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EDITOR’S LETTER
EXPANDING OUR VISION I WAS REALLY FORTUNATE TO INTERVIEW DAVID ANSPAUGH AND Angelo Pizzo for this very special issue. It was gratifying hearing them share how they fought for making the film Hoosiers in Indiana, even though it would have been cheaper to do it elsewhere. They knew that shooting a film about Indiana basketball in Indiana would allow them to tap into the deep sense of community and local pride that would not only make the project easier to execute - from securing huge crowds of extras, to having a lot of volunteers helping on set - but also lend it an authenticity that could not be manufactured had it been shot anywhere else. I can relate, because I’ve seen this same passion and pride come to the fore during the creation of each of this publication’s ten(!) issues. IT SEEMS HARDLY POSSIBLE THAT PATTERN MAGAZINE IS CELEBRATING FIVE YEARS IN EXISTENCE. It’s a bitter-sweet anniversary of acknowledging how far we’ve come and recognizing how much farther we have to go for the vision I have for this publication to come to fruition. WHAT STARTED OUT AS A CREATIVE EXPERIMENT THAT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO LIVE BEYOND ITS first issue has, over the past five years, turned into a bright spot of possibilities for anyone who’s ever dared dream that Indianapolis can learn to more fully embrace a progressive mindset congruent with supporting a rapidly growing community of local artists, artisans, designers, photographers, musicians and digital content creators. ONE OF MY PERSONAL GOALS FOR THE MAGAZINE HAS BEEN TO FIND A WAY TO CREATE REVENUE -- not just enough cash to help pay for printing and some very basic overhead costs, but to also start compensating the army of volunteers that have made each of our ten issues possible. Sadly, after five years I have not been successful. Then why are we’re still doing this, unpaid, five years later? There’s really no other explanation other than that we are deeply passionate about the impact that our publication and organization have had on our city. There are so few other peers in our space, doing what we’re doing, that we simply cannot give up. In the grand scheme of things, five years is not a long time; nonetheless, now is the perfect opportunity for us to pause, draw conclusions, reevaluate goals and adjust our course. UNTIL NOW, WE’VE INSISTED ON MAKING CENTRAL INDIANA THE MAIN FOCAL POINT OF OUR PUBLICAtion; as a result, the publication has become a tangible and, more importantly, portable cultural artifact that our city can claim as her own and point to as proof that there’s more to Indiana than sports and corn. Conversely, being so narrow in our focus has limited our opportunities to secure advertisers, sponsorships and get broader distribution, so it’s clear that in order for this publication to continue existing and become self-sustaining, we need to broaden our horizons beyond Indiana. This applies to content only; we will still maintain a home base and core editorial team right here in Indianapolis and continue to share stories about our favorite Hoosiers with the rest of the world. TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE SUPPORTED THIS PUBLICATION AND PATTERN AS A WHOLE OVER THE last few years with your talents, time and finances, I thank you! A special debt of gratitude goes out to Kathy Davis, our Design Director, without whose talent, dedication and faith in me, PATTERN Magazine would not exist. I HOPE YOU ENJOY PERUSING OUR MILESTONES ISSUE, AS MUCH AS WE ENJOYED PUTTING IT TOGETHER for you! 2016 is definitely a year to remember!
POLINA OSHEROV_EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
PHOTO ©BENJAMIN BLEVINS
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Editor & Creative Director Polina Osherov Design Directors Kathy Davis Lindsay Hadley Managing Editor Eric Rees Senior Designer Amy McAdams-Gonzales Junior Designer Aubrey Smith Design Intern Megan Broyles Editorial Intern Brielle Saggese Senior Copy Editor Mary G. Barr Editor-at-Large Maria Dickman Staff Photographers Esther Boston Wil Foster
ILLUSTRATORS
Marco Boulais Penelope Dullaghan Fabcrew Stewart Forrest Jon McClure Ross Shafer Aaron Shyr Jeremy Steiner
WRITERS
Matthew Gonzales Crystal Hammon Malina Simone Jeffers Tim Lisko Brent Lyle Shauta Marsh Gabrielle Poshadlo Burton Runyan Petra Slinkard Lily Sperry Sam Stall
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Elese Bales William Baulkey Steven Brokaw Gabrielle Cheikh Mace Freeman Hadley “Tad” Fruits Peter Kulak Analu Maria Rodriguez Polina Osherov Chris Whonsetler
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IN MEMORIAM
This issue is dedicated to the memory of Jim Davis; JD to his family and friends. Thanks Jim for sharing Kathy with us. You are missed.
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CONTENTS PATTERN VOLUME NO. 10 patternindy.com
WORDS EDITOR’S LETTER, 4 CONTRIBUTORS, 10 VICTORY LAP, 20 LANDMARK MUSIC, 28 FAUX SHOW, 32 CATCHING FIRE, 38 CORNERSTONES, 51 INDY 2216, 61 WELCOME TO INDIANA BASKETBALL, 70 LOVER, COMPANION, FRIEND, 75 PIECES OF HISTORY, 82 GIVE A CHUCK, 95 NEON SUMMER NIGHTS, 102 INDXCHI, 123 STITCHING TOGETHER, 124 IN THE LOOP, 128 CARLOS ROLÓN, 144 OP-ED, 160
IMAGES STYLE ASYLUM, 12 BRUSHSTROKES, 44 RISQUÉ TAKING, 86 WESTWARD, 108 MONOCULTURE, 114 SHYTOWN, 134 TURNSTILE, 150
ON THE COVER Design by Aubrey Smith ON THIS PAGE Lauren H., BMG Model Management Photography by Esther Boston Style by Erin Carter @ 10MGMT Hair by Gosia Gorniak @ 10MGMT Makeup by Kathy Moberly
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CONTRIBUTORS
MILESTONERS
WORD SMITHS, DOCUMENTARIANS AND LAYOUT NINJAS
Ross Shafer is an Art Director at Lodge Design in Irvington. In his free time he can be found talking to his pets, traversing the roads of America, upsetting his girlfriend with poorly parodied versions of her favorite songs and working on various personal design/art projects. i/ hot.jupiter w/ dribbble.com/wechoosetogtothemoon
Aaron Shyr is a natural storyteller, designer, and illustrator with experience in video production and animation. Although born in Dallas, Texas, Aaron grew up in Taiwan, China, Japan, and Singapore before coming back to the States for higher education. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI and had a chance to intern for Hollywood special effects legend, John T. Van Vliet (who is known for his work on Star Wars: Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and X-Men). Through his career, Aaron has worked on projects ranging from award-winning game designs for IUHealth to national commercial for Hurst’s HamBeens. Outside of work, he is very active in local art & music movement. Aaron has participated for Know No Stranger’s Optical Popsicle 7 at IMA, Bigger Picture Shows for Indy Film Fest, and The 49 Hours Film Festival Indianapolis. When he is not thinking about design, you’ll find him biking around the city, enjoying a brew at one of the local coffee shops, or on his way out of town for a backwoods camping adventure. w/ madkidgenius.com i/ madkidgenius d/ madkidgenius
Chris Bowyer is a ‘Creative’ specializing in design and art direction, with experience in multiple markets and mediums. He’s illustrated a phone falling into a toilet for a video, broken down the complexities of ultra-low medical freezers for an award-winning microsite, designed easy to navigate enterprise level websites and even spraypainted photo backdrops for a birthday party in a pinch. Making stuff is his forte, and he’s happiest bringing art into every aspect of life, from studying landscape painting on his lunch break to crafting new paper airplane designs with the littles in his life. He once made a logo that is such a big deal it is currently on the side of a building… a really, really big building. Chris aspires to be as cool as David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop combined; and even though he can’t dance the blues, he does in fact own a pair of red shoes. He loves what he does, but the number one thing he’s proud of are the relationships he’s built with his family and friends. He’s learned that surrounding yourself with good people is the key to it all, so Chris is currently working with the good people at The Basement, in Indianapolis. w/ chris-bowyer.com
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Penelope Dullaghan is an award-winning illustrator and fine artist who began her career as an art director for an advertising agency. In 2004 she ditched the day job and transitioned to work full-time as a freelance illustrator. Since then she’s had the honor of working with a wide variety of clients worldwide including Starbucks, Target, Crate & Barrel and Oprah Magazine, and has been recognized by Communication Arts, CA Typography, 3×3 Magazine & Society of Illustrators LA. She chronicles her artistic development and playful process at her website. Penelope currently lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband and daughter. w/ penelopedullaghan.com i/ penelope_dullaghan
Shauta Marsh is chief curator at Tube Factory artspace, a 12,000 square foot art museum on the south-side of Indianapolis. She has curated and/or organized over 35 exhibitions including Inheritance: LaToya Ruby Frazier and Tony Buba, Mound At Large: Trenton Doyle Hancock, Fermata: Richard Mosse, RCA: Scott Hocking, etc. Prior to working as a curator, she wrote for various national and local publications. w/ bigcar.org
Ilycia Kahn Mordoh is an indy based commercial photography stylist. After working as a domestic violence counselor post-college, she found her passion and talent in styling. In Ilycia’s seven years as a freelance stylist, she founded her own styling endeavor, ik Styling. Her clients include Crate and Barrel, Dillard’s, and Bed, Bath and Beyond, just to name a few. As Ilycia continues grow her portfolio and clientele throughout the Midwest, she looks forward to continuing to grow her business, especially at home in Indy. A born-and-raised Chicagoan, Lily Sperry has always had a love for fashion and writing. When not working on her blog, doing schoolwork at Wesleyan University, or pitching various freelance stories, she can be found knee-deep in her local thrift store or updating her dog’s Instagram—sometimes simultaneously.
i/ immiyk
“Professor” Brent Lyle has always been giving people good advice. Indiana born and bred, Brent graduated from Ball State University and currently works as a marketing & image management consultant. t/ ProfessorLyle i/ ProfessorLyle
w/ thestylepassage.com i/ lilsperry
Analú M. López is a Chicago-based Photographer and Archivist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Photography with a minor in Latino/a Studies and Art History from Columbia College Chicago. She is currently attending Dominican University for a Master of Library and Information Sciences with certificates in Archives and Digital Curation. Presently, she works as an Archivist for Dzine Studio, Inc. w/ analulopez.com
Jon McClure is co-founder and designer at Co-motion, a branding studio in Indianapolis. When he isn’t focused on brand strategy, he enjoys bringing unique concepts to life through illustration. His work has been featured in Print Regional Design Annual and FPO. Jon is an extrovert, sports enthusiast, and night owl. He stays energized by meeting new people and collaborating with other creatives. w/ comotion.studio
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HAT, SOX HAT JACKET, TOPMAN TURTLENECK, TOPMAN JEANS, RAW JEANS, SAKS SHOES, ZARA
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY
STYLING BY
E S T H E R B O S T ON
K E L LY K RU T H AU P T
PROPERTY OF
STYLE ASYLUM Com m i t te d to fa ll ’s ne w m o d e r n ae s t h e t ic
STYLING ASSISTANT C H R I S T I A N A R R I E TA
HAIR & MAKEUP BY A N D R E W E L L I OT T
MODEL AU S T I N K . ( B M G C H I C AG O M O D E L M A N AG E M E N T )
DESIGN BY S TAC E Y M C C L UR E
LOCATION C E N T R A L S TAT E M A NS I ON
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SHIRT, LEATHER/MESH, URBAN OUTFITTERS SHIRT, NOOSE & MONKEY, TOPMAN PANTS, PRPS WHITE DENIM BLACK PAINT, SAKS SHOES, FERRAGAMO, SAKS
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VEST, VINCE VEST, SAKS JACKET, K WAY WINDBREAKER, SAKS T-SHIRT, BURBERRY GRAPHICS, BURBERRY BELT, SALVATORE FERRAGAMO, SAKS PANTS, PRPS GREY, SAKS SHOES, MODEL’S OWN
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SWEATER, ZARA PANTS, DIESEL, STYLIST’S OWN SHOES, FERRAGAMO, SAKS
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SWEATER, TOPMAN SHIRT, BEIGE LONGSLEEVE THERMAL, TOPMAN PANTS, MODERN JOGGERS, SAKS SHOES, ZARA
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JACKET, BLACK RAW BIKER JACKET, SAKS SHIRT, TOPMAN SHORTS, GREY RAW DENIM SHORTS, SAKS SHOES, TO BOOT NEW YORK, SAKS
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JACKET, ZARA SHIRT, MODEL’S OWN BELT, SALVATORE FERAGAMO, SAKS SHORTS, ROBIN JEANS, SAKS SHOES, MODEL’S OWN
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y or t ic p a L WORDS BY BURTON RUNYAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY POLINA OSHEROV DESIGN BY AMY MCADAMS-GONZALES
Indy 500 Champion
Alexander Rossi circles back on the journey to his rookie win.
