Connecticut bridge number 732, over Route 15, is in the town of Westport. The historical structure was constructed in the late 1930’s, along with the rest of the Merritt Parkway. It’s a single-span, Art Deco style, concrete rigid frame bridge. It was chosen as my supervisor’s personal favorite, who received the first print of it at her retirement party.

Two-toned concrete sgraffito images of fiddle-headed fern, flower and snail motifs appear on the outside of the bridge. The sgraffito (a technique produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colors to a moistened surface and scratching the surface to reveal the underlayers) is made up of Wisconsin black onyx and Swedish emerald pearl. The original, decorative, wrought-iron railing is shown, with a contemporary chain link fence behind it. In wanting to represent the status of the bridge, the repairs made to fascia of the bridge were kept—depicted in shades of aqua and pink: highlighting that age in a structure can be beautiful, too.

As the fourth painting in my bridge series (2021-present), the photo references were from Saturday, June 4th in preparation for the July 1st retirement deadline. It was the fastest bridge I had ever completed (to date): starting the day I got back and finishing the following Saturday (working on it every night, after work). It was photographed Sunday night, so that it could be color-corrected, touched up and sent to the printer the following morning. This may be a true representation of what my procrastination is capable of.

Rev. 08/2022