Mammoth Cheese Painting Unveiled at Cheshire Community Center
CHESHIRE, Mass. — The departure of the Mammoth Cheese for the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson more than 200 years ago was a big deal for this rural town.
"It was a huge event, every farmer in Cheshire contributed," said Diane Hitter, a member of the town's Historical Commission.
That was the sense local artist Leonard Stomski tried to convey in his nearly as mammoth "Cheshire Cheese Goes to Washington D.C."
The 4-foot by 8-foot canvas was unveiled — with the flick of a gold-tasseled cover — at the Community Center on Sunday afternoon for viewing by more than 100 residents.
The painting portrays the 1,200-pound cheese wheel loaded on a wagon with a patriotic banner and a festive gathering of townspeople there for the send-off.
"It was fun to watch it grow because little by little I added things," said Stomski. "I'd study it for a week, get another idea to throw in there ... sometimes I'd take something out, put something in. It was fun to watch it develop."
That constant fiddling maybe one reason he thought it time to hand off to the town.
"He said he had to get it out of the house, every time he walked by he added something to it," laughed Hitter.
In one corner of the work, a stack milk of cans boast the names of town fathers; to the side, a group of children play ring around the rosy. Musicians are playing and men and women cluster in groups to chat, a father pulls a child in a wagon and, in the center, Mount Greylock looms above it all.
"He lives up on Stafford Hill and this took place mostly up in East Cheshire, up around the old cemetery, where the town was originally," Hitter said. "So this one is Windsor Road, and there's Mount Greylock ... and they would have gone down and around to Albany, where it was put on a barge and it went down Hudson."
Many of the names on the milk cans can also be found in the old cemetery, Jenks Road Cemetery, which dates back to the 1780s.
"It tells a story in itself," said Historical Commission member Elaine Daniels.
Asked why he chose the Mammoth Cheese, Stomski said, "it was so interesting. It's a great part of the history of the town. I thought, 'that would make a great illustration, something's got to be said about it.'"
He had originally planned on something smaller but then thought he'd "walk away" from it. Instead, he set a challenge with a much larger work "so walking away is going to be a chore."
"As I was making sketches, I could see things developing that would make a great painting," Stomski said. "I started with an 8 1/2-by-11 sketch and it grew and grew and grew and finally, I decided on the 4-by-8. It was a lot of fun."
He gifted the painting to the town last month, providing the Selectmen a print of the original. Now the town has to figure out a place to display the original where it can be viewed but not where it can be easily damaged.
It's currently slated for the second floor of the 1898 Town Hall.
"We can put up signs if we put it upstairs," said Hitter. "There's an elevator, we can tell them go upstairs and look at this wonderful painting."
Daniels hopes that at some point the town will have a space for a history museum, where works like Stomski's painting and other important artifacts can be displayed.
On Sunday, the reception saw a steady stream during its three hours, and refreshments in the form of cupcakes donated by the McCann Technical School Culinary Arts Program.
Stomski said he was a little surprised at the number of people who came.
"The more I think about it and see it and understand the history to the town, it was crying out for something like this," he said. "I'm happy to have done it."
Tags: cheshire cheese, historical exhibit, painting,
