What Time It Is? At AMP, About 13,000 Watches Worth Of Volunteer Hours

The American Mural Project in Winsted, Connecticut, with its massive collaborative art wall honoring the American worker, is a tribute to the value of the time we spend. Founder and artistic director Ellen Griesedieck didn’t just want to lionize the work people are paid for however, so for the past 17 years she’s also been working on a piece to honor volunteerism as well. In the process she’s stripped the material value of 13,000 donated watches.

“I can't understand it myself,” Griesedieck said, looking at the conglomerated panels of watches, glued and wired together. They wrap up the walls of AMP’s stairway gallery and around the elevator shaft. “I thought we'd get a couple hundred watches maybe, and we’d put a little thing up and a little plaque that says ‘Don't forget people who volunteer,’ but this thing took on a life of its own.”

The watches were donated primarily by members of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC). In 2006, Griesedieck, a celebrated artist and former sports writer, spoke to the group in Washington, DC about her idea of honoring volunteerism with a mural of watches, and a conversation took shape there. Women sent in expensive watches, cheep watches, vintage and new watches, children’s and husbands' watches, watches of all conceivable shapes and sizes.

Griesedieck had to beg the women to stop sending in watches. It ended up taking her a year to put the whole piece together.

The instillation, which can be viewed now at AMP, twinkles with a kaleidoscopic brilliance when viewed at a distance, casting meaning on the collective value of donated time. But on closer inspection, the individual is equally, uniquely, appreciated.  

“I cannot believe the interest there’s been in this,” Griesedieck marveled. “People will spend hours just looking at every single piece.”

The GFCW Watch Project was intended as a thoughtful salute to altruism, and it is that. However, standing before thousands of destroyed watches, with their precious metals and gems mashed together – intricate mechanisms frozen and broken – it’s easy to read another more subversive statement too, about the way America values objects and things over people and community.

Each dead watch, and certainly all of them put together, represents the ephemerality of their monetary worth. Through AMP, Griesedieck has grown into a prolific organizer, motivator, educator, and fundraiser but at 75, she still buzzes with a punk energy. When you talk to her now, you still see the young reporter who snuck into the pit at car races dressed as a man when women weren’t allowed, or under the ring at a Muhammad Ali fight to evade ushers. That part of her spirit influences the Watch Project as well.

“What I love about it is, you're taking those watches and you're embedding them in a polymer. So whatever value they have is gone,” she said gleefully. “That was hard in some cases. You see some of these things that have to be worth a lot, but I don't care. It reminds me of when Rauschenberg erased a De Kooning drawing, and that was his artwork. I love the idea that you would just completely obliterate something so valuable.”

To be clear, not all of the watches are valuable. There are some amazingly hideous pieces here that are so fun to find and gawk at — insane costume manacles and silly plastic tchotchkes. The variety makes for a really fun, even historically significant, viewing experience — especially for watch enthusiasts (once they get over their initial horror).

It’s incredible to think, given its scale, that the GFCW Watch Project is a secondary instillation at AMP considering the overwhelming size of the 120-foot-long, five-story main mural. As big as AMP already is, it continues to grow. A venue for school trips, AMP now has an onsite classroom and recently completed a unique arts summer camp that dotted the woods with magical tree houses behind the renovated old factory.

AMP also has a slate of events coming up that take advantage of the tall and narrow space’s high-quality acoustics. The LIVE @AMP series continues on September 16, with performances by bands One Time Weekend and Ruby Leftstep, starting at 8 p.m. The events include offerings from local breweries, wine and a food truck.

On October 21, AMP is hosting the “Recycled Runway” event – a fashion show where all the garments are made out of recycled materials. “It is pure entertainment,” Griesedieck said. “Last time people created some of the most spectacular outfits, full-length gowns with long trains, kids in Doritos bag dresses. One couple somehow carved up an old set of luggage and walked down the runway outfitted in suitcases.”

There’s a lot going on at AMP and with the instillation of the Watch Project, now more than ever, it’s well worth your time.