Art Professor Bill Ramage has always had a passion for creating works of art, but took on a project of a much larger scale as he began work on his latest masterpiece, a photo illustration of downtown Rutland.
Standing 11 ½ feet high and 43 feet long, the streetscape drawing is composed of 18 panels with a gray pencil sketch of downtown Rutland stretching across the display.
Titled “Rutland: Post-Piero Ideal City,” the piece creates a seemingly life size image of the downtown area of Vermont’s historical city, featuring recognizable landmarks such as Merchants Row.
The artistic display was created from a composite of 30 photographs taken in July of 2012, and required more than 400 gray pencils to complete. A two-year project in the making, the meticulous drawing includes a high level of detail, from window reflections to light ripples.
Once displayed, the drawing will be placed upright and rolled into a 28-foot-wide half cylinder, allowing visitors to observe the creation from the center.
The exhibit will premier at 104 Merchants Row in Rutland beginning in December and display at the Brattleboro Museum in early spring.
This project is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment of the Arts and was the recipient of the organizations Creation Grant, supporting the development of new work by Vermont artists.
Bill Ramage retired as chairperson of the Castleton Art Department in 2014 after 36 years as a member of the faculty. His works of art are legendary, and he has touched thousands of lives through his teaching and professional work.