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19th Street Gateway Murals

Category: Mural

These murals on vinyl banner material have been added to brighten up an otherwise industrial-feeling area of the city.

19th Street Gateway Sculpture

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

These sculptures were placed in a manufacturing company’s lot to brighten up an industrial area of the city.

Angel Wings Mural

Category: Mural

This mural at DeveloperTown is one of two similar sets of street-art interventions by Indianapolis artists Megan Jefferson and Jamie Locke. Initially created in the summer of 2016, the murals are Jefferson’s attempt to infuse hope and love into public spaces of the city. Their interactive nature (many people share photos of themselves standing in front of the wings, seen at #indyangelwings) and positive spirit are intended to provide a bright spot in one’s day. Two other sets of Jefferson and Locke’s angel wings, in full color at both adult and child heights, are located further north along the Monon Trail at 64th St. in Broad Ripple. Angel wings “graffiti” are seen in many cities in the U.S., done for similar reasons. Megan Jefferson is one of the artists in the collaborative known as the Department of Public Words, whose mission is to spread positivity through word-based murals and interactive projects in public places. Learn more about the group at: http://www.dpwords.org/main/ Jefferson also creates studio work independent of the collaborative. Learn more about Jefferson’s work at: http://www.jeffersonartstudio.com/ Jamie Locke is a resident artist at Ruckus Makerspace. Her work usually takes the form of intricate mandalas (spiritual maps) in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional media. Learn more about Locke’s work at: http://www.jamielockeart.com/

Deaf School Gateway

Category: Mosaic/Wall Relief ; Outdoor Sculpture

VSAI (now ArtMix) teaching artist, Barbara Zech, was a visiting artist with ISD art teacher Scotty Zwicker’s classes for years leading up to this project. They had a vision to create something on the Monon Trail to share Deaf culture with the community. The gateway was a Deaf-Hearing community collaboration in all aspects of design / planning, building, and development. To create this sculpture, the artist led workshops with ISD students over the course of a school year and all K-12 students participated, with elementary students contributing the small hand designs and the middle and high school students creating the American Sign Language tiles. These tiles include signs for the alphabet, the days of the week, and numbers. The students hope that passers-by will try signing, and perhaps learn a sign as they appreciate this piece. The gateway emulates the historic architecture of the main building on campus, and was designed by the artist in collaboration with a Deaf architect. Other partners in the project included CSO Architects and Shiel Sexton, while the plaza plantings and pavers were provided by Keep Indianapolis Beautiful through their IPL Project Greenspace program. Barbara Zech is an Indianapolis-based ceramic artist. She earned her B.F.A. from the Herron School of Art in 1995 and exhibits regionally and nationally. In addition to her studio and public art work (both temporary and permanent), she is an active arts educator providing creative therapeutic experiences for people with disabilities. Zech has made numerous trips to Africa, where she co-founded a craft micro-enterprise for HIV+ individuals in Kenya, and she participated in the International Ceramic Workshop in Malawi. She served as a consultant to ISD to set up a fully equipped ceramic studio, and trained the art teacher on kiln firing and ceramics. This ceramics studio is part of the High School art studio and is still used today.

Essential

Category: Mural

This mural was completed by the Department of Public Words in the summer of 2016, with the help of youth from the TeenWorks program and community volunteers. The design was by Megan Jefferson, Dave Combs, and Holly Combs. It is located on the Tradesman Guild Building on the Monon Trail at 1140 E. 46th St. The project was made possible by the Central Indiana Community Foundation, the Penrod Society, Meridian-Kessler Neighborhood Association, and the Efroymson Family Fund.

Faces of Indiana for the Millennium

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

Charles R. (“C. R.”) Schiefer was a stone sculptor based in Martinsville, Indiana. His work was influenced by his admiration for pre-Columbian and African-Oceanic sculpture and artifacts. Like the “primitive” artist, his sculptures have minimal detail, clean lines, and positive, optimistic rounded forms. When possible, they also include movement, action, and humor. In Faces of Indiana for the Millennium, Schiefer used his style to convey the many types of people found in and around Indiana. Included in this sculptural piece is a Pacer basketball player, an Indy 500 race car driver, a Notre Dame cheerleader, and a number of other Indiana-centric faces.

Going Beyond Our Walls

Category: Mural

This mural was created by artist Nick Smith for NCW Professional Staffing Agency. The mural features Smith’s signature geometric lines and shapes, with the words “Going Beyond Our Walls” intended to inspire the community to push higher. Nick Smith is an Indianapolis-based color-blind contemporary artist, specializing in urban abstraction. His works are inspired by architectural geometries in contemporary infrastructure with stylistic nods to graphic design and style writing.

Habitat

Category: Mural

This mural, located on Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore retail outlet, was one of several executed by Keep Indianapolis Beautiful as part of the inaugural Lilly Global Day of Service in 2008. The design doesn’t speak directly to Habitat’s work; rather, it envisions a world where there is plentiful housing that is attractive and well built. Features include the silhouette of the Indianapolis skyline and many hands holding construction tools. The mural was designed by Vandra Pentecost Linder and painted by Linder with dozens of volunteers. Linder, a figurative painter, co-owns Linder Design, an Indianapolis-based design and mural painting business, and has executed many murals with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful and other sponsors.

Half Liter BBQ mural

Category: Mural

This mural of a steer’s skull decorated with flowering vines is located at Half Liter BBQ, and is a clear reference to the meat served at the establishment. The mural was created during an informal artist’s residency in Indianapolis in the summer of 2019. 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.

