When Fair Poster Goes Up, Stonington Borough Knows It’s Summer

EVERY July for 28 years, William Connell has climbed onto the roof of the Stonington Community Center annex so he can reach two large billboards visible to everyone who drives over the viaduct into Stonington Borough. There, he paints back-to-back replicas of the colorful silk-screened poster he has designed for the annual Stonington Village Fair.

The actual poster can be seen in store windows along Water Street or at the fair, where it sells for $30. Mr. Connell has made 30 posters (the first two never made it to the billboard), and some fans have kept them all.

To commemorate his 30th anniversary of making the posters, Mr. Connell, 74, has just published a coffee table book called “Stonington Fair Posters, 1978-2007,” which contains images of all the posters and includes anonymous comments about each one.

In the text accompanying the poster for 1997, which features the clock atop the United Church with Stonington Harbor in the distance, one woman wrote that she and her family could see the clock from their living room.

“The special part of the poster is the hour: three o’clock. When the clock hands pointed to three and the bell struck the hour, we were vividly reminded that my wonderful husband was stopping his work and would be home in a minute or so. This poster is now in my kitchen to remind me of Stonington Borough 45 years ago.”

The book, which costs $35, and this year’s poster will be available at the fair, held on Aug. 4, and can also be seen at stoningtonpublishers.com, where all 30 posters can be viewed along with information on buying any or all of them.

The posters are known for their bright colors, clean design and maritime subjects — sailboats, fish, beaches, the Lighthouse Museum. This year’s features the deep blue hull and red rigging of the local scallop boat pulling up to a yellow dock.

“The beauty of his posters are in their simplicity,” said Donald Maranell, the warden of the borough. “They just capture the feel and beauty of the borough.”

Mr. Connell, a former Stonington resident who has lived in Great Barrington, Mass., for 10 years, first got the idea for the posters when he saw a notice about the fair and thought the ideas he had in his journal would be perfect to advertise the event.

Fair organizers could not afford to print the posters, so Mr. Connell, who spent his career in engineering and banking, paid for them. He began selling the posters at the fair to offset the cost. “I’ve been so overwhelmed by the response I’ve had from people about the poster,” he said. “They really belong to the community. It’s community art.”

Two years after he made his first poster, Mr. Connell noticed two billboards on a vacated Ford dealership (which is now the annex to the community center) and got permission to paint his poster on them.

“He does a beautiful job,” Mr. Maranell said. “You look forward every year to see what he’s come up with. You know it’s officially summer when he goes up there and paints the billboard.”