Mille Bornes

Artist Jacque Hammonds worked with the Fishers Arts Council to paint two utility signal boxes in Fishers during the fall of 2016.

“I was really glad that the Fishers Arts Council approved the design for the Mille Bornes box. I thought it would be such an appropriate design, due to all of the traffic-centric imagery that is associated with the French Mille Bornes card game. And, because I remember this game as a kid, I wanted to use the 1962 edition for nostalgic reasons. To me, those old images of the traffic signals, the running duck, and the mile markers were iconic. One day, when I was painting on that box, a woman and her husband had stopped their car at the light. She jumped out of her car, and ran across Commercial Drive, saying how much she loved the design. She had also grown up with this game, but in France, and to see these images meant so much to her. Others stopped by and told me how much they loved that card game; they were so tickled to see it on the traffic signal box. When I worked on this box, Blaze Pizza had not been built yet. It was still the outskirts of the Target parking lot lined with trees and bushes. Recently, I drove by that box, and a grandfather and his grandson were looking at it and pointing at the duck and the tires. I’m glad that many people can enjoy it as much as I do.”