As the new executive director of Art Spaces, Ellie Templeton hopes to draw more attention to the city’s sculptures like C.J. Rench’s Urban Flowers which she stands by here on Wednesday on South Seventh Street. Staff photo by Joseph C. Garza
As the new executive director of Art Spaces, Ellie Templeton hopes to draw more attention to the city’s sculptures like C.J. Rench’s Urban Flowers which she stands by here on Wednesday on South Seventh Street. Staff photo by Joseph C. Garza
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They’re right around the block. The legacies of history- making Terre Hauteans aren’t hard to find.

Sculptures share their stories in plain view. City sidewalks and trails lead folks straight to them.

The accessibility of Terre Haute’s unique assortment of outdoor sculptures is one of the reasons Ellie Templeton is excited to serve as Wabash Valley Art Spaces’ new executive director.

“That’s part of the goal, to draw attention and interest to our sculptures,” Templeton said Wednesday afternoon, her third day on the job. Templeton officially began that role on Monday. The Terre Haute native is a graduate of Terre Haute North High School and the Indiana University Kelley School of Business with a marketing and communications background, and has also taught yoga. Though the 43-year-old doesn’t have formal arts training, Templeton has deepened her interests in that realm through exhibitions and activities at the Swope Art Museum.

“I love the [Edward] Hopper pieces,” Templeton said, referring to the early-20th century American realist landscape painter.

Templeton replaces Ally Midgley, who wrapped her three years as executive director this month, before a planned move to Maine. Midgley followed Mary Kramer, who’d guided Art Spaces from its first year in 2005 through spring of 2022. Kramer’s gentle yet relentless style made Art Spaces a leading voice in rallying support for community quality-of-life projects, particularly the ongoing Turn to the River effort to connect downtown to the Wabash River, which is in the midst of its second phase.

“It’s really an honor to be in this role and continuing the work she did,” Templeton said. “I want to do her legacy justice, and to all the work Ally has put in as well and really continue that.”

Kramer oversaw the placement of the first Art Spaces sculpture — “TREE” spelled out on the Memorial Stadium lawn by Spencer artist Mark Wallis — in 2007. Twenty-one more have followed.

All are easy to locate, including the four pieces that make up Terre Haute’s ongoing Cultural Trail. A lesson about a slice of the community’s heritage can be learned, and enjoyed, in minutes.

Resituating the inaugural Cultural Trail sculpture — Bill Wolfe’s beautiful “Max at the Crossroads” — represents Templeton’s first big undertaking.

“There’s going to be some redesign there on Seventh Street, where Max is going to go,” Templeton said.

“Max” as in famed poet Max Ehrmann.

Art Spaces placed that bronze sculpture commemorating the “Desiderata” poet in 2010, marking the start of the Cultural Trail.

Kramer, the longtime former Art Spaces executive director, enlisted a committee to create a cultural trail “to honor notable individuals, icons and stories from Terre Haute that are unique to our place and history, have had a positive impact on arts and culture worldwide and help to define who we are today.”

Through fundraising and collaboration with other arts and cultural organizations, it’s happened. Sculptures were added honoring Indiana state song composer Paul Dresser in 2014, “An American Tragedy” novelist Theodore Dreiser in 2019, and the courageous pioneers of the Lost Creek Settlement in June.One significant twist emerged early this year. The Ehrmann sculpture and its surrounding plaza were removed in January to make room for a planned hotel complex. Art Spaces said its new location would be nearby on South Seventh Street across from the Swope Art Museum. Art Spaces has scheduled a “Max-ology: Cocktails & Mocktails with Max” fundraiser event for 7 to 10 p.m. Aug. 1 at the Terre Haute Brewing Company in support of its relocation.

The statue — which features Ehrmann seated on a park bench, writing on a notepad, just as he’d done many times in the early 20th century downtown — will be there. “We’re going to bring Max out of storage for that,” Templeton said. The hope is to arrange photos with the sculpture for people attending the event. The city of Terre Haute will assist in transporting Wolfe’s sculpture to and from the event, Templeton added. Accessibility is a key facet of the four Cultural Trail sculptures, as well as Art Spaces’ 18 other eye-catching outdoor pieces, which range from “TREE ” to the “Chorus of Trumpets” outside Tilson Auditorium, the watery “Turn to the River” on the Vigo County Courthouse and City Hall campus, and others.

Most are easy to find. In many cases, passersby spot them by accident. Serendipity is part of their beauty.

Dresser’s life is depicted in sculptor Teresa Clark’s “A Song for Indiana,” which stands near the corner of South First and Farrington streets in Fairbanks Park. Dreiser’s writing fills the “Shadows of Meaning” sculpture by Jeanine Centuori and Russell Rock at Seventh and Walnut outside the Vigo County Public Library. A path in Deming Park leads visitors through the lesson in heroism and courage displayed by the Lost Creek Settlement pioneers, thanks to the interactive “Celebrating Lost Creek” piece by Puerto Rican sculptor Reinaldo Correa Díaz.

And, thousands of folks from as far off as the Philippines, Europe and beyond have toasted the beloved Ehrmann’s masterpiece “Desiderata” through Wolfe’s great sculpture, which featured Max positioned on his park bench at Seventh and Wabash downtown for 15 years. Its departure was an emotional change for many Hauteans, and its absence leaves a void in the downtown atmosphere.

Still, the sculpture honoring the creator of “Desiderata,” also known as the “Peace Poem,” will return to public view on South Seventh, south of its Crossroads of America spot.

Its title needs updated. Last January, Wolfe quipped that its new moniker could be “Max Half a Block Down from the Crossroads.”

Once that project is done, what notable Terre Hautean will the fifth piece of the Cultural Trail commemorate?

Past discussions have suggested social justice legend Eugene V. Debs; 1940s ISU basketball player Clarence Walker, who broke college basketball’s color barrier; Indiana’s first female member of Congress Virginia Jenckes; philanthropist and businessman Chauncey Rose; the Wea Native American tribe and others.

“ Ally and I have had a few conversations about that,” Templeton said. “I know that is certainly on the agenda for us in the near future, in adding to that.”

It’s a busy, exciting agenda for Templeton in her hometown, where she and her husband Richard are raising three young daughters. She’s anxious “to have a positive impact on the community.”
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