I first saw Alexander Rossi as I craned my neck to look at the giant screen towering above me. I was standing in the Turn 3 stands in the center of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He was standing in the middle of the track next to his car, which had run out of gas shortly after his checkered flag. We were both rookies at the 500 this year. And as I stood there watching him claim the trophy, all I could think about was how delicious that milk looked. Boy, was I drunk.
Two weeks later, we’re standing side-by-side picking out helmets and neck braces at Speedway Indoor Karting, the facility in the literal (not figurative) shadow of the IMS. The go-kart track is run by Sarah Fisher, a former IndyCar driver with an impressive history in Speedway herself—nine Indianapolis 500 starts to her name. It’s a massive building, with a two-level road course and a mini
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superspeedway oval. The CRG karts are designed to mimic competition karts—the kind IndyCar drivers grow up racing. It’s safe to say Rossi was going to be starting with a small advantage in this friendly race.
We walk out to the road course, where the Andretti team representative who has come along with Rossi quickly requests he get the red kart. Apparently, there’s a lot to take into consideration when you’re on a team with massive sponsors and suppliers. She laughs as she tells me how Rossi walks into a press conference and immediately rips the caps and labels off the provided water bottles to avoid any sponsorship conflicts. It’s just second nature to the 24-year-old driver. I request the yellow kart, because it’s my favorite color. They tell me I’ll be in green kart.
As they line the karts up in the starting grid—well, less of a grid, really, and more of a straight line—I can’t help but notice he’s in the first slot (that’s pole position for you racing fans playing along at home). The guy just won the Indianapolis 500, so I guess he’s earned it. But I can’t help feeling a little at a disadvantage.
“Just take it easy on the first couple of laps,” the SIK crew member tells me. “Look for a nice line. Learn how the kart handles.” “Yeah right,” I think to myself. This is a competition. Probably my only chance to say I beat an Indy 500 winner in a race.
“The 500 is the largest sporting event in the world,” Rossi tells me later, as we sit eating lunch at Dawson’s on Main Street in Speedway. “And the 100th running was even a step above that. Just by the attention on the race, and the amount of people there, you knew it was going to be something special.”
I wonder to myself if his status as a rookie afforded him and his team some amount of devil-may-care attitude that helped make the decision to gamble a little easier.
And something special it was. The rookie driver and his team made a gamble more than halfway through the race when they decided to attempt a fuel-saving run—they were going to skip the last pit stop. “The longest anyone had gone was 31 laps, and we had to go 36. And to get five more laps, that was a huge challenge. We had to try a few things that had never been done before.”
Rossi shoots out of the grid and is into the first turn. My plan is to follow him as closely as possible. After all, he’s the professional. But I don’t anticipate the massive amount of strength that steering the tiny kart will take. I enter the first U-turn too quickly, and I feel the backend slide out from under me. It’s a sensation I’m less familiar with, and my adrenaline skyrockets.
* * * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
“I work out two hours every day,” Rossi says, as he takes a bite of his salad. The guy is at the gym just as much as any professional athlete, watches his diet carefully, and— between the simulator and the track—spends countless hours training. I’m realizing how much work goes into driving a car at 230 miles an hour. “What you’re doing from a mental aspect is [also] raising your heart rate, so regardless of whether or not there’s much strain going through your body, your heart rate is easily 130 or 140. And when you add in the G-load, it can get really high. Your mind has to be so switched on just to process the amount of information coming at you.” Plus, there’s still a lot of adrenaline to take into account, too. “You go into it with the realization that if you get it wrong it could be very, very bad.”
* * * * *
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An S-curve and a straightaway later, and I’m close behind Rossi on the upper level. I’m starting to feel comfortable in the cart. After all, I drive through the streets of downtown Indianapolis like a bat out of hell every day, and I’ve talked my way out of all but one ticket…
* * * * *
At this point we’ve traveled a few laps, and I’ve learned the car. I’m not too bad of a racecar driver. No. I’m an incredible driver! Here I am with Alexander Rossi, shooting around tight turns, sliding through curves, and—oh wait. There he goes, his red car getting smaller as it leaves me behind. I cut a corner too tightly and stall out.
“I’ve never gotten a ticket,” Rossi tells me. “How many times have you been pulled over?” I ask. “A lot!” he laughs, nodding to the Andretti rep with him, “She’ll tell you I’m a terrible driver, but I think I’m pretty good. And I’ve never once told the police I’m a racecar driver to get out of it. Not ever.” “You just gotta be honest with them, and admit they’re right,” says Rossi. I figure if anyone’s going to have the best advice to getting out of a ticket, it’s an IndyCar driver, yet I can’t help but wonder if his charm gives him a bit of an edge.
* * * * *
I’ve crashed! And it’s all on me! How could I have let my bravado lead me into this predicament?
* * * * *
“So who’s your favorite sports team?” I ask, as we’re finishing lunch. “You’re going to hate my answer,” he says, grinning. “The Patriots.” Now, before I turn Indy’s new favorite driver into someone who has vitriolic attacks hurled at him, he has a decent excuse. He was living in England at the time, racing Formula One and “the only teams shown in Europe at the time were the Packers and the Patriots.” And honestly, who wants to be a Packers fan? It doesn’t stop me from giving him a hard time. I hear deflating tires helps them grip better…
* * * * *
As we climb out of the cars, my arms are jelly. I can barely lift my helmet over my head. I attribute this to that influx of adrenaline Rossi was talking about. “Actually, that’s probably because you were gripping too hard,” he says. “It’s natural when you’re anxious early in your career. Plus, it takes a lot of strength to manage the wheel.” I laugh, as I pull out my phone with shaking hands and put a reminder in my calendar to get back to the gym.
It turns out this Indianapolis 500 winner, with a new Indiana license plate and a Pats jersey in his closet, has the kind of skill and dedication it takes to be a professional driver. Plus, the charisma to get through speed traps unticketed.
But, as to who won in the race at SIK that day, no one can really say for sure. His people claim one thing. I claim another. Either way, Alexander Rossi, any time you want a rematch, just let me know. I have a Nintendo 64 and Mario Kart. See, while you were racing in real-life, I was perfecting my bananathrowing skills. Remember, I know where you live.
LANDMARK
THE SLIPPERY NOODLE SETS THE BAR FOR OTHER LOCAL INDY WATERING HOLES.
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MUSIC
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WORDS BY SAM STALL + PHOTOGRAPHY BY HADLEY ‘TAD’ FRUITS HAL YEAGY, OWNER OF THE SLIPPERY NOODLE INN, IS NO RUN-OF-THEMILL SALOON KEEPER. He sees himself as a curator of sorts, and the custodian of an important landmark. Which, as the proprietor of the state’s oldest bar, is exactly what he is. “Whenever we do any type of work on this place, we do our best to make sure it’s top notch and in keeping with the structure,” Yeagy says. “We make sure we preserve as much of the original as we can.” He’s got his hands full, because there’s lots to preserve. The two Wholesale District buildings that comprise the Noodle were built in the mid-19th century, making them arguably downtown’s oldest commercial structures. Drinks first flowed there in 1850, at an establishment called Tremont House, and kept flowing for the next 166 years. The Noodle is Indiana’s oldest continually operating bar that’s still in its original location, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Over the centuries it’s gone by a lot of different names (including Concordia House, Beck’s Saloon, and Moore’s Beer Tavern) and had numerous owners. It even survived Prohibition, when illicit basement stills furnished liquid entertainment. Before the Civil War, it was also an Underground Railroad way station; and during the 1930s, it served as a hideout for John Dillinger and his gang, who used the lower east wall for target practice (you can still see the bullet holes). History’s left lots of other marks on the Noodle’s 10,000 square feet of public space. The main bar and back bar is made of something called “tiger oak,” and is probably original to the building. There’s a trough at one end that was used as a cash register, back before there were actual cash registers. The pressed tin ceiling in the front barroom is from the 1890s. Oh, and if you study the ceiling closely, you’ll notice a slight, two- or three-inch dip that was caused when a cast iron stove caught one of the timber supports on fire and weakened it. Yeagy’s family bought the place at the close of an era that was colorful even by Noodle standards. For years a bordello operated in the buildings’ upper floors, until one of its patrons was murdered in 1953 (the murder weapon, a bloody knife, was found on the aforementioned tiger oak bar). Undeterred by its checkered past, Carl’s parents, Harold and Lorean, purchased the joint in 1963. “It was a pretty rundown establishment,” Yeagy says. “I guess that would be a nice way of putting it.” After a lengthy family debate (in which Hal, who was only six, had little input), the operation was renamed the Slippery Noodle Inn. It was reborn as a one-room lunch counter and small-time musical venue. But from day one the performers were top drawer. “One of the first things dad did was build a little stage in the backroom,” Yeagy says. “A lot of local musicians would come down to play. One of them was Wes Montgomery.” In the ensuing decades everyone from Edgar Winter to Rick Derringer to Elvin Bishop has graced the stage. And the audience is occasionally just as star-studded, with Neil Diamond, Mick Fleetwood, Harry Connick, Jr., and many others in attendance. On one particularly memorable mid-’80s evening, Billy Joel stopped in not just to listen, but perform. “He played at Market Square Arena, and came over after the show,” says Noodle general manager Marty Bacon. “He jumped on the piano and started playing, and word got around. There were so many people outside that they had to lock the doors to keep people from bum-rushing the building.” The bar’s patronage has evolved right along with downtown. Back in the 1960s, it was mostly denizens of the nearby Wholesale District businesses—everything from a tobacco warehouse to a purveyor of latex novelties. Nowadays, however, the roughly 2,500 visitors who cycle through each week include lots of tourists and conventioneers. “Our biggest crowd was actually the most recent Big Ten Football Championship,” Yeagy says. “You couldn’t turn around either indoors or out. Inside there were probably 700-plus people, with a couple of thousand in the parking lot.” Yeagy wants to keep the business in the family for a third generation by passing it to his sons, Josh and Brian. In the meantime he makes sure the idiosyncratic structure remains in top form. Cutting corners, at least in his opinion, is out of the question. “I’ve worked with my sons across the years, to let them know what my business process is,” Yeagy says. “Because it’s probably not the normal business process. I don’t look at the bottom line. I don’t base everything off what we can make off of it. I base decisions on the fact that I want to still be here in 20 years.” ✂
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FAUX AN INDIANA’S JEWELRY DESIGNER’S WORK IS PRIZED AMONG COLLECTORS.
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LATE 1920s 1940s 1950s
WORDS BY CRYSTAL HAMMON PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER WHONSETLER STYLING BY ILYCIA KAHN STYLING ASSISTANT JULIE VALENTINE DESIGN BY AMY MCADAMS-GONZALES
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When Bonny Yankauer began collecting antiques and vintage jewelry in the late 1960s, she had a practical motivation. As a young mother with two small children, she was moving from a small house in Long Island, New York to a much bigger home in Bergen County, New Jersey. “She wanted to fill it up with nice things,” says her son Stephen Yankauer.
Like many collectors, Bonny Yankauer ultimately acquired more than she needed. Gradually, she started selling to stay ahead of the excess, and thus, a small business was born. A Smith College alumna with a keen mind for numbers and an exquisite eye for design, Yankauer became a prodigious collector and dealer, buying and selling to a domestic and international clientele at New York antique shows.
