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Spring Woods Mural, Bangor
Spring Woods: A Forest Floor on a Bangor Wall
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Spring Woods places a woodland close-up on a downtown Bangor building. The mural by Jared Goulette, who works as The Color Wizard, fills a two-story wall with the subject of a Maine forest floor in spring. Instead of offering a distant mountain panorama, it asks visitors to attend to the small landscape around a seasonal pool. Its scale makes that ordinarily low, easily overlooked world visible from the street.
Bangor Beautiful, the commissioning organization, identifies the work on the side of 116 Hammond Street and records its creation in 2024. The organization describes spray-painted color, shadow and highlight as important parts of Goulette's technique. Begin with a view from a lawful pedestrian position that takes in the whole wall. Then consider how the painter makes a flat building surface suggest depth, using changes in light and color to bring the pictured woodland forward.
The artist's own project inventory records the Bangor painting as an exterior commission measuring about twenty-six and a half feet high by twenty-eight feet long. That nearly square format offers a useful compositional question: where does your attention enter the image, and what carries it toward another part? It is possible to appreciate the work as painting before identifying each plant. Giving the entire image a first look also keeps a single attractive detail from becoming the only thing remembered.
In Cori Skall's original June 2024 interview, Goulette explained that the design developed through conversations with organizer Annette Sohns-Dodd and several digital variations. He identified fiddleheads and a wood frog at the pool's edge among the chosen subjects. He also hoped viewers would find wonder, exploration and a feeling of growth. This account describes a commission being developed, rather than a visitor rating of the finished wall. It gives the completed image a human starting point: an exchange of ideas followed by decisions about what to include.
The pool is worth considering in its own right. Maine's Department of Environmental Protection explains that vernal pools usually hold water for only part of the year and provide essential breeding habitat for certain amphibians. Wood frogs are among the Maine species that depend on them. This ecological background helps explain why a small patch of water can carry a large role within a forest. The mural becomes a way to notice an ecosystem that might otherwise be dismissed as a temporary puddle.
For a closer reading, move between the whole scene and one relationship within it: frog and water, curled growth and surrounding vegetation, or painted light and the suggestion of a shaded floor. These are ways of looking, rather than a test of botanical expertise. Keep the building untouched and let people using the sidewalk continue past. The artwork belongs to the street's everyday life, which can be part of the pleasure of encountering it.
A photograph can preserve both the public setting and an individual discovery. Make one frame that establishes the wall's scale, then choose a tighter composition showing what held your attention. Credit Jared Goulette, The Color Wizard, when sharing an image. Spring Woods offers a compact urban encounter with the idea of a forest: a painted invitation to give small habitats the attention their scale can conceal.
Fun facts
- Jared Goulette painted Spring Woods as a 2024 exterior commission.
- The mural is on the side of 116 Hammond Street.
- A wood frog and fiddleheads are among its depicted subjects.
Before you go
- View from the pedestrian network and keep the sidewalk clear.
- Begin with the whole composition before choosing one detail.
- Treat the painted building as an artwork to view without touching.
- Credit Jared Goulette, The Color Wizard, in shared photographs.
Capture
- Include enough of the building to communicate the mural’s scale.
- Choose a second frame around one relationship within the painted woodland.
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Social
Spring Woods brings a Maine forest-floor scene to downtown Bangor.
Jared Goulette is the artist known as The Color Wizard.
The 2024 mural occupies a two-story wall at 116 Hammond Street.
Look for the relationship between the wood frog and its pictured seasonal pool.
Vernal pools play an important part in the lives of Maine amphibians.
Painted shadow and highlight can make a flat wall suggest depth.
Keep sidewalks clear while finding a view, and credit the artist when sharing.
Which would you notice first: the whole woodland scene or one small detail?
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