by Ellie Coleman
HamletHub is proud to announce that we have solved the popular long-running “Blue Face Mystery”! Tree slices with faces painted on them, as shown here, have been inspiring interesting explanations from our readers since 2011.
A recent exclusive interview with Ridgefield’s self-titled “community artist”, who wishes to remain anonymous, answered some questions that have had us stumped for nearly two years.
The blue faces began to appear after Hurricane Irene and the Winter Storm Alfred littered our roads with fallen trees. The faces started as pictures painted onto the trees, personifying the stumps where branches had once been. This was mentioned in our first article about the local phenomenon,“The mystery that has us STUMPED!”
Painting on roadside trees was “inconvenient” so the idea was born to paint the faces on slices of trees and nail them up instead. Each of the 50-60 faces that have been painted and displayed in the last two years is made from slices of trees that fell in the 2011 storms.
The faces represent “the spirits of the trees, as interpreted by me,” explained the artist, who confirmed observations from our readers that the first faces indeed looked sad.
“The feedback I get [about the faces] is 95% positive,” the artist explained. But unfortunately, residents have taken down most of the faces. Removing the faces is not appreciated, and the artist asks us to please leave them alone.
The artist also confirmed that a copycat artist creates the pink faces [read “Blue Face Copycat? You decide”] found in Wilton, and went on to mention having seen yellow faces around the corner of Regan and Rustic road in Ridgefield. The artist explained, “Of course I don’t mind, if you want to take [the idea] and do your own thing."
A new batch of blue faces is expected to go up, look for these ones around town next week.
We thank our readers for their insightful speculations, whimsical thoughts, blue face pictures, and creative explanations!