Yankauer saw how easy it was to store and transport antique and vintage costume jewelry. She dove in and became a respected expert, making it the focus of her business. By the time of her death in early 2016, she had amassed an unrivaled collection, notable for its size and its inclusion of the best costume jewelry designers of the 20th century—including Miriam Haskell, an Indiana native, born in Tell City in 1899.
“This may be the largest collection of Miriam Haskell in existence at the moment,” says Andrea Hastings, vice president of inventory and client services at Ripley Auctions, which is responsible for selling the collection. Hastings sees an occasional piece of Miriam Haskell jewelry in the estates she handles. The Yankauer collection is so vast that it occupies several rooms and has not been fully inventoried.
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PATTERN VOLUME NO. 10
1920s THRU 1950s
147 35
When Ripley Auctions took possession of it for a series of sales, they quickly realized they were unlikely to see anything like it again. “Every piece stands out,” Hastings says. “I think Haskell must have been one of Bonny Yankauer’s favorites because she really did concentrate on it, and she found pieces that were in great condition and examples from every era.”
The daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, Haskell moved to New York in 1924. Two years later, she started a jewelry boutique in the McAlpin Hotel. She added a second location on 57th Street the same year. According to some sources, Coco Chanel was fond of Haskell’s jewelry and, although they competed directly, the pair traveled together to acquire beads, glass, and Swarovski crystals for their respective designs. Haskell’s role as a designer is debatable, but popular opinion credits Frank Hess, her chief designer, with the majority of the jewelry that bears her name.
Miriam Haskell made affordable costume jewelry for women of average means, but the company was best known for high-end designs for society women and the Hollywood set. The company’s customer list included icons such as Lucille Ball, Joan Crawford, and the Duchess of Windsor. The business Miriam Haskell founded in 1926 still operates today under the same name, although the Haskell family hasn’t been involved since it changed hands in 1954. Haskell died in 1981, but her well-crafted jewelry from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s is still coveted by collectors and dealers alike.
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1930s 1940S 1950S
37 149
CATCHING FIRE. A GLAM ALTER EGO EMERGES AS TAMIKA CATCHINGS HANGS OUT WITH THE PATTERN CREW AND REFLECTS ON HER MILESTONE CAREER. WORDS BY MARY G. BARR PHOTOGRAPHY BY POLINA OSHEROV ASSISTED BY ESTHER BOSTON A wedding. A retirement. And a fourth Olympic gold medal. Ever true to her record-breaking and scenestealing style, Tamika Catchings will remember 2016 as a milestone year by many measures. Lucky for us, that even though she is stepping down from the Indiana Fever—where her entire WNBA career has been, leading a national championship and raising the bar for women’s basketball along the way—Catchings plans to continue inspiring everyone in her circle. As she wraps up her last season and her last Olympics, Catchings shares her even bigger business dreams for her next role off the court, tapping into her trademark command of her talents, her intellect, and her warm, one-of-a-kind presence. ON MAKING AN IMPACT MARY G. BARR: You’ve made a career at the Indiana Fever. What has been your biggest personal evolution? TAMIKA CATCHINGS: When I came to Indy in 2002, I didn’t know the city. I had torn my ACL so I told myself I could be mad about that, go to rehab everyday, and go home, or I could leave my handprint on my new community. So I soon started my foundation, and now, if I have a bad practice or a bad game or just a bad day, I work with the kids and I am renewed. MGB: Tell me about your foundation, Catch the Stars. TC: We provide programs focused on fitness, literacy, and mentoring throughout Indianapolis for kids ages 7 to 16. We have fitness clinics, reading corners at the library, back-to-school celebrations, and I give out two 38
PATTERN ISSUE NO. 10
renewable college scholarships each year. Now, we have about 12 programs throughout the year, staffed by 150 volunteers. MGB: With all the young kids you’ve mentored, is there one story—of the many stories you must have—that sticks out to you? TC: Yes - that first little girl I met right when I came to Indy after being drafted. It was at my very first youth basketball clinic. One of the moms said my story really made an impact on her daughter. Like me, her daughter had hearing aids and was trying figure out how to fit in. I eventually became her Big Sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters. That was my first year in Indy. So now, 15 years later, she’s all grown up and getting married. It’s surreal because the first time we went out to eat, she wouldn’t look at the waiter. She wouldn’t talk, and she was very aware of how people perceived her. I was like that, too, when I was young. I didn’t talk to people. I didn’t look at people. And it tried to be as invisible as I could. That was the start of my foundation. Now she comes back and works with Catch the Stars. It’s awesome. ON BASKETBALL MGB: What’s your theory why we love basketball in Indiana? TC: For me, it is of Crispus Attucks [High School, and its history making state title and its tradition of creating basketball greats]. It’s Larry Bird. It’s [the movie] “Hoosiers.” It’s simply the rich history of Indiana basketball. MGB: I’m sorry about the recent passing your mentor and legendary coach Pat Summitt. As you are contemplating your milestones in life and significantly this year, how are you reflecting on that transformative time playing on her Lady Vols national companionship teams? TC: Pat lives on through each of her players, the people that she directly impacted. And there are a lot of people
she impacted indirectly. For each of us who had the good fortune to work alongside her, we have been inspired to give back through our work, giving to others, and being a great ambassador for the game. Thinking specifically about myself, I think about my foundation. MGB: Does this make you consider your own legacy? TC: After God, basketball is my first love. But through my foundation—and as I get older—I’ve learned my passion is truly impacting others. Once I had dreams of being a GM, owning my own team, or being a part of putting together a championship team. I love playing basketball, yet now I wonder if I can sit in a gym hour after hour just watching. Right now, I don’t want to say those ideas are impersonal, but my passion has shifted as a professional athlete. So I want to figure out how I can turn my passion of helping others into my next chapter. I am very intrigued by helping other players find more opportunities to transition after their on-court careers are over. I tell my teammates, it’s all about taking advantage of opportunities. The media is so quick to write articles about pro athlete bankruptcy and what athletes aren’t doing with their lives. At a young age, athletes have found the benefits of sport. So on the backend, how can sports allow you to adapt to reenter the workforce or find something else you are passionate about? MGB: That’s a healthy stance and sounds like there would be a niche for that. TC: Not only for the “W,” but for the NBA, and the D League. Even with what the NBA guys are earning, depending on their lifestyle, it can run out. Unlike the NBA, for the WNBA, the majority of our players have college degrees, so how do we make a natural connection while we are still in the “W” to apply our educations and help us do whatever is next?
WARDOBE BY NIKKI BLAINE COUTURE STYLED BY SHYRA ELY-GASH STYLE ASSISTANT LAKEISHA ROGERS MAKEUP BY KATHY MOBERLY HAIR BY PHILIP SALMON 39
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MGB: [At the time of this conversation], with just a few Fever games left, is there anything you still wanted to accomplish during your time as a player? TC: No. I have had many blessings and no regrets. I will have gone to the Olympics four times. I am proud that I am among an elite class of players representing our country. I have gold medals. ON THE OLYMPICS MGB: Is representing your country for the Olympics as cool as we all imagine? TC: Oh yes! For the opening ceremonies, all countries are lined up outside the arena. The line shuffles a few steps at a time and then all of a sudden, you get to the opening, walk into the arena and they announce, “United States of America!” It is one of those moments you can’t really explain—the fans, the flag, the national anthem. It’s all surreal. MGB: Since this is your fourth and probably last Olympics, do you think it will feel different? TC: Going to the Olympics is a dream come true and I will never take for granted being able wear the USA uniform. But this is my last Olympics, and I want to take advantage of being over there by getting out, and attending some of the other events. My last three Olympics, I was focused on, “I gotta play. I gotta play.” ON STYLE MGB: Tell me about your style. TC: Like food, I’m willing to try anything once. I like simple. I like comfort. My sister used to help me pack— mostly business casual when I represent the Fever. Now I trust my stylist [Shyra Ely-Gash, a former WNBA player]. She has pushed me but I like to stay in my comfort zone. MGB: Tell me how your style relates to representing the WNBA. TC: For the [NBA] guys, they arrive in charter planes. For the “W,” we fly commercial. We do meet a lot of fans in the airport so I am very conscious of dressing well. I know I don’t want to talk to someone in sweatpants. I don’t want to be known as just an athlete. And at a press conference, it’s a given—you must look nice. MGB: Have you ever done high fashion modeling before like you are doing for PATTERN? You’re a natural! TC: Not really - I’ve never had time for it. I did walk in Shyra’s fashion show that she organized during this year’s Final Four. ON WHAT’S NEXT MGB: After retiring from the Fever, where will you go? TC: I plan to stay in Indy. I’ve lived here longer than any other place. I want explore the town, and eat in every restaurant! MGB: What’s next for Catch the Stars? TC: With my retirement, I can focus more fully on expanding my foundation. For starters, my goal is to increase the $2,500 scholarships to $5,000, and then $10,000. MGB: Are you going to take some time off after the season is over? TC: Yes! I didn’t have a honeymoon when we got married [in February]. We haven’t booked a place yet but we’re going to have a honeymoon probably in November. People like to joke that I’ll probably sleep in the day after my last game. But I say, probably not. I am always on the go so I can’t imagine not having something to do. ✂ 41
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY POLINA OSHEROV
TRANSFORMING INDIANAPOLIS ONE IDEA AT A TIME.
DESIGN BY JOHN ILANG-ILANG
FRANK BASILE
Board member and former interim president of Heartland Film Festival WORDS BY SHAUTA MARSH
1
Claim to Fame: Philanthropist, public speaker, Senior VP of Property Management at the Gene B Glick company, author of 14 books, In his words “All Around Good Guy, Great Husband and Mediocre dancer”
PATTERN VOLUME NO. 10
52
No
Frank Basile strides, smiling, into the light filled lobby of
Most of the other film festivals, like Sundance, are industry
the Heartland Film Festival’s storefront. Nestled on the
based, meaning the people attending are working in the
north end of the Murphy Arts Center along the Cultural
film industry.
Trail in Fountain Square, Heartland Film is celebrating 25
“Being supported so well, has raised our profile on a
years. Less than one quarter of a percent of film festivals make it this long.
national level. We put on a great festival but we are low key. While Indianapolis isn’t a film hotbed,” says Basile, “we
As he welcomes us, Basile has an accent we can’t quite
offer the highest dollar prizes to our filmmakers.”
place: the confidence of an East-Coaster but not the
Since their inception, Heartland has given $3 million in
speed. His personal style is timeless, not trendy, which he credits to his wife Katrina.
awards to filmmakers. The organization is also working on bringing national attention to both Indianapolis and the
It’s easy to understand how he came to play such a large
festival with their Truly Moving Picture Award. The entries
role in forming the Indianapolis arts community, especially
for the Truly Moving Picture Award are submitted by film
if you google Basile Theater. There are at least five Basile
studios versus independent filmmakers, drawing attention
Theaters in Indianapolis, including the one inside the
to the festival and our city from industry giants like Disney.
Heartland Film headquarters, showing free films every
Heartland Film also advocates for a 30 percent tax
first Friday from 7-10 p.m.
incentive for filmmakers. Currently, it’s not usually financially viable to make a film in Indiana. For example,
Arts Center, Joyce Sommers with his idea to name theaters.
though Indiana author John Green’s The Fault in our Stars
With the mortgage for the Michael Graves building zapping
was set in Indiana, it was filmed in Pennsylvania because
their operating budget, she asked Basile to pay off the
of tax incentives offered there.
mortgage. If he did, he could name the theater.
This August, about a year into his interim role, Basile and
“I was reluctant to make a major contribution until Joyce
his board of directors selected San Diego International Film
came along. But she hit my hot button because it was for
Festival’s Vice President Craig Prater to be his successor at
outreach. It was for people who can’t otherwise afford it.
