As you have heard many times, art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. One person’s “wow” is another person’s “eeek.”
But no matter your taste, you should be able to find art that pleases you among 16 sculptures that have grown up around Terre Haute in the 10 years that the Art Spaces group has been on the scene.
The series of sculptures started with “Flame of the Millennium,” installed in front of Hatfield Hall at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and the Art Spaces project has moved along apace — considering the time and expense involved. Now seven such sculptures — no two alike — grace the Indiana State University campus, two more are on display east on Wabash Avenue, three punctuate South Seventh Street, one represents hope at the Hux Cancer Center on North 6½ Street and another is a historic homage to composer Paul Dresser on the banks of the Wabash River.
And at the center of it all, reposes the Max Ehrmann sculpture-on-a-park-bench at Seventh Street and Wabash Avenue, an intersection long known as the Crossroads of America and which now is the Crossroads of Art in Terre Haute, sitting as it does amidst community and university art venues, pubs, museums, restaurants, shops and college life in a re-energizing downtown.
A few years ago, that Crossroads of Art tag would have been much less true, laughable to some. Yes, Terre Haute had the remarkable Swope Art Museum, which has long distinguished both itself and its city, and there were art galleries at ISU that inspired students, faculty and patrons. But the Art Spaces movement has taken art to the street, where thousands drive and walk by it each day, every day. True to its name, the effort has taken approachable art into spaces that are public, accessible and free. Such displays make the art more democratic, welcoming to citizens of all stripes in which an atmosphere that knows neither economic nor cultural limits.
The rapid growth of these sculptures is now close to making public art in corners of our city the usual and not the exception. Where once a sculpture on Seventh Street would have been rare, even off-putting at first, now it is part of Terre Haute’s natural cityscape, in a distinctive way that other communities its size must envy.
This is no small achievement, and those who founded and who now sustain Art Spaces deserve to take a bow for their successes. The process of planning, appropriating, funding and siting these art pieces is not without expense and hours of work. Thankfully, donors continue to step up with money, and volunteers continue to support the effort as board members and workers. They continue to make good on one of the roles Art Spaces, on its website, says it fulfills: “Selects works that inspire curiosity, thought and conversation.”
Another thing Art Spaces says about itself is that it “is all about collaboration — bringing together people and organizations and art for a vibrant city life.”
That, indeed, is an art.