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Anatomy of a Moment

Category: Digital Art ; Mural

This work was created by the artists looking inward and working with reduced resources due to the COVID-19 quarantines in spring/summer 2020. Distancing from others and washing hands frequently made the artists aware of many tasks that were once freely executed by hands without much thought: Uniting, shaking, patting, holding, cleaning, pointing, receiving, handing, playing, balancing, thanking, reaching, hanging, caring, etc. Hands have gone from being a supporting role to a protagonist position in the ways we interact with and experience the world. The lead artist, Artur Silva, photographed his friends’ hands performing various actions, as well as screenshots of films highlighting the role of hands in telling a story. He and the apprentice artist, Shaunte Lewis, drew from this source material when creating black-and-white and colored drawings of hands. The work was created collaboratively, with designs exchanged via email and assembled in digital space by Silva prior to being printed on vinyl and installed. This is the first digitally-created artwork in the Jiffy Lube mural program. Artur Silva is a Brazilian-born artist currently living in Indianapolis and South Bend, Indiana. His practice consists in manipulating images collected from all facets of the media and from original photographs, reproducing them on canvas or combining them in digital prints, wall installations and videos, transforming and appropriating them to convey a particular set of ideas. He is a visiting assistant professor at Indiana University South Bend and an adjunct instructor at the Herron School of Art, IUPUI. Shaunte Lewis is an Indianapolis-area artist and illustrator. Her work explores the relationship between feminism and the arts while incorporating bright colors and clean lines. She is particularly captivated by the endless facets and abstractness of her Black culture. Anatomy of a Moment was created through a partnership between Jiffy Lube of Indiana and the Arts Council of Indianapolis. The partnership is an opportunity to showcase local artists, beautify commercial corridors with original public art murals, and encourage viewers through positive images while expressing the goals of Jiffy Lube’s programming: Growing People Through Work.

Engine Number 9

Category: Mural

Artist Jules Muck was contacted to paint a mural on the garage door of the Grand Junction Brewing Taproom. The mural was painted during an informal artist’s residency in the summer of 2019. This oversized garage door offered plenty of space to paint Engine Number 9 coming straight at you. The train tracks are also painted on the pavement to give it more of a 3D effect. The engine has the artist’s tag “Muck Rock” on the front of the engine. Jules Muck, aka MuckRock, is a street artist from England who learned her craft in the 1990s from Lady Pink and many other legends of graffiti and hip-hop culture. After working extensively in New York, she moved to Venice, California in 2008. She currently works nationally and internationally, with major works in various locations including Miami’s famous Wynwood district, produced with Art Basel Miami. MuckRock’s street works are both invited and unsanctioned, and she has created work for gallery exhibitions.

Passaggio

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

Passaggio is located at the entrance to Asa Bales Park and was commissioned by the Grand Junction Task Group From the City of Westfield website: Passaggio functions as an entry passageway and contemplative space for residents and visitors to Asa Bales park. The artwork opens the way into the park and allows for reflection on what has grown and what can develop in the future. The name Passaggio references a passageway or turning point in a journey, which brings together the emphasis of the past, present, and future that is explored in this piece. An artwork such as this in Westfield gives an opportunity for residents to reflect on the past, as well as to examine where they are now, and where they want to be in the future- both collectively and personally. All of the visual cues in Passaggio relate to natural visual patterns that reflect time passing: the concentric ring patterns mimic growth rings in trees, and the columns’ ridges and grooves are reminiscent of eroded landmasses or different stratified geologic forms. The pavilion rings overhead are a way to examine the potential, to look up to the sky as an intangible place and as a possibility for the mapping of what is yet to come. In the two thermoplastic ring groupings on the trail, viewers have the opportunity to trace their history as in a record, and the things that have happened that can be tangibly mapped out through time in a visual representation that can be experienced physically through circumambulation. Passaggio can serve the city as a new place of cultural growth and reflection, as a means of cultivating conversation, and as a record of the rich history and developing future of Westfield. About the artist: Churubusco, Indiana is just like it sounds: a little town with two stoplights. It’s where Herron School of Art and Design alumni Katey Bonar grew up. “I was attracted to art because of the freedom it fostered,” she said. “You always had so many choices about what you wanted to do and you could mostly direct your own path as far as what you would be working on. I was all about that.” She started out “at a small, private school my first year in college,” but then “transferred to Herron for financial reasons,” she said. “Coming into this school after taking my foundations at another program was a little scary, but I found it to be a very welcoming place and felt at home right away. I can’t believe how great the school is,” Bonar added. “I wouldn’t trade that transfer for any amount of money. I ended up exactly where I needed to be and feel like I have really grown in the sculpture program.” For the Passaggio sculpture, she was commissioned to create for the city of Westfield through Herron’s Basile Center for Art, Design, and Public Life. Bonar affirmed that “it was really important for the city that its history be acknowledged.” She wanted to “create something that bridged their rich past to the future they are creating.” “Presenting proposals for commission is always really exciting for me,” she noted. “I definitely enjoy putting forth a concept and being able to explain my thought process and inspiration as it relates to a space or idea that the client is very involved in.” The sculpture is made of three, 13′ columns a skeleton of steel tubing with a skin of fiberglass covered polyurethane foam. Inside the columns, concentric rings of steel tubing (the largest with a diameter of 10′) are suspended. Near the columns are two thermoplastic ring groupings that make up part of the trail that runs through the work.