Heartland Film. With Heartland becoming Academy Award
I’m a professional speaker, and I love plays. So I started
qualified in 2011, the organizers felt Prater’s experience
the naming of theaters because of Joyce.”
and background were perfect for taking the festival to
Basile’s genuine appreciation and love for Heartland Film
the next level of success. Prater especially stood out to
is contagious. He vividly remembers the first Heartland Film he saw in 2007. It was a special screening of The
CORNERSTONE: TRANSFORMING INDIANAPOLIS ONE IDEA AT A TIME.
Basile credits former executive director of the Indianapolis
Basile because he looks at art the way Basile does, as a necessity.
Ultimate Gift, a movie produced by CEO of ReelWorks
“So many people look at art as being a luxury, but it
Studio and board member, Rick Eldridge. “It’s these sort
isn’t. It’s one of the things that make life worth living. I
of stories that inspire both an audience and filmmakers
can’t imagine a day now, not being exposed to something
to produce something that has the power to transform
involving art.”
human beings,” says Basile of the film.
Growing up in New Orleans being poor, he didn’t have
The Ultimate Gift will be screened again as part of their
access to the arts. “I was already in my 50s before I had
Side Bar Series, which features select festival films from
exposure to any of the arts. So I just don’t want that to
the past 10 years. Also, to accommodate a record number
happen to anybody these days,” explains Basile. “My
of 2,500 entries from around the world, this year’s festival
personal mission is to help people become their best
has been extended to 11 days, screening 130 movies
person, that’s the sort of films Heartland selects. Film
beginning October 20.
that is entertaining but also informs, enlightens, engages
With 90 percent of Heartland Film Festival’s attendees
people. I love that,” says Basile.
being Indiana residents, it’s a community-based festival.
- FRANK BASILE
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2
No
BRIAN PAYNE
WORDS BY SHAUTA MARSH
President and CEO of Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF) and the Indianapolis Foundation
Claim to Fame: The Indianapolis Cultural Trail, a legacy of Gene and Marilyn Glick.
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PATTERN VOLUME NO. 10
Brian Payne stood with Jerry Semler, CEO of OneAmerica,
Most of the public art, nonprofits, and free or affordable
looking out the window of the 36th floor of the Skyline
public programming and events we know and love are
Club over the city of Indianapolis in 1993. Payne was 34
supported in large part due to foundation support.
years old and there for what would be the final interview
“We have great arts and culture. We have really talented
before he’d take the job running the Indiana Repertory Theater.
people and exceptional cultural organizations. We have those organizations because we have philanthropic
The landscape of downtown was very different at the
support for the arts,” Payne says.
time. Though the city had cemented its role as the amateur
The Indianapolis Foundation is celebrating its 100th
sports capital, the downtown was quiet. The Circle Center Mall didn’t exist. And the few retail businesses located downtown struggled. There were only a handful of restaurants, including St. Elmo’s Steakhouse and the now-defunct King Cole’s. But Semler had a dream for the city that piqued Payne’s interest in Indianapolis. pointing out everything he was proud of in Indianapolis and the vision for the future,” Payne recalls. “I realized from the beginning, this was a place that had a lot of pride and people who were willing to work together to create a strong sense of community.” Soon after, Payne left his job as executive director of 00ffff up his place in the the Shakespeare Santa Cruz, packed California beach town, and drove cross-country to start a new life. “I felt instantly at home in Indianapolis,” Payne says. “I joke that in a previous life I must have been a Midwesterner because I am completely connected to the culture of Indianapolis. Some of it I wanted to change, but now I understand it. And a lot of it I valued greatly then and still do to this day.” Fast forward 23 years and Payne is now at the helm of CICF. He and other leaders within this coalition of funders have helped give Indianapolis high-profile assets like the Cultural Trail and the Public Collection, sustained our
and programs. One was a two-day interactive light festival on the Cultural Trail and around the downtown canal in late August. And CICF brought a yearlong exhibit of steel sculptures by artist Don Gummer. “Art makes us reflect on our lives in a meaningful way. At its best it can challenge our thinking so we can be better, and it inspires us that better days are ahead,” says Payne. But the most unique way Payne and his board are celebrating this milestone is by creating the Ben Franklin Fund, two new public-sourced funds to support the community after 100 years. Modeled after an endowment created by Ben Franklin upon his death, anyone can contribute $100 or $1,000 to go into the fund. It will remain untouched for at least 100 years while gathering interest. This could provide as much as $5 million for future use, continuing and combining the vision of Payne, his board and future generations. Payne is excited about getting started on the next 100 years and specifically working towards equalizing opportunities for disadvantaged individuals. “We talk a lot about what we value at CICF. I value innovation and creativity, but too many things in our country and our communities are not fair,” he says. “So I’ve decided that my number one value is fairness.”
symphony, preserved buildings like the Athenaeum, and helped guide the culture of this city.
CORNERSTONE: TRANSFORMING INDIANAPOLIS ONE IDEA AT A TIME.
“He took me to each corner—north, south, east, and west—
anniversary this year with a variety of engaging projects
- BRIAN PAYNE
55
WORDS BY SHAUTA MARSH
3
No
ALLISON MELANGTON Senior Vice President at Hulman Motorsports
Claim to Fame: chairing the Indianapolis Super Bowl committee and the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500
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PATTERN VOLUME NO. 10
When you meet Allison Melangton, it’s best to just listen. Known for leading the Indianapolis committee behind Super Bowl XLVI and helping throw a monumental celebration of the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, Melangton has been running things in Indianapolis since moving here as a 22-year old gymnast. “USA Gymnastics came to Colorado to interview me and
Melangton has now been at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for two races. With an estimated 350,000 people attending, the most recent Indy 500 was the largest sporting event ever held in the world. And she wants to keep the community, the state, the region energized for next year. One way she wants to do that is through the fashion.
said, ‘we’re building this sports empire. We’re going to
“I’ve been thinking about apparel, how people make their
take Indianapolis and turn it into a sports destination and
own clothes for the race, all the fire suit designs and
city,’” she says. “And at the time (1983) it really wasn’t. It
emblems. This year I walked up to these two guys and
had started that process but it wasn’t a big sports capital
they had complete checkered pants on,” Melangton says.
yet. I wanted to be part of that vision behind Ted Boehm,
“I walked downstairs with my phone because I had an
Jim Morris, Jack Swarbrick, and Sandy Knapp. I was in my
idea about next year and said to them, ‘you guys are my
20s but I wanted to be a part because they were building
poster kids for this.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we made these.’
an incredible product.”
They were hilarious yet in good taste. I was shocked they
Many from that group were among city leaders who mentored Melangton during her time at Indiana Sport Corp. And they had the vision to start a nonprofit organization
made them. And I was thinking maybe we should have a contest with really cool experiences or prizes, with different categories.”
with the mission of attracting, running, and hosting
Melangton has come to be an expert at noticing people
sporting events in Indianapolis. In 1979, they created the
and details, bringing masses of people together,
first ever sports corporation. Now, more than 500 hundred
engaging them, and creating a positive experience for
exist in the country.
the community. She did it for Indianapolis with the Super
“So they took an idea, made it a business, and now it’s
Bowl and the Indy 500.
an industry,” she says. “We don’t have a lot of things that
It takes work. And, like all sports, determination.
attract a normal tourist. A lot of our tourism comes from
“Be the best, so you can’t be overlooked, work hard, put
hosting events that people attend; they have a great experience; and then they want to come back.”
out a great product, and keep your character in check all
- ALLISON MELANGTON
the time - respond, don’t react” she says. “That checklist of things is what makes superstars.”
No Claim to Fame: Chreece, Let’s Do Lunch, Artist in Residence
4
OREO JONES
at Listen Hear, Cash For Gold Playing a show at Pizza King in the winter of 2015, Oreo Jones had the idea of starting a neighborhood-based hip hop festival. Jones felt Indianapolis was ready to
Hip-Hop Artist
pushback against the negative stigmas associated with the art form. The first Chreece hip hop music festival, the name a combination of the words Cheers (referencing the 1980s television sitcom show) and peace, took place the following August with all six venues at capacity by 7 p.m. “I wanted to bring people together. I wanted to make people aware there is a lane here, and people came out. Hip hop is powerful culturally in the country. People are paying $300 a ticket for Kayne West or Beyonce--they aren’t even blinking an eye about it. People are spending a whole paycheck on Jordan shoes. People are subscribing to HBO Go so they can watch a Beyonce short film. It’s a driving force,” says Jones. Jones is also certain hip-hop artists outnumber bands because the art form is easily accessible despite background or economic disparities. “Kids who grow up in an environment where they can’t afford music lessons, or instruments—guitars, pianos—so, what do you have? You can go online, you go on your phone, and jack a beat. You can download an instrumental, and you can write with a pen and pad. Off the bat, you don’t need a mentor,” says Jones.
This percentage gives the genre great power over popular culture. Jones believes the art form is a reflection of America. “People have been waiting. So I wanted to cover every single corner, of every part of the hip-hop culture, from the trap rappers who are hustlin’ to the fucking avant garde rappers to the art rappers to the nerd-core dudes who are rappin’ about Pokemon and comic books. That’s kind of the whole scope of hip hop. There’s these little subgenres-these pockets that are totally different because people
The 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation Report Generation
grew up in different households. They cut their teeth on
M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds reported that 65
different types of music and there’s this genre bending
percent 8-18 year olds listen to the genre on a daily basis.
aspect to it.” 57
Despite the successes and the accessibility of hip hop,
create press kits, and advise on how to best approach
its artists still face several obstacles. Artists don’t always
venues that might be worried about booking a hip-hop
have the opportunities needed to gather experience
show. He believes this will give artists more creative
performing or for mentorship.
control over their work and increase their chances at
“There’s this weird standard where venues are cautious in
making a living from their passion.
booking because they automatically assume there’s going
But on a grander scale, Jones who is biracial, believes his
to be thug, gangster, hood, drug dealin’ killin’ bangin’. This
role is to be a bridge in these times of racial tension between
weird racial connotation that’s all negative,” says Jones.
the hip-hop community and Indy’s neighborhoods. And no,
“Locally, I feel like artists here, they kind of get upset
his parents did not name him Oreo, it is a name that he
that they can’t book. That’s just kind of an experience
chose himself.
thing that leads back to it being a solo art form. You can
“The name Oreo Jones, it’s how I’ve navigated through
put a song online and people go crazy over it. But you haven’t touched a stage, you’ve never performed. So it’s this push and pull. Artists do really great online then. They get a buzz going, but they don’t have any experience in booking a show, booking a tour, figuring out how to pay a sound band, or creating a budget to really execute their own shows.
my life. I get it a lot, ‘What does Oreo mean? Does it mean like a black and white thing?’ I’ve embraced my culture, what I am. My whole life people have been like, ‘Oh, but you’re mixed. You’re black. You’re white.’ People always try to pin me as something. Ultimately, I’ve embraced this thing where: I’m actually just a fuckin’ human. I can go to the hood, have a conversation, and kick it with some of
So then you get to a point where you’re trying to move
my best friends who are wild as shit. Then I can go to the
forward, and you hit a wall. You’re trying to book shows,
Indianapolis Museum of Art to a symposium, kick it, ask
tour, shop a record, and present it to people. It’s a labyrinth,
questions, and feel right at home,” says Jones. “So I’ve
and it’s wild.”
taken advantage of this with Chreece. Using it to bring
Jones is working on starting a workshop to help solo
everyone together, kind of like Obama. Being biracial, it’s important for me to bring people together.
WORDS BY SHAUTA MARSH
hip-hop artists with these issues. He wants to help them
- OREO JONES
WORDS BY BRENT LYLE
No
5
JEB BANNER CEO and co-founder of SmallBox
59
Claim to Fame: CEO of Smallbox, Founder of Musical Family Tree, Co-Founder of SpeakEasy, and serial investor
The company has since come up with unique practices to
that works behind the scenes, to push life into everything
stay close to their passion for people. In 2012, SmallBox
it can reach. We survive because our heart never stops
launched Nice Grants - an annual, no-strings-attached,
working for us. Jeb Banner, is, in many ways, the beating
round of $1,000 grants for big ideas. The popular grants
heart of the Indianapolis entrepreneurial community.
are now administered by the Central Indiana Community
Jeb is CEO and co-founder of SmallBox, an Indianapolisbased “culture-powered marketing” company, which he and a partner launched in 2006. For most entrepreneurs,
WORDS BY BRENT LYLE.
that would be the highlight item on their resumes, but
Foundation (CICF). Banner and other ‘Boxers have contributed to Musical Family Tree, the SpeakEasy, Joyful Noise Recordings, and started Brain Twins. “Community engagement is a hallmark of who we are,” Banner declares.
