One artist’s last call for Round the Fountain Art Fair

Plus, Lafayette lines things up for a $21 million public works campus … and a ‘central park’ once street department leaves downtown. And Mitch Daniels on the state of student-athletes in an NIL era.

Scott Frankenberger (Photo provided)

During the last year’s Round the Fountain Art Fair, a downtown Lafayette tradition setting up each Memorial Day weekend for the past 48 years, potter Scott Frankenberger warned customers who filtered in and out of his booth that the 2021 edition might be his last at the fair.

So, when Frankenberger, who works out of a studio near West Lafayette, posted that the 2022 edition coming up Saturday would, in fact, be his last call at Round the Fountain, a few people called him out: We’ve heard that before.

“I told them, I just thought it might be last year,” Frankenberger said. “This year, I felt like putting it into print and publishing it, more or less. It’s locked in now.”

Frankenberger will be one of dozens of artists set up around the Tippecanoe County Courthouse on a Saturday for a fair that traces its roots to 1974. He’s been showing his vases, plates, mugs and other work at the fair for all but two of those years, dating to 1976.

Question: All good things come to an end, right?