Healthy Living & Healthy Locales

Category: Mural

This mural represents a series of healthy activities being enjoyed by a great diversity of people, and healthy places characterized by vibrant plant life. It was created as part of the inaugural Lilly Global Day of Service project, in conjunction with partners Keep Indianapolis Beautiful and Manual High School, all of whom provided volunteer painting labor. The mural concept and design was created by Andreas Sashegyi, a Lilly employee, and was adapted to the site by Vandra Pentecost Linder, an Indianapolis-based figurative painter and muralist.

Here Comes Everybody

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

This project was created by artist Tim Ryan of Big Nest Ceramics. Through a Very Special Arts (VSA) residency, the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI) community, including students, teachers, staff and alumni were invited to make tiles. Those tiles were used to construct three obelisks, which stand at the gateway from the Monon trail to the ISBVI campus. The tri-pyramid shape recalls Ryan’s nearby “Implications of Three,” located on College Avenue, and the tile includes Ryan’s signature blue color.

Monon Love Train

Category: Mural

Nearly eight months in the making, the recently completed Monon Love Train mural is a powerful expression of the great things that can happen when friends, neighbors, and organizations come together with a common goal: to beautify and uplift. Megan Jefferson of The Department of Public Words (www.DPWords.org), a longtime resident of the neighborhood, noticed that many of the fifteen-year-old existing murals along the 600 foot stretch of the Monon Trail were very badly weathered, peeling, and chipping. When Holly Combs, also of DPWords, saw the expanse of decaying murals, she declared, “This wall wants us!”. Within several weeks of deciding to take on the wall, Megan had raised funding from three different organizations. Herman and Kittle Properties, Inc., The Meridian-Kessler Neighborhood Association, and SmallBox all donated funds to make the project possible. Amy Dentlaw-Rose photographically captured the existing murals before Terra Pro, LLC pressure washed the wall to get it ready for the new mural. Keep Indianapolis Beautiful moved the trees that were blocking the view of the wall. Sherwin-Williams chipped in with paint and supplies. The DPWords team brought in the leading stencil artist in the Midwest, Peat Wollaeger (www.stenSOUL.com) to design the numerous four foot by eight foot stencils of train cars and positive message logos that would be used to paint the nearly 5,000 square foot surface. Over the course of several months the team worked with more than 200 volunteers from many organizations including The Girl Scouts, CFI, and the Indianapolis Art Center’s Teen Art Council to complete the mural. “The purpose of The Love Train is to bring positive messages to people in a beautiful way”, says Dave Combs of DPWords. The Love Train carries messages such as, “Smile”, “You are beautiful”, “Do great things”, and “Eye believe you can”. It’s like a 600 foot wide motivational poster… only better. Love Train Video by Kevin Loiselle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICdBwp7L0U4

Pipes

Category: Mural

This whimsical mural, inspired by the pipes at the nearby substation, shows us how water flows and sustains our community.

Soar

Category: Mural

Located at the rear of the Half Liter House restaurant facing the Monon Trail, this street-art-style mural aptly expresses the concept of “freedom” that is so treasured by residents of this neighborhood. The artist, Megan Jefferson, lives nearby and is a frequent muralist in the area.

The Gleaners

Category: Archive ; Mural

This mural, appropriately painted on the side of the Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana facility, was a vibrant artistic interpretation of The Gleaners, a famous 1857 painting by Jean Francois Millet, which celebrates the humble life of French peasants. Millet’s painting depicted three women gathering grain as monumental figures in the foreground of a harvested field. Julian Gammons, an Indianapolis artist, has reinterpreted the quiet design of Millet’s work by including contemporary figures and using a bright color palette. This artwork was destroyed in 2016 when the building was demolished.

The Harmony Mural (SoBro)

Category: Mural

This mural was installed by the artist group Department of Public Words in 2015 to beautify an otherwise unremarkable section of the Monon Trail south of Broad Ripple (SoBro). Megan Jefferson, a painter, DPWords collaborator, and SoBro resident, asked for input from neighbors as to which words best describe the SoBro area. Accordingly, each panel of the mural bears one of the words Harmony, Beauty, Love, Vibrant, Diversity, Peace, and Respect and the words are gathered together at the mural’s northernmost end. The brightly colored panels form the backdrop to elaborately detailed white mandalas, which were created by fellow artist and frequent collaborator Jamie Locke. “I am proud to live here, and I am happy to beautify it,” says Jefferson. “Everything about SoBro and this mural makes me happy.” (quoted in http://www.townepost.com/indiana/broad-ripple/beautification-along-the-monon-trail-continues-with-the-department-of-public-words/)

The Village

Category: Mural

This mural was commissioned by the building’s owner, LOR Corporation, to reflect the spirit of Broad Ripple Village: nightlife, dancing, music, and the Monon Trail. It is located along the Monon Trail near the trail’s intersection with Broad Ripple Avenue. The artists, Indianapolis-based FAB [Fantastic Aerosol Brothers] Crew, are known for their vibrant “street-art”-style murals using aerosol paints. Their work can be found throughout Indianapolis and worldwide.

ZERO

Category: Outdoor Sculpture

ZERO is a wind-powered, kinetic sculpture that mesmerizes viewers with its constant motion and repetitive patterns. The sculpture is made from shapes that catch the slightest breeze and pass the energy from the wind to each spinning arm in a precise order. The title comes from the circular shape of each element and the overall circular form. The artist, Anthony Howe, is a native of Utah and at the time of ZERO’s installation, maintained a studio on Orcas Island, Washington. Initially experimenting with sheet metal, he became a full-time artist in 1994 to create the works for which he is best known.

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