Jeb’s was just getting started. He went on to co-found
On the inside, every six months, they hold a “factory
the SpeakEasy—a co-working hub located in SoBro (south
week.” The entire team takes a week off to recalibrate
Broad Ripple)—as well as Musical Family Tree, an online
and design their next six months. “We push ourselves to
archive of local music. And that’s on top of launching and
take that risk and communicate that we’re not going to
invested in several other Indianapolis-based businesses,
focus on clients for a week, only on us,” Banner says. He
including another marketing company, a printing company,
notes an increase in transformative client experiences,
and a record label. The guy’s been busy!
and deeper, more vulnerable dialogue with each other.
SmallBox, perhaps his best known triumph to date, is
“Adapt. Evolve. Change. Those have been key to our
celebrating 10 years of business with enough experience
survival,” declares Banner.
and evolutions to battle your best Pokémon GO lineup.
What do the next 10 years look like for SmallBox? The team
The early days of the company were focused almost exclusively on web development, but over time the company’s objectives expanded.
is on a quest to help organizations transform the work experience. They see it as being people centered, not product- or profit-focused. “We believe businesses that
“Once the website was developed, we noticed a common,
put people first reap the benefits from improved products,
existential crisis that many customers faced,” Banner
higher profits, and better customer experiences.”
recalls. “It was clear that their issues were beyond the
Reaching the 10-year milestone requires thousands of
cosmetic work of the website.” This intel sparked the SmallBox evolution.
hours of work, millions of emails, lots of happy customers, and countless conversations networking to discover
“As we peeled that onion, we recognized that tech was
new veins for expansion. SmallBox is planning Design
interesting, but people were our fascination. This was our
Thinking workshops in Cincinnati, Bloomington, and
opportunity to help companies work in different, better
Louisville. “We’re planting regional seeds to grow into
ways,” Banner says.
satellites for the company.” With their HQ remaining in Broad Ripple, SmallBox continues to do good in the City of Indianapolis, with Jeb Banner at the center, lovingly pushing life into everything he touches.
- JEB BANNER 60
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CORNERSTONE: TRANSFORMING INDIANAPOLIS ONE IDEA AT A TIME.
The human body is powered by a tiny, but mighty muscle
WHAT WILL INDIANAPOLIS LOOK LIKE IN 200 YEARS? DAMNED IF WE KNOW. SO WE ASKED EIGHT LOCAL ILLUSTRATORS TO TACKLE THE QUESTION WITH THEIR PENS.
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ILLUSTRATION BY AARON SHYR
ILLUSTRATION BY JON MCCLURE
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ILLUSTRATION BY FABCREW
ILLUSTRATION BY STEWART FORREST
ILLUSTRATION BY MARCO BOULAIS
ILLUSTRATION BY JEREMY STEINER
ILLUSTRATION BY ROSS SHAFER
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WELCOME TO INDIANA BASKETBALL
HOOSIERS WRITER ANGELO PIZZO AND DIRECTOR DAVID ANSPAUGH REFLECT ON THE GREATEST SPORTS MOVIE EVER MADE. INTERVIEW BY POLINA OSHEROV + ILLUSTRATION BY PATRICK MCCLOSKEY SPECIAL THANKS TO SAM’S SILVER CIRCLE BAR FOR HOSTING THE INTERVIEW. Polina Osherov: Here’s a clichéd question, but I have to ask it. In spite of Hoosiers taking so long to go from idea to reality and then to actually be shown in movie theaters, the movie ended up being a beloved classic of millions of people. It’s the number one sports movie in the world, according to some sources. How do you feel about that? David Anspaugh: They called the championship game the “Milan Miracle”, but in my estimation getting the movie made was possibly more of a miracle than the Milan story, itself. Seriously! Our odds were greater than what they faced. For two guys who had never done a movie before, to get a movie with this subject matter onto the big screen... scoffs. We were just too naive to know that we couldn’t do it. Angelo Pizzo: To give you some context, there are probably around 100,000 screenplays registered at the Writer’s Guild every year and about 200-300 movies are made out of those screenplays. That’s number one. Number two, when I wrote Hoosiers, I thought of it as an experiment in writing a screenplay because I had never written a screenplay before so I went by the mantra, “write what you know” and this was a world I knew. I figured this was the kind of movie that maybe at the end of my career, after I’d earned enough credits, someone might take a chance on. That notion was validated when I showed it to my agent, who was with the biggest agency in town, and he read it and said, “It’s a nice little piece, but nobody’s gonna care. Nobody in this town will make this movie.” Then he said, “Do you know any wealthy people in Indiana? Maybe it’s for them?” So we went to Indiana and tried to raise some money. One guy said that maybe he could come up with $500,000 or something like that, but that wouldn’t have made a very good movie... DA: Thank God we didn’t make the movie then! As it worked out, while I was working as one of the producers of Hill Street blues I convinced Steven
Bochco into giving me a shot to direct the TV show Hillstreet Blues and that episode got nominated for a DGA (Director’s Guild of America) Award, my first one, so based on that he gave me another one and then that episode got nominated the following season and it won, so then he ended up giving every third show of every season. After that I did a whole bunch of St. Elsewheres and Miami Vices and by the time we got the green light for Hoosiers, I had already directed 24 hours of TV, some of the most difficult TV at that time which translates into the equivalent of about 12 feature length movies, if you figure two hours a movie. If I had not had that experience, there is no way on earth I could have made Hoosiers. Well, certainly I would have given it a good ‘ol college try, but the experience that I had because of Hillstreet and Miami Vice was crucial. Those shows were almost impossible to make - they were wildly ambitious in terms of how many storylines and how much action they tried to cram into one episode - it was pure chaos, so you really had to learn to think on your feet and make decisions quickly. I never imagined that that was preparing me for what I was about to face when we started rolling cameras in New Richmond, Indiana. PO: Compare directing Don Johnson and Gene Hackman. DA: laughs AP: That’s a funny question! DA: Let me put it this way, you could name any actor versus Gene Hackman...I don’t think Gene will ever see this... AP: I can guarantee he won’t. DA: He won’t. And all that is water under the bridge now anyway, but at the time, working with him was a living nightmare. PO: Well...that’s not what I was expecting to hear at all. I would have thought the opposite was true. DA: Don Johnson is the biggest pussycat and sweetheart. ‘Cause I know what you’re thinking, “Oh, he was such a big star that he was probably a bit of a diva,
a primadonna.” But, no, Gene was… motions to Angelo You wanna weigh in on this one? AP: We called him “The Black Cloud” because wherever he walked, you felt that there was a black cloud hanging over his head. He was negative, he was doom and gloom. The only thing I’ll defend about his behavior at that time is that it was a rough period for him because his son had just committed suicide three months earlier. He proceeded to basically torture the crew, David in particular, challenging him on his decisions… DA: By the way, not privately, in front of the entire crew... AP: The first day when he arrived on the set, he looked around, and this was New Richmond, the exterior of the barbershop, and he said, “What kind of nightmare have I found myself in? What is this, Dog Patch?! We doin’ L’il Abner now?!” DA & AP: in unison “Andy of Mayberry?!” AP: He started throwing things and it went downhill from there... PO: I never would have guessed that this was the vibe on set from watching the movie! AP: Well, let’s be clear, Gene did a phenomenal job. He’s a great actor and without his performance, Hoosiers doesn’t exist. He’s the centerpiece, ya know, he’s the core, he’s the driving force. And the second thing, Gene’s behavior on our set was his behavior on the set of every single film he worked on. Right? DA: Well maybe with the exception of working with the likes of Clint Eastwood or Woody Allen or John Houston, one of his contemporaries, or someone that has a long, distinguished body of work, he wouldn’t pull that stuff. But everyone else? Yes. I thought it was just me. Then I later found out, it wasn’t just me. AP: According to one of his coworkers, that being Al Pacino, Gene likes to do that - to create tension on set, a kind of intense anxiety. It helps him work better. 71
DA: Al told me, “Let me just give you a little insight. My perception is that your personality is such that when you’re on set, you don’t yell, you don’t scream, you don’t throw stuff and all that.” And I said “yeah…” And he said, “Well Hackman had you pegged long before you started shooting, and he knew what he had to do because he needs a set full of anxiety or he doesn’t feel he’s doing his best work. So you had the bullseye on your back from the get-go.” Some people like to be in their trailer and meditate, do yoga, whatever it might be to help them get juiced for the scene. With Gene, like Angelo said, he had to create this atmosphere of high anxiety and tension. Thank God for Dennis (Hopper)! AP: When Dennis arrived on the set three weeks into the movie everything changed in terms of Gene’s energy. It’s not that he became a good guy by any stretch of the imagination, but he lightened up because Dennis brought a number of things. One was a savvy, an understanding as a director of what we were trying to do. Also he was a man who was really sweet and kind, and he had been in and out of sanitariums and rehab places so many times, his ego was just gone. He didn’t have any kind of vanity. He was funny and he got Gene to laugh. And every time they had scenes together there was something magical that happened between those two guys. He made the rest of the way tolerable with Gene. Don’t you agree? DA: Yes! With Dennis, we would have disagreements, we would knock heads occasionally, but it was never to do with the ego. It was always a creative thing. And what came out of it? Let me give you a perfect example. In Angelo’s original script, in the locker room
energy? I’m not sure that that’s necessarily true. We actually did a movie, three movies later, that the opposite was the case. And we knew more! Things just didn’t fall our way. But there’s definitely something to be said for the simplicity of just trying to survive. If I could try and characterize the Hoosier shoot, it would be, “How do we get through this day? How do we get through this week?” DA: “How do we get through this hour?” AP: laughs That’s true. Our biggest anxiety was, “Are we gonna make it? Are we gonna get through this shoot without it imploding?” DA: Well because Gene threatened to leave that one time... AP: One time? DA: Well, the one particular time. AP: How about Barbara (Hershey), how many times did she threaten to leave? DA: That’s true! Her too! PO: The whole thing sounds incredibly stressful. It’s amazing that you guys not only survived, but actually finished filming! DA: It is! And every single day I asked myself, “Well, is this gonna be my last day?” Because literally on a few occasions, Gene was saying, “It’s either me or him. I’m gone, unless you replace him...” AP: Well, here’s another thing that was really difficult, we shot six day weeks. So, the one day on Sunday, it was
just showing up, pulling some wires, and collecting a paycheck. Everybody felt that. It was a grand mission. DA: We had so many volunteers, extras, who sat for hours and hours in the gymnasiums for no money or just a free lunch. In some cases, people had to bring their own lunches. We had kids painting signs and helping David Nichols, our art director and production designer, with all kinds of odd jobs on set. We literally had an army of volunteers! PO: Sounds very Indiana, people volunteering and supporting the local community. How does being from Indiana compare with life in a bigger city like LA? You both lived out there for a long time...did it ever start feeling like home? AP: I spent the first 22 years of my life in Indiana and the next 30 in LA and the last 11 here in Indiana, but my whole time in LA I never felt like a Los Angelino or Californian. I was always a Hoosier. I was always from Indiana, it was my tribe, ya know? My connection to my own community was always back here. Part of the problem, in that regard, is that if you live in Southern California or in LA, there’s really no sense of community. There’s no rootedness, people are constantly moving, coming and going, and certainly the film community is almost constantly reshuffling the deck. If I had moved to a traditional town with a stable communal environment, maybe things would have been different, but because I never re-rooted, a core part of me was always in Indiana. DA: When I lived in LA, it was my family, my friends and my work. That was it. Community? I lived in Santa
WE WOULD HAVE NEVER DONE THE MOVIE IF WE COULDN’T MAKE IT INDIANA. as Hackman finishes his speech and all the kids say their thing and before they break it up, he says, “I love you guys,” who comes in the door but Shooter. As Angelo wrote it, he joins the internal circle. We were in the locker room at Hinkle that morning, getting ready to rehearse this scene and Dennis came up to us and said, “Can I talk to you guys?” Then he goes, “This is all wrong. It’s wrong for me to be in this scene. It suggests that I wasn’t totally serious about getting sober, and I guarantee you, having gone and done this a few times myself, this character is going to come off much better if you have him listening to the game on a radio at the hospital.” And boy, we resisted that at first. I mean, you gotta remember, we had directed the movie in our heads countless times. This was such an important scene and for him to throw that curveball at us at the last moment... we just weren’t ready for it. We argued for at least an hour, maybe more. The crew is sitting around, producers are going, “Boys, we gotta start shooting.” We were really holding onto our vision and then finally, we had to admit that he was probably right. And he was. PO: Shooting a feature for the first time, the excitement, the nervous energy, having to work with what by today’s standards was a tiny budget, do you miss that? Do you feel like those challenges had an impact on the creativity and how you solved problems on set versus now that you’ve experienced all of it and can practically go into it with your eyes closed and know how it works? AP: In terms of the high level of anxiety, the unknown, does that generate a different kind of creativity or 72