Pirate's Cove

Category: Mural

This expansive mural at Big Hoffa’s BBQ, of an imaginary pirate scene, cleverly uses the site’s utility pole as the mast of a ship. The artists for this mural are cited as Rob Schaefer and Jackie McCracken. Robert Schaefer is an artist who lives in Zionsville, Indiana. Jackie McCracken is a muralist and decorative painter based in central Indiana.

Westfield Blossoms

Category: Mural

Westfield Blooms visually signifies and portrays the City of Westfield, IN’s past, present and future. Westfield was founded on May 6,1834 by three Quakers: Asa Bales, Nathan Parker and Ambrose Osborne. They laid out the original plat containing 48 lots in the area that is now downtown. Founded on their values of education, simplicity, responsibility and equality for all people, this town was a positive force in the Underground Railroad, and the people of the town gave refuge to those seeking freedom. The citizens of Westfield were the progressive thinkers of their time. The interpretation of specific imagery is as follows: 1. The QUAKER STAR (the light within) is the center of the flower, the yellow and black star. 2. NUMBERS—Westfield was founded on May 6th, 1834. 3. The raised right HAND symbolizes honesty. 4. BUTTONS represent simplicity and self sufficiency. 5. Two Baseball DIAMONDS represent the new sports park coming to Westfield. It will be the home of Westfield Youth Sports and LIDS Indiana Bulls, Indiana’s premier youth baseball organization. 6. The football shaped BASEBALL (sports park). 7. The football FOOT (sports park). 8. The TOWER—Union High School founded in 1892, became Union Academy and is now the Union Bible College, the oldest continuously operating High School in the State of Indiana. 9. CORN—This is Westfield INDIANA—Americana at its best! 10. The numbers 31 and 32—The “GRAND JUNCTION,” the convergence of these two highways. 11. BEANS—These are not jelly beans, the first Van De Camp’s packing plant was here. 12. BOOKS, symbolizing education and knowledge. 13. The LIONS CLUB, organized in 1930. 14. AXES—Westfield’s only saloon, hated by the community, was eventually destroyed by a group of townswomen wielding axes! 15. DOILEY—Sewing craft and quilting was an important part of Westfield’s history. 16. SHAMROCKS—The Westfield High School Shamrocks ROCK! 17. The RIBBON and the light RAYS represent the crossroads that are Westfield. 18. The purple STEM represents the future overpass and off ramps planned for the intersection of US 31 and SR 32. 19. The newly designed LOGO for the City of Westfield rises above the roofline! 20. FOOTPRINTS—This is a hypothetical path of a person changed by the city. This person came to town barefoot and ignorant, became enlightened or educated here, and symbolically began wearing shoes, changing into dress shoes, and morphing into the jogging shoe and work boot that walk the sidewalks today and into the future. 21. The most significant depiction in the entire piece is the LANTERN, representing the supportive role that Westfield played in the Underground Railroad. 22. The lantern is being carried by the hand of a FREEDOM SEEKER, fleeing slavery imposed by the Confederate South. 23. The HELPING HAND of the Quaker gestures leading in the direction of 24. the NORTH STAR. This important star guided slaves to the free north at night. Blice Edwards is a design partnership that includes principals Christopher Blice and Jon Edwards. They established the business in 1993 after a collaborative project that brought the talents of each together. Before joining forces, Jon Edward’s educational focus was on Graphic Design and Fine Arts, receiving a BFA in graphic design from the Columbus College of Art and Design. Christopher Blice has long been interested in painting, mixed media sculpture, fine crafts including metal weaving and art glass. Christopher studied venetian plaster and gilding techniques in New York City. Read more about the artists at http://bliceedwards.com/ (photos courtesy of Ken Norris)

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