Documentary delves into mural’s narrative

While Waterbury artist Sarah-Lee Terrat finished her $50,000 mural in the new state office complex, she was being watched.

That’s not anything new, Terrat said. It happens all the time when you do public art. This time, though, it was through the lens of a camera.

Bryce Douglass, a Moretown-based filmmaker, has been with Terrat every step of the way, documenting her artistic journey to pay homage to the patients and staff of the former state mental hospital.

“My hope, and Sarah-Lee’s hope, is to change how people view mental illness,” Douglass said.

Douglass is putting the final touches on a documentary film about Terrat’s mural and the history of the state hospital. The documentary will premiere on Jan. 29 at 4:30 p.m. at the state office complex as part of the Vermont Arts Council’s unveiling of the mural.

Douglass said he also hopes to reach out to local public access stations to see if they would be interested in airing the documentary.

Terrat’s mural embodies the history of the former state hospital, containing 45 unique photographs and documents. The photos are of the hospital’s staff and patients; the documents are everything from the nurses’ daily logs to a letter calling for the sterilization of certain “insane” patients.

Terrat created what she called a “digital quilt,” square images placed side-by-side onto the wall, showing people from vastly different eras and hand-written land plans alongside typed letters.

The foundation of the mural is a poem by former patient Jean Killary called “Green and Gold,” visualized as a forest of soaring birch trees.

When Terrat first found out she was a finalist for the grant that would allow her to make the mural, she immersed herself in the state archive.

It was there that she found a little red book of poetry from the state hospital. In that book, Terrat found “Green and Gold,” and it spoke to her.

The last stanza, in particular, inspired Terrat: “Birds fly/From tree to tree/So you cannot tell where/The birch leaves end and the finches’ gold/Begins.”

“The simplicity and the elegance of it stood out to me,” Terrat said.

It showed her that not every patient staying at the hospital necessarily fit the state’s definition of “insane,” Terrat said. Many were there because they were black or gay; many suffered from addiction and alcoholism; others suffered from conditions that are easily treatable today.

And some were creative, like Killary.

The poem itself can be found etched into the side of the granite staircase below the mural, as a reminder for everyone who passes by it.

The mural “is all about the people,” Terrat said. “It’s about the positive side of the hospital.”

Terrat and Douglass hope the documentary will convey the same thing.

Many think the patients at the hospital had nothing to offer society, Douglass said, but that’s not true.

There were artists, poets and great thinkers in that hospital, and he wants to show that to the world.