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just not enough time to... DA: ...recharge the batteries. AP: We also had weather problems. The number of issues that we had in making this movie was probably greater than any other movie I’ve ever dealt with. DA: Yeah, but we also were in that God loop where the stuff that seemed bad, turned out to be good. Gene’s attitude on set was a huge challenge. I don’t work that way, I never would. Life’s too short, and I love what I do too much to knowingly create that kind of a stressful environment. I always tell my crew before we start shooting, “If I ever see any of you disrespecting each other, civilians or guests, it will be your last day on this set.” Zero tolerance. But the stress on the set created a sort of bunker mentality in our crew that we were all in this hourly, daily fight together and that common struggle seeped onto that celluloid to create something really special. That said, the movie Rudy also turned out quite nicely, and it was the most fun I ever had making a film. So there’s that... AP: What really helped cement that bunker mentality was that 90 percent or more of the crew and cast were from Indiana. Together, we were almost on a mission, not just to make this movie because things were tough and it was two Indiana guys trying to make the film, but the movie itself was about Indiana. This was about community, about identity. It was about a sense of place and a sense of who they all were and how they were gonna be seen in the world. It meant more than
Monica - that was my address, my zip code, just a place. After moving to Bloomington two years ago this June, within the first year, I was involved on boards and committees and was directing theater there and teaching at the university. I feel like a real citizen. I have a role there and I’m proud of the community that I live in. In LA, I had none of that at all. PO: So what is it about basketball and Indiana? I’m not originally from here, so I don’t have much context for the Hoosier basketball obsession, but obviously I’m aware that it exists, what’s that all about? AP: Really the socio-cultural importance of basketball, in the state of Indiana, is more or less circumstantial because it was a sport introduced here earlier than other states. Also, it took root because these small farming towns weren’t big enough to field football teams or baseball teams necessarily and in the winter, there needed to be an activity that could be held indoors and that could bring everyone together in the community. Once that sport was found, once it was discovered and it spread, especially in southern Indiana, these teams became representative of what was standard bearers. DA: It’s true. I grew up in a small town called Decatur. It happened to be the county seat, but there were smaller teams that we would play in the county. Berne and Geneva and Monmouth, places like that. We hated each other. There was no rhyme or reason for it, except it was because of basketball. It was our tribe against your tribe. Like Game of Thrones in a way. There was this
animosity that we had towards each other. If you were from Berne, you were a bad person because you were a Berne Bear! laughs AP: The real catalyst for me, connecting to the story which became Hoosiers, is my own story. The Milan victory happened in 1954. I didn’t see it. I’d actually never been to a state championship game. But, every year we had sectionals. And at that time before consolidation, a town of a couple of hundred people, would have its own tiny school, with its own basketball team. There were 14-16 teams that would come together, and as Dave mentioned, everybody kind of knew each other. And there was also always that one or two big schools, like Martinsville or Bloomington High School, and they almost always won. Except every once in awhile there was a team from a tiny school - remember in 1956, Unionville won against Bloomington High School - that would come along and completely upset the status quo. And people loved that. Everyone was rooting for Unionville. Everyone! And the electricity and energy in the fieldhouse when something like that happened, made the game feel so special that people were still talking about it many, many years later. PO: So shooting the movie in Indiana was always the plan? DA: We had a modest budget and the producers were dead set on filming the movie in Canada so they could get more bang for their buck. But Angelo and I threatened to not do the movie unless it was done in Indiana. AP: Yeah. We would have never done the movie if we couldn’t make it Indiana. DA: If we were going to do a hockey movie, yes, I’d say for sure shoot that in Canada. It would have been easy to get extras - people would flock to the arenas. But they don’t really give a hoot about basketball there. Shooting it here, we could fill up those stands, and still have to turn people away. Plus, that’s what I grew up with when I was a little kid and first started going to games with my mom and dad. And it’d be cold outside and the closer you got to the gym, you’d start hearing
the crowd and the band and the cheering section. And boy, when you opened the door, claps hands it just hit you. Like a brick wall. And your senses were overwhelmed. The smell of popcorn, the band playing, and all that stuff. It was really exciting. We both thought we had to get as close to capturing that as we could, and that the best chance we had of doing that was in Indiana. And it worked. PO: There are a good number of scenes in the movie that do a great job of capturing that feeling. Which ones are your favorite? DA: One is right before their first game, and the team all goes on the floor and Hackman stands behind the door by himself and he says, “Welcome to Indiana basketball,” and he opens the door and boom! There it is. All the color, and the band’s playing, and the crowd. You follow him all the way through, and it’s a complete 360, where you see the whole gym. And the other, of course, is the scene when the Jimmy Chitwood character makes his final shot at Hinkle Fieldhouse in front of about six to eight thousand people. Bobby Plump was there when we were shooting and I had him show me where he actually took the shot, so I put a little piece of tape on the floor there. I told Maris (Valainis), this is where you’ll take the shot, but in warm ups, he kept missing. I won’t go into the long story because it’s pretty well documented, but as the cameras are all rolling, people are screaming, and his first shot was nothing but net, but when it went through I realized, “Oh damn, I forgot to tell everyone what to do when that happens.” Well, I guess I didn’t have to tell anyone anything because everything you see in the movie is all spontaneous. From the players to the coaches, to the cheerleaders, and the fans everyone did exactly what they needed to! The cheerleaders were hugging and crying on each other’s shoulders and the guys from the other basketball team were pounding the floor in frustration. The coach was consoling them, are you kidding me? I didn’t direct that! They did that all by themselves. Now, would you have gotten that kind of “acting” in Canada? Maybe? You certainly wouldn’t have gotten it in LA. It made me really glad that we stuck to our guns about shooting in Indiana.
PO: I understand that you guys really bonded over movies when you met in college. Any movie that you violently disagree on? David loves it, Angelo hates it, vice versa? AP: I can’t think of any. DA: There have been one or two maybe? Can’t really think of any either. But that’s why we’ve worked together as well as we have all these years. We have a very similar sensibility when it comes to movies that we both gravitate towards. True stories. True stories that inspire. PO: “In the Company of Darkness” with Helen Hunt was based on a true story, though I don’t know that I would call it inspiring. Actually kind of dark. DA: Believe it or not, I like doing dark stuff. Funny story. I was in Hawaii. I had just finished shooting something and I got sent a package of scripts for consideration by my agent. I read this one script and got on the phone immediately and told my agent, “Oh my God I have to do this movie. I can’t believe that you guys sent me this kind of a film!” It was Se7en. I hear my agent yelling to someone on his end, “Se7en? How the hell did Anspaugh get Se7en?! Who sent it to him?!” laughs Apparently, it was a mistake. I went, “Aw, damn!” I would have loved to have done something like that! PO: I’ve read that one of the reasons why Hoosiers is so beloved is because there’s an element of an underdog story that people respond to very positively. Angelo did you write the story with that in mind? AP: Actually, I’ve never thought of Hoosiers as an underdog story. There are people who characterize it as such, but they’re only looking at the exterior framework of the story. It’s about people who are stuck in a certain part of their lives and they all have a blind spot that keeps them stuck. They have all made mistakes that they have not really come to recognize or take responsibility for. Each one of them, through the vision or the help or just the proximity of others, is able to get unstuck and move forward. It really is about a collection of depressed people who get an opportunity to do better in their lives. It’s about redemption and second chances. That’s really what the movie’s about. ✂ Watch video interview highlights at goo.gl/vJYTcr 73
Photography by Gabrielle Cheikh
As told to Brielle Saggese
A celebration of intimate partnerships.
A celebration of intimate partnerships.
Lover, Companion, Friend. Design by Brian Kumle
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Ash l ey & McC l a i n A / We grew up in the same town and because our last names were similar, we were always pictured next to each other in yearbooks, sat next to each other at school functions, and only grew up a few blocks apart. M / B ut we were merely acquaintances and it wasn’t until after we graduated when I was on leave from the military that I saw her in a different light. Later when I went back home to Hawaii, I knew I had to see her again. After spending six months in a long distance relationship, I asked her to move there. Next thing I know, she’s got a one-way ticket. A / I t was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, but it was definitely hard moving to an island and living with a man I hadn’t dated for too long. But I trusted it because it was the best feeling I’d ever had in my life.
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M/ S he took a real leap of faith, and I’m glad she took it with me. A/ A successful marriage includes two willing participants who are willing to change, willing to bend, willing to give, and willing to love. That’s what we are. M/ Y ou have to find a partner who’s going to love you unconditionally and be willing to go through all those changes. That’s why I chose Ashley, and that’s why she chose me.
to this bar, we had this thing with the song,
An n ie & An dy
Tainted Love. Whenever that song would come on, we would leave our friends to find each other in the crowd and dance. Andy / I don’t know why we did that, but I was attracted to her instantly because she wasn’t like anybody I’d ever dated. And then we really started crossing paths when she randomly moved right across the lawn from me. Annie / I wasn’t stalking him, I promise, but I did
MARRIED 10 YEARS / TOGETHER 13 YEARS
Annie / For some reason when we both used to go
always think he was really fun and then there’s the fact that we were always working together. Andy / I guess the word “work” really defines our relationship because you can use that word in the emotional sense – that we’ve always clicked – but also in the professional sense – whether it’s Indy CD and Vinyl, DJing, Girls Rock, or our marketing company. We became this power couple in the music scene and then one night I just asked her to marry me. Annie / I think we work so well together both at home and in our jobs because it’s not like we’re stepping on each other’s toes. We’re actually helping the other person get to the next step. Andy / The biggest surprise is how fast it’s flown by. It’s been 10 years of being married, having kids, and owning a business. It’s never
M / I remember our first real conversation was at this party when Brian had come home from college, and I was still in high school. I can remember that we stood in the same spot for two hours and just talked. The moon was over his shoulder, and I was just overwhelmed with the feeling that this was it. B / I’m not sure my memory of that party is the clearest, but we started dating, and I knew I crossed some threshold when a song, movie, play, or experience was much less interesting if it wasn’t shared with her.
Mary An n & Brian
MARRIED 39 YEARS / TOGETHER 41 YEARS
seemed liked work.
M / Brian went back off to college and by the time I graduated from high school, I needed to lay out my future with him. I think it went something along the lines of, “So what are we doing? Are we getting married or what?” B / Imagine how much sleep I lost just thinking about what that conversation would be like with her dad. “So is it alright if I marry your teenage daughter, and she moves in with me in Muncie?’” M / Because of our age, no one took us seriously at first as a married couple, but now there is so much comfort in being with someone for so many years. B / I honestly can’t even imagine my life and all of these years without Mary Ann, I honestly just can’t..
