Flying into the light Museum director brings attention to unique historical events with new original painting

FAIRFIELD - Carnegie Historical Museum director Mark Shafer is keeping history alive with a new original painting. Shafer has spent the last 6 months, on and off, working to create a piece that pays homage to important figures and events from Fairfield's past.

As part of Fairfield First Fridays, a celebration of art and talent held every first Friday of the month, Shafer, a retired art teacher, allowed the public an opportunity to help complete his painting. Local residents were invited to the Carnegie Historical Museum on Feb. 7 to add their initials to Shafer's piece.

'It's just a fun thing to do,” Shafer said, 'I'm not worried. If someone goofs it up, I'll just fix it.”

The painting depicts the first electric light tower erected in Fairfield, which stood at the center of the town's park from 1882 to 1910. The tower was about 180 feet tall when it was first erected. Shafer stipulates it was probably one of the first examples of municipal street lighting in all of the nation.

'The reason it was built was because the coal gas company was going to raise its rates at individual gas lamps on the street. And somebody got ticked off and said ‘I know about electricity and we're going to beat them at their own game.' So they built this tower, and it was only two weeks after Thomas Edison did his ten block electric streetlight in lower Manhattan,” Shafer said.

While the tower was a great feat, it also had unintended consequences on wildlife. In Shafer's painting, birds surround the tower, their fatal trajectories toward the electric light highlighted with yellow beams.

'It was the only light within hundreds of miles and night-flying migratory birds would be attracted to the light. They'd become disoriented and crash into it,” Shafer said. At the bottom of the painting, Shafer included cats, who were known to appear in the day to feast on injured birds.

The painting is meant to highlight not only the tower but also the extensive bird collection at the museum.

The Carnegie Historical Museum is home to over 400 taxidermied birds, a collection made up of locally acquired pieces as well as pieces gifted to the local institution in the 1890s by the Smithsonian, the museum's program coordinator Therese Cummisky said.

'There's a long history of birding and birds in the county. We're hoping to switch out our collection a bit,” Cummisky said.

Shafer and Cummisky are also hoping the painting will bring attention to the bird diaries of William and Carrie Ross, prominent Fairfield residents who were bird watchers at the turn of the 20th century. Their writings detailed the approximately 190 species of birds they saw while living in the area. The Fairfield Bird Case, which sits at the front of the museum, contains many of the birds mentioned by the Ross' in their journals. The museum is using the story of the light tower and the Ross' as an opportunity to refurbish and revitalize their collection.

'The birds in that case have gone unchanged for 45 years,” Shafer said, 'We're keeping the taxidermy because it is, in itself, a historical collection and even though it's kind of bedraggled, I think it speaks of a time where forward thinking citizens of Fairfield wanted to create an educational setting for children and adults. The taxidermy was a way to do that.”

Cummisky added that refurbishing the collection helps keep Fairfield's history alive.

'The collection shows an incredible adaptation of birds. All these beaks and feet, they still show this diversity of our wildlife and we had and still have in most cases. I think it's great for educating people on the adaptations and the wonders of birds and the history of birding in Fairfield,” she said.