will it be!?!

Ellen's Work Blog

Ellen’s Work Blog
January 2023

2022 will go down as a memorable AMP year in every respect for all of us on staff, all our volunteers, and all our kids in every program. From the moment we received our certificate of occupancy for all three levels of the main building in June, there has not been a dull moment in the tremendous space. We have gone way over our visitor projections for the first six months we have been open on the weekends, and we had full sessions for all our programs this summer. We continue to welcome all the kids in our CHAMPS after-school programs during the school year.  

Since we are always looking ahead at possibilities, we have spent the last two months of 2022 planning for new events in 2023. Since we are sitting on an acoustical wonder—the mural building—our first step has been to plan with our music talent team some exciting weekend concerts. From our first big event in 2020 with Paul Winter, Theresa Thomason, and Joel Martin to last fall’s gala with Gabriel Löfvall, Sandra Boynton, and Chorus Angelicus, we have been blown away by the sound of music in the mural building. Since standing ovations are a given at the end of these events, it’s a no-brainer to schedule more of this at AMP. And there is no limit—Gospel, Motown, jazz, classical, and rock—we are planning for all of it. Keep checking on our site and social media for schedules of upcoming concert dates. We want to pack the place. We are also planning special film screenings and documentaries with guest speakers, many of them subjects in the mural, as well as Thursday night jam sessions. And more, more, more programs for kids. 

None of this could be happening if it were not for your continued AMAZING support—not just for everything we do but for everything we look ahead to do in the future.

I see 2023 as breaking all kinds of attendance records at AMP and I am not crazy. I know you are all with us and want more activities at AMP as much as we do.

The possibilities are endless and impossible is nothing!!!

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Ellen’s Work Blog
December 2022

I am starting to feel the holidays in the air as I work to finish assembling a couple projects for the Ramp Gallery that have been in process for the past eight weeks.

There are times when I pull out some of the collaborative project pieces that have been stored away for ten or more years and I just sigh. What was I thinking when I asked kids at HealthCorps fairs to paint these small tongue depressors, all in the spirit of emphasizing healthy diet and exercise in their lives? Hot gluing thousands of these can get repetitive, but then I run into a bunch that are tiny masterpieces. I marvel at the high level of creativity reached by so many of these kids, making full-blown paintings on a ½” x 6” piece of balsa wood. And now these kids are in their teens or 20s and probably doing amazing things in their young adult lives to benefit others. I hope they have not lost their exuberance and zest for life. This is a time for rebuilding and we need all that energy.

It reminds me that there are many things that are so positive and hopeful. They are all around us if we just take the time to look.

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November 2022

I decided last month that it was time to pull out all the giant mailing crates of watches donated by women across the country, who are members of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC). This project pays tribute to the work these women do as volunteers in hospitals, community gardens, and fundraising events in their communities, all to help others in need. When we started collecting watches many years ago, I pictured several hundred watches all pulled together—a terrific visual statement about the hours these women spend helping others. I felt I had a handle on the assembly part of the project. But these women were not kidding around. I am now looking at what appears to be more like 10,000 watches. No matter the method, I know there are many hours ahead to bring all of these together into one giant assembly.

My other project of the month has involved a similar amassing of small objects—in this case tongue depressors painted by kids at health fairs in California, Arizona, and six states in the Midwest and New England. I loved the metaphor for better health and fitness, proper exercise and diet. What blew me away was the artwork these kids managed to create on a piece of wood slightly larger than a popsicle stick. Now it’s in my court—how to bring all of these together and display them in the Ramp Gallery in a way that gives justice to their efforts. 

In both of these projects, there is obviously a built-in tedious component. But there is also a big challenge. In the final execution, both pieces need to properly give credit to thousands of people: kids who are thinking about living healthier lives and are acting on it, and the GFWC women who are thinking about helping others and are spending hours of their own time doing it.