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Kim & Ted
K / We both went to Richmond High School, and I had first period gym class and knew I was supposed to meet him the passing period after. Unfortunately for me, that day in gym I had to swim a mile and my hair was a mess and my eyes were bloodshot, but I went and met him anyway. T / I was such a terrible swimmer that I was just impressed anyone could swim a mile. K / After that we talked on the phone almost every night. We dated for over six years and many of the early years involved pizza and a movie, but in college our big thing was making furniture kits. T / We’d stain them. We’d paint them. And we actually still have all those pieces. K / People always asked if we didn’t get married, what we would do with the furniture. I said, I didn’t know. Now 33 years later, we’ve raised five children, juggled careers, and have all 10 furniture pieces in our house. T / We always knew growing up that family was important and so we wanted to show that in our own family. For our kids, we try to show the importance of our marriage and our relationship so we can give them that model as parents. K / We truly are best friends and being apart is never a good day. Family really does come first and that means we’re always there for each other.
MARRIED 33 YEARS / TOGETHER 39 YEARS
St even & Rob
R / For a long time, it was just a friendship. Steven was a married professor, and I was a student. What I found in him was a really quick bond and great friend. The three of us – Steven, his wife and I – would get together all the time: playing racquetball or cooking or once even throwing a Tupperware party. S / A few years later though we both were in very different places in life. I had come out, Rob had grown up a little more, and we were both able to live how we wanted to live. R / We officially were together on October 11, 1987 and 21 years later we got married on that very same day. It was 2008 when California voted for marriage equality, and we were reading the newspaper article to our daughter. After we finished, she said, “Why don’t we go to California and get married then?” S / Years later, it was humbling to be included in a small group who represented marriage equality in Indiana when that law was getting challenged in our own state. We wanted to show that Indiana was not the place people thought it was. R / We wanted to show that marriage is marriage. We felt we were always married from the very beginning and that feeling has made it possible to now look at nearly
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MARRIED 7 YEARS / TOGETHER 28 YEARS
30 years together.
MARRIED 12 YEARS / TOGETHER 15 YEARS
B a sh i ri & Uz u r i U / I saw him before he saw me. I was a senior in high school. He was travelling with
B / I t was like reading a book when every time you finish a page, you want to know
his college choir, and I knew he was my husband the minute he walked in the
what’s on the next one. You can’t wait to finish, but you don’t want to cheat
room. Then again, he didn’t really walk, he floated.
yourself by skipping ahead. And when we got married, well everything was
B / I didn’t see her for a while, but as soon as we got together, I realized how easy it all was. I was dating my best friend.
pregnant with our first child, and that was one of the scariest things. But when you’re married, you have this partner who may be just as scared as you, but
U / We were always taking road trips, taking pictures, and trying new foods. I remember our first date. We drove around Indianapolis, and he was showing me all the landmarks and the places he’d grown up.
B
the same, but everything was different. Two weeks in, we found out we were
together, you’re fearless. U / I t just worked. It’s always worked. It’s never felt forced, never felt too much it just is.
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MARRIED 4 MONTHS / TOGETHER 7 YEARS
A Ko d ey & H ayl a K / I mean look, she didn’t like me, but it’s understandable because I was like 310 pounds then, and I was kind of a dick. H / I 100 percent didn’t like him. He had a friend that I thought was cool but I didn’t like Kodey. We were awkward, for sure. We could barely talk to each other just because I didn’t really know what to say. But years later we started hanging out and one night he texted me to ask me out. K / I had never experienced a girl liking me so I didn’t know how to act. I was too shy to talk on the phone and definitely too shy to ask that in person.
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H/ B ut it kind of just stuck. We literally grew up together, became adults, and got jobs. Over the course of seven years, we shared the same experiences and life changes. We matured a lot, but we matured with each other; and so it was a simple choice for us to be together. K/ A sking her out was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but asking her to marry me came easy, like everything else.
P/ W hen I went in for the internship interview, I had googled “Kelley Briggs” and this
Preciou s & Kelley
badass PR lady from New York showed up so the bar was set high. But I get there and the real Kelley had zero interest in meeting me, this wide-eyed college grad. K/ M y advisor told me I was going to love her and I was like, “Of course, you found the one person named ‘Precious’ for me to meet.” But just after talking to her that day, I could tell we had a connection. P / F rom there we were working together almost 90 hours a week and we just got to know each other on a personal level. Eventually, it kind of just happened that we were dating. K / T hat’s not to say that it was easy. The evolution of our relationship has always been a choice. We’ve had a lot of roadblocks that could have stopped us. But the constant was always, “What makes you happy?” Well, being with Precious made me happy, and so that’s what I’m doing. P/ A nd maybe that’s how we’ll chose the day we get married. We might just wake up one morning and think, “Today’s a good day; I’ve got a cute outfit.”
ENGAGED 8 MONTHS / TOGETHER 3 YEARS
J/ T he night we met, I told him my name and then I told him I had a daughter. That was
Ju lia & Des mon d
MARRIED 12 YEARS / TOGETHER 17 YEARS
actually the second sentence that I said. She was the most important thing in my life, and he needed to know that from the get go. D / I wasn’t just dating her, I had her daughter to think about, too. I had to treat the relationship more seriously, and I had to decide if this was something I wanted to pursue. J/ T hen getting married for us was just a logical step in our relationship. It was just a conversation--a logical conversation--that we thought we were ready to make a life together and to make our family complete. D/ I come from a traditional family and I always knew that when I said, “I Do,” that would be it for me. In marriage, all walls come down because you’re both choosing to go through this life together. J/ W e went into marriage realistically, knowing what it takes, and knowing that life isn’t a movie with candlelight dinners and weekend getaways to the Hamptons. In reality, you have to make time for your spouse, your marriage, and make them both a priority. He was worth it..
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of HISTORY WHO WE ARE AND WHO WE’VE BEEN, TOLD BY WHAT WE WORE. THE INDIANA STATE MUSEUM COMMEMORATES 200 YEARS OF INDIANA HISTORY WITH 200 ICONIC OBJECTS FROM OUR COLLECTIVE STORY. 197 OTHER ITEMS AWAIT YOU AT THE INDIANA STATE MUSEUM. VISITINDIANAMUSEUM.ORG
WORDS BY TIM LISKO DESIGN BY LINDSAY HADLEY
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“Bobby’s a MILAN’S legend in BOBBY PLUMP Indiana and IS ‘MR. BASKETBALL.’ he makes SUNDAY, a heck of a APRIL tenderloin 11, 1954 sandwich.”
BOBBY PLUMP’S BASKETBALL WARM-UP JACKET, MILAN HIGH SCHOOL, 1954, A HEADLINE FROM THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR IN 1954, AND A RECENT QUOTE FROM FORMER BUTLER HEAD COACH, BRAD STEVENS. COLLECTION OF THE INDIANA STATE MUSEUM AND HISTORIC SITES; GIFT OF BOBBY PLUMP
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MORE“It THAN was 600impossible MILLION PAIRS not to like OF CHUCK him, and TAYLOR he knew ALL-STARS everybody.” HAVE BEEN SOLD. CHUCK TAYLOR’S “CHUCKS”, 1957-1962, AND A STATEMENT FROM JOE DEAN, WHO WORKED AS A SALES EXECUTIVE FOR CONVERSE FOR NEARLY 30 YEARS BEFORE BECOMING THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR AT LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLECTION OF THE INDIANA STATE MUSEUM AND HISTORIC SITES; GIFT OF ABRAHAM AAMIDOR
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“Even at AIDS VICTIM RYAN WHITE church, WANTS TO people RETURN TO SCHOOL would not THIS FALL. shake my SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1985 hand.” RYAN WHITE’S BOMBER JACKET FROM ELTON JOHN, A HEADLINE FROM THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR IN 1954, AND QUOTE FROM RYAN HIMSELF. LOAN COURTESY OF THE CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF INDIANAPOLIS
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NIKKI BL A INE H AS BEEN DESIGNING FA BULOUS SPECI A L E V ENT AT TIRE FOR A LMOST 20 Y E A RS. W ITH CLIENTS ON BOTH COASTS AS W ELL AS INDI A N A POLIS A ND ATL A NTA , THIS MOTHER OF T WO IS A LWAYS ON THE MOV E.
WORDS BY BRIELLE SAGGESE PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVEN BROKAW STYLING & DIRECTION BY NIKKI BLAINE MAKEUP BY DANIELLE FRENCH HAIR BY ANTHONY PEREZ MODEL KATHERINE GULLING (INDEPENDENT) ASSISTANTS EMILY POOLE & SHAWNA STAVES DESIGN BY CHRIS BOWYER ALL CLOTHING COURTESY NIKKI BLAINE COUTURE
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NIKKI BLAINE IS A DESIGNER, SEAMSTRESS, WRITER, AND BUSINESSWOMAN WHO HAS ENJOYED 20 YEARS OF BLAZING TRAILS IN THE INDIANAPOLIS FASHION INDUSTRY. NO SMALL FEAT, YET BLAINE EXPLAINS THAT IT ALL BOILS DOWNS TO A SINGLE DECISION: IN EVERYTHING SHE’S DONE AND CONTINUES TO DO, SHE DOES IT HER WAY. At five years old, her fate was sealed when Blaine watched her mother lay out the morning’s ironed clothes on the bed. “Don’t touch these,” her mother would warn, but Blaine would still reach out to feel each crease. At 12, she enrolled in her first sewing class determined to construct a full, fur coat. “You won’t have enough time to finish this during regular class hours,” her teacher advised, so Blaine came in early each day to perfect her seams. At 18, was business school, the classes that fashion designers weren’t supposed to attend. And at graduation, her day job was that of a promising accountant; this didn’t stop Blaine from working on her true passion by night. Ultimately, it was the passion project that became her full-time career, birthing what she’d envisioned from the get-go - Nikki Blaine Couture. It took time, but eventually, she had an Etsy virtual storefront and a downtown loft as her production studio. Even with limited resources, Blaine always pursued the highest quality. Fabrics were selected with a meticulous touch. Designs perfected with a decadent taste, and silhouettes draped to flatter every woman. She paid attention to every detail of her brand, and in return, the world began paying attention to Nikki Blaine Couture. From that small downtown loft, she began sending gowns to inaugural balls, Oscars red carpets, MTV award shows, and to hundreds of clients. As her national clientele grew, one would have predicted that Blaine would eventually leave Indianapolis for a more established, and better developed fashion market. Traveling to clients in Los Angeles and shows across Europe, the Midwest did not seem like the best home base for the ambitious designer. But if she was going to do it her way, Indianapolis had to be part of the plan. So instead of relocating, Blaine stayed, and continued to invest back into her hometown – inspiring young talent to pursue their dreams no matter what. Today, Blaine’s career is soaring with her own Zionsville storefront of custom designs, a downtown studio, an international clientele and a rack of clothes featured in this editorial spread; Some might say that she’s done the impossible. But again, Blaine would have to disagree. Really, she promises, she’s just getting started.
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Jack’s Column, 2008
After Rome, 2011
Stainless and cor-ten steel 132 x 48 x 48 inches
Stainless steel 108 x 62 x 50 inches
Spanish Guitar, 1992 Cast bronze 108 x 35 1/2 x 32 inches
Don Gummer: Back Home Again An exhibition of eight sculptures by Indianapolis-born, New York-based Don Gummer.
Aug. 31, 2016 to Aug. 7, 2017 On the Indianapolis Cultural Trail: A Legacy of Gene & Marilyn Glick #DonGummerIndy More information: dongummerindy.com
Presented by the Central Indiana Community Foundation in honor of The Indianapolis Foundation’s 100th anniversary and in partnership with Indianapolis Cultural Trail, Inc.
