Men Working in Slate Quarry 

Martha Levy, who, with guidance and some financial backing from the Granville Board of Education and High School Principal C.F. McMaster completed this three-panel mural as part of the Works Progress Administration/Fine Arts Program (WPA/FAP), dated 1939. Martha Levy was an artist with extensive training, having spent many years studying decorated easel painting, including landscape painting. Her working knowledge expanded as she widened her scope of experiences from her hometown of Pittsburgh to New York City, Woodstock, NY, and studying in European cities like Paris and Florence, Italy. While working on this mural she resided at 44 East 21st Street in New York City. 

The mural hung in the Granville High School study hall and embodied one of the core WPA/FAP ideals - depicting local history. The work educated students about their heritage by illustrating how men worked each difficult step in the slate production process. The mural was seen by students every day and helped to teach the significance of art in our society. 

A second artist, W. Dean Fausett, was the artist called upon and very willing to reclaim this work of art from years of damage sustained from being hung in a public space and also a period of storage within the high school. Fausett, a well-known artist and history buff from Dorset, Vermont, was also a participant in the WPA/FAP program and widely acclaimed in the art world, including the Mormon Artist Group. The Granville American Revolution Bicentennial Committee was looking to conserve and place this mural in an appropriate location to once again celebrate its demonstration of local history and heritage. The mural was placed in the Town Hall from 1976 until 1995 when it was moved to the Slate Valley Museum, where it has hung ever since. 

While the Great Depression Era program may not have literally brought Martha Levy and Dean Fausett together in person, it did bring them both to the location of premiere art instruction through the Art Students' League in Manhattan, where instructor, Kenneth Hayes Miller had both artists in his Mural class. Later on, their individual efforts in creating and restoring this painting may have been separated by time, but their brush strokes are forever bound together in the mural that the public sees today. 

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