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Ellen’s Work Blog
October 2022

Last month was packed with preparation for our Gala as well as a visit from Brenda Eheart, Carolyn Casteel, and Jeanette Laws, my friends from Hope Meadows, a very special foster-care community in Rantoul, Illinois, where we did an AMP collaborative project in 2005. At Hope, everyone in the community spent four days running around making wax rubbings of everything significant to them—from license plates and brooms to basketball shoes and flip flops. All of these impressions will be part of the Illinois collaborative project in the Ramp Gallery exhibit to open next year. 

It would be an understatement to say that the performance we heard at the Gala was memorable. The combined artistic talents of all the musicians, soloists, and chorus resulted in a perfect AMP collaboration. It was a thrill to be in the space and hear the magic happen, from the first trumpet call to the last notes of Sandy Boynton’s original composition, Amplify. 

Both of these big moments in September reminded me of the excitement we all get when we are doing something special together in perfect harmony.

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Ellen’s Work Blog
September 2022

All summer long there has been nonstop action at AMP. All the kids’ programs came to an end in the first weeks of August, which usually silences the place. This year, we are welcoming visitors Friday–Sunday every weekend, and the general hum and laughter continues. On the few days I have been in the mural building during visiting hours, I have had an absolute blast meeting adults and kids, answering their questions, and asking them for their thoughts on ways to make the experience more fun.

Abigail and Ben, our visitor services staff, together with our amazing volunteers, have been phenomenal. They are all over the place, up and down the three levels assisting visitors. They seem to know far more about the mural than I do.

And now, here comes the Art of Work Gala on Saturday, September 17. I was lucky enough to attend many of the rehearsals, and hearing Chorus Angelicus in our giant brick and steel cathedral is so moving. We are also going to hear the special piece Sandra Boynton wrote and Mike Ford arranged expressly for AMP.

Hope you have your tickets. This one is going to be memorable.

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Ellen’s Work Blog
August 2022

July was spent dividing time between meeting the kids in our camps and continuing to work on plans for installing more of our collaborative projects created across the country in the Ramp Gallery. It is hard to work when so many fabulous things are happening at AMP—admiring the skills of all of our teaching artists as they create murals indoors, make magical music with the campers, plant native pollinating plants, and build new amazing structures outdoors.

As far as my work, I am really psyched about what is happening on the back ramp. Every section Justin and I tackle brings back so many memories for me, some from 15 years back. I am reminded of all the people we have been privileged to meet on this project and all the singular experiences we have had in so many magical places in this country. And the best part of all this is happening now. Every time we hammer up another group of assembly pieces we are including more and more of these experiences and sharing with all our visitors all these faces of America, all these creations, all the contributions others have made to AMP. This mural becomes more robust and powerful every day as more and more of the people all over this country become part of it.

I can’t wait to finish this up so we can unlock the back ramp and share it with everyone.

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Ellen’s Work Blog
July 2022

This past week was one of the coolest weeks ever at AMP. Three programs going on simultaneously—Create @AMP, Outdoor Design & Build, and Digital Story Work—with kids inside, outside, and all over. Abigail and Ben were greeting visitors at the front desk. Ted and Vance were leading the Digital Story Work interns, Morgan and Sam, who were moving around filming on the ramps as visitors came in. Michelle, our education programs director, was alternating between inside and outside programs. Justin, John, and I were making noise that no one seemed to hear as we installed plywood on the back ramp, readying for more collaborative projects to be added to the mural in the coming weeks. And Sam Posey’s voice echoed through the building on a video voice-over for one of our collaborative project videos that visitors were watching in the video viewing room. Our teaching artists, Shana, Christine, and Chip, were just knocking it out all week. I talked to each of the kids in our Create @AMP program, and thanks to Shana’s incredible energy and talent as a teaching artist, these kids were fired up. Teens are not usually given to high energy enthusiasm but, in this group, not one person was tentative at all about telling me what they were trying to create, why they chose the materials they chose, and what they wanted in the final outcome.

If I had one dream about how cool it could be on a given day at AMP, last week was it in spades. “Build it and they will come.”