Support for this edition comes from the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, presenting Art on the Wabash. The juried art fair will be 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, at Tapawingo Park in West Lafayette. Admission is free. For more, check out Art on the Wabash here.
HAAN MUSEUM INSTALLS GALLERY ON FIRST MERCHANTS WINDOWS OVERLOOKING MAIN STREET
A gallery of works by Indiana artists, pulled from the collection of the Haan Museum of Indiana Art in Lafayette, went up this week on First Merchants Bank windows overlooking Main Street, one of 12 installations across the state in a series of “Your Indiana” America 250 project.
The first- and second-floor exhibits, dubbed the Haan Museum’s “Museums Without Walls,” feature seven oil paintings by George Herbert Baker, Harry A. Davis, William Forsyth, Richard Buckner Gruelle, Estelle Peel Izor, T.C. Steele and Clifton Wheeler at the bank’s downtown headquarters at 250 Main St.
“The biggest barrier sometimes to be able to experience and enjoy art is to step through the front door of the museum,” Kerrie Bellisario, executive director and chief curator at the Haan Museum, said during an opening ceremony Thursday evening. “So, tonight the front door is that sidewalk. There is no ticket, no hours, no doors.”
The project was one of 111 applications vetted and narrowed to 12 recipients by the Indiana Arts Commission for the National Endowment for the Arts project tied to the America 250 celebration. The project received financial help from the city of Lafayette, Tippecanoe County and Visit Lafayette-West Lafayette, among others.
Bellisario said she scouted throughout downtown for suitable windows that could be wrapped with reproductions of paintings displayed at the Haan Museum.
“I studied every storefront, every empty window, and I’m asking myself one question: How do I bring the art of the Haan from the museum to Main Street?” Bellisario said. “Literally, it had to be on Main Street. Then at the corner of Main and Third, I saw this stretch of arched windows on a white granite building running the length of the block.”
“She saw our windows not simply as part of a building, but as an opportunity to create a welcoming public gallery,” Brent Talcott, market president at First Merchants Bank, said. “We are grateful that Carrie invited us to be part of her vision, and we were excited to say, ‘Let’s do this.’”
The windows, across from the Black Sparrow, include a QR code that allows visitors to upload a photo or work of art that, as Bellisario put it, “represents their Indiana.”
The installation is expected to be up through early 2027.
The original paintings featured on the First Merchants windows also remain on display at the Haan Museum of Indiana Art, at 920 State St. in Lafayette.
TEST JURY CONCEPT REJECTED FOR SUSPECTS IN ATTEMPTED MURDER OF TIPPECANOE COUNTY JUDGE; APPEAL FILED ON BONDS, ISOLATED PRETRIAL CONDITIONS
A special judge this week rejected the idea of bringing in a test jury in the case of Thomas Moss, saying it was unnecessary to determine whether pretrial publicity had tainted a local jury pool ahead of his trial on charges connected to the attempted murder of a Tippecanoe County judge.