GIVE A CHUCK WALK A MILE IN THE SHOES OF THESE NOTABLE HOOSIERS
AS TOLD TO MALINA SIMONE JEFFERS PHOTOGRAPHY BY ELESE BALES DESIGN BY AUBREY SMITH
JUSTIN WADE
EXECUTIVE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, YOUNG ACTORS THEATRE I wore these Chucks last year on the day our Young Actors Theatre (YAT) pep rally reached another level. Our pep rallies are intense: 150 students performing their best devised scenes from the session at the Athenaeum Theatre. They were all chanting “Education!” over and over, and they were fully believing what they were saying. They were hugging, yelling, and screaming for each other with full, positive energy, and then they were dismissed in complete silence. You could see all 150 in a meditative state of mind. I’ve always believed
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in our work at YAT. I’ve always known that we aren’t really a theatre company; we are a training ground. We are a Jedi Academy. This was the night I knew the kids believed it, too. This was also the last night I wore these Chucks. I gave them to a YAT student who works hard to be able to a part of our program. These Chucks live on now with him: walking high school halls, attending rehearsal, going to work, attending teen advisory board meetings. They are walking around Indy right now.
JOE HOGSETT MAYOR, CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS
I bought these high-top leather Converse All Stars in the early 1970s from Em-Roe Sporting Goods in downtown Indianapolis. During high school and college, I played basketball almost daily. Then, once I moved to Indianapolis, I played in a number of local leagues often three or four nights a week. But as life got busier, and I was juggling fatherhood and a career, I found myself playing less. But the shoes, the shoes I held onto. For decades I still pulled them out every Christmas Eve, when a group of my classmates from Rushville Consolidated High School got together to play. And while I may not play much anymore, frankly, I keep them because I played better in these shoes than any other pair I owned. Just ask former WTHR anchor Tom Cochran and radio sports personality Mark Patrick. Years ago, Governor Bayh and I “schooled” them in a 2-on-2 competition at the governor’s residence.
ROBERT MARSHALL SENIOR DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS, CENTER FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
I’ve been a youth worker for 16 years, but in Central Indiana for 12 of them. These Chucks have carried me through countless revitalization and community development projects in areas like Martindale-Brightwood and Fountain Square. In my Chucks, I helped create aspirational spaces for youth that foster creativity, recreation, character building, and learning. Although I have many memories in these shoes that I cherish, the one that is most special is being present for President Obama’s first campaign run. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, gathered at the State Fairgrounds for a glimpse of history. Political affiliation aside, it was an honor to witness. I studied political science at the alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King, Morehouse College, which immerses its students in a culture that makes us more sensitive to how meaningful, historical, and powerful it is to witness an African American be elected to the highest office in the land. At the time, it felt like Dr. King’s dream was becoming more possible than it had ever seemed before. I’m glad I was there, and my Chucks remind me every time I wear them that we all have the capacity to make a positive impact, and dreams and reality aren’t that far apart. 97
ANGELA SMITH JONES, J.D. DEPUTY MAYOR OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, OFFICE OF THE MAYOR JOE HOGSETT – CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS
My Chuck Taylors… It was 1985, and I was a freshman at Miami University of Ohio. It was one of the best years of my life--living in East Quad, making new friends, and finally being able to wear what I wanted every day of the week. (As a product of Catholic School education, I wore uniforms my entire life.) I always have had a pen
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chant for unique shoes, or as my mom would describe back then “my selection of ugly shoes”. So in true “Angie-loves-ugly-shoes” fashion, I buy myself some high-top Chuck Taylors. Bright pink! Remember, Miami is a preppy school. I began to buy other really bright pink items to create my look. I remember feeling cool walking uptown to the bars in my Chuck Taylors as many nights as I could, and trekking along the brick streets of Oxford, Ohio with my besties. We sang all of the songs and then danced until the bars closed. I am pretty sure I looked at my shoes more than I looked at my friends that first night. I always wore them with a big smile on my face and with satisfaction that it was going to be a good night ….and it always was. Every time I look at or wear my pink Chuck Taylors it makes me think of Miami and the great times I had in college.
I AM PRETTY SURE I LOOKED AT MY SHOES MORE THAN I LOOKED AT MY FRIENDS.
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RYU TERAMOTO MAITRE D’, CERULEAN I love these shoes because they’re dependable. I can throw them on, and don’t have to worry about getting them stained or scuffed because I can throw them in the washing machine (on cold). I also love that so many of these marks remind me of specific instances. I wore these Chucks the first time I worked a shift at DigIN. Between serving small bites to hundreds of people and with my own inability to be chill, I tripped over myself and ripped a hole in my shoes. Today this hole cracks me up because it totally represents my young naive self not being able to balance the pressures of my industry. I’m comfortably at a place where I know I wouldn’t be tripping and ripping holes in anything these days.
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STEVI STOESZ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INDIANAPOLIS CITY MARKET My all-time favorite Chuck Taylors were punk, fabulous pink, and I wore them with purple shoelaces all through high school. They were my go-to shoes for every punk rock ensemble I put together, which was most of my ensembles in those days. One of my current pairs of Chucks was with me when I learned to ride a motorcycle. This was before I took my official ABATE class. My friend Dominic spent several hours teaching me the nuances of riding a bike, specifically a Buell Firebolt, my first motorcycle. For some reason, I was
void of nervousness and gravitated to doing all the drills exercises that Dominic instructed. I quickly graduated from a parking lot to city streets, and on one occasion had the misfortune of a large flock of geese running out in front of me from an adjacent retention pond. I managed to stop abruptly, keep the bike upright and move on from there. I’ve referred to my Chucks as “lucky” ever since.
RANDY WESTON SINGER, WRITER, PRODUCER Randy Weston, lead singer of world music group Judah Band, performed his first international television gig in his studded black Chucks. “We had over 3.2 million
viewers! It wasn’t my only TV performance but it was my first international one. I could feel the energy of the entire world in that moment.”
ALEX EDGECOMBE DJ COOL HAND LEX I am a serial Chuck Taylor abuser. From my childhood days wearing the classic black and white hi-tops in the 80s to my current pair of black quilted lows, I appreciate my Chucks only when the newness has been battered and scuffed out of them. I would occasionally take heat from people for how destroyed my Chucks could get, with pinky toes spilling out and heels so worn the insole was visible. Except one special pair, a gift from my friends for playing at their wedding. I may have worn them five times in five years until after I decided to tackle a dream of mine, playing shows across the U.S. in an off-grid RV. In deciding to treat every day like it’s special, I starting wearing this crazy custom colorway regularly, including a proper breaking-in with a day spent repairing a leaky RV roof. They’re still in great shape for now, but they won’t be come next May when I hit the road.
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WORDS BY ERIC REES + PHOTOGRAPHY BY HADLEY ‘TAD’ FRUITS
INDIANA STATE FAIR; CELEBRATING THE MOST CAPTIVATING AND LEAST HEALTHY SUMMER ATTRACTION
NEON SUMMER NIGHTS
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Indiana’s annual summer ritual is a feast for the senses. By this time next August, the Indiana State Fair will be celebrating 125 years of Hoosiers suspending their sensibilities at the altar of fried food. However, the Fair remains an event that demands to be experienced by all of our senses. Hypnotic kaleidoscopic light shows have captured our sense of wonder during humid summer nights for the better part of 200 years, and here’s to another 200 more.
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WeSTWaRD LIGHT LINENS DANCE WITH RUSTIC HUES IN FALL’S FASHION FRONTIER.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER KULAK STYLING BY KIMMI ADE MAKEUP AND HAIR BY ARPITA BRAHMBHATT MODEL: BEATA KOMONI (10MGMT) DESIGN BY AMY MCADAMS-GONZALES
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ON THE AVENUE, THERE AIN’T NEVER A CURFEW, LADIES WORK SO HARD SUCH A MELTING POT, ON THE CORNER SELLING ROCK, PREACHERS PRAY TO GOD // ALICIA KEYS > NEW YORK
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HAIL A GYPSY-CAB, TAKES ME DOWN FROM HARLEM TO THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE SOME WILL SLEEP TONIGHT WITH A HUNGER FAR MORE THAN AN EMPTY FRIDGE // ALICIA KEYS > NEW YORK
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IF I CAN MAKE IT HERE, I CAN MAKE IT ANYWHERE, THAT’S WHAT THEY SAY SEEING MY FACE IN LIGHTS OR MY NAME
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sculpture objects functional art and design November 4–6 Opening Night, November 3 Navy Pier
Generously supported by
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John Moore, Hedone Gallery
sofaexpo.com
IND X CHI
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STITCHING TOGETHER THROUGH AN INTENSE MENTORSHIP OF SIX UP-AND-COMING DESIGNERS, THE CHICAGO FASHION INCUBATOR IS SOLVING ISSUES WITHIN THE MIDWESTERN FASHION INDUSTRY. WORDS BY LILY SPERRY + PHOTOGRAPHY BY POLINA OSHEROV + DESIGN BY MEGAN BROYLES Each year, Chicago’s four design schools turn out more than 200 fashion designers—about the same number as newly graduated lawyers from the University of Chicago. Yet, in the advent of recent budget cuts and a lower perceived priority on the needs of the art and fashion industries, these designers are often left in the dust, forced to either move or attempt to make their name in a city more often defined by its windiness than any source of fashion scene. There’s no lack of talent. There’s no lack of ambition. There’s no lack of training. So why is it so hard for the industry to sustain itself? The Chicago Fashion Incubator, located on the 11th floor of the historic Macy’s on State Street, is an almost decade-long attempt to tackle this question. Originally sparked by former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s fashion initiative in 2005, which put a spotlight on the fashion industry’s significance to job development and economic growth, the incubator officially opened in late summer 2008. Since then, it has churned out dozens of designers, some have gone on to great attention -- bridal designer Kate Pankoke, a 2010 alumna, appeared on both seasons 11 and 12 of Project Runway, while some have abandoned the fashion industry entirely. However, in the midst of a changing administration and city budget cuts, the incubator is very much not what it once was. Executive Director Tonya Gross has only been at the incubator since midsummer, and the space was completely cut off from city funding late last year. However, the former lead at the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Fashion Focus Chicago program, Gross brings with her a deep insight into the industry and what it profoundly lacks—which, in her words, is “the activation of community.”
“The fashion industry is not limited to just the designers,” she said. “It encompasses far more: the retailers, those who work in retailers; the beauty industry in its entirety; and more. We need to collaborate. We need to lift up our industry.” Gross is deeply invested in the program, with an almost mother-like relationship with the six designers, one of whom is a recent Indiana University graduate, another, a mother herself. “One of the important things that we need to be doing is creating pipelines for designers who choose to stay here,” she said. “We know that everyone is aspiring to be a successful designer, but it’s really about the actualization of: what does that mean, exactly?” In the incubator, the process of actualizing these dreams comes in many forms. Designers are paired with seasoned mentors who guide them through everything from managing buyer relations to retail sites. True to the name, all six share a workroom. The cutting tables are draped in intricate pattern clips and fabric snippets,. While the state-of-the-art space is almost always occupied by at least a handful of its designers, the atmosphere is nothing like the hyper-stressful frenzy of Project Runway or its reality TV peers. Instead, designers, mentors and patternmakers mingle and work in a form that could be described as an activation of community, lending a sense of hope to the future of the local industry they currently occupy. While the designers are from all walks of life, it seems as if they are all in similar points in their careers—not quite ready to completely quit their day jobs and focus solely on a clothing line, but still passionate and aspirational in their goals. Masha Titievsky is a prime example of this delicate balance of work and aspiration. Though she works in retail twenty hours a week at Lacoste, the womenswear designer still makes time to work in the incubator most days. “I knew eventually I wanted to started a line, but I didn’t think that I would want to start it this soon until I entered the incubator,” she says. “Most of my life is here, and when I’m not here, I think about what I should be doing here.”
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“THE FASHION INDUSTRY IS NOT LIMITED TO JUST THE DESIGNERS, IT ENCOMPASSES FAR MORE: THE RETAILERS, THOSE WHO WORK IN RETAILERS; THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY IN ITS ENTIRETY; AND MORE. WE NEED TO COLLABORATE. WE NEED TO LIFT UP OUR INDUSTRY.”
By the end of this October, Titievsky, who is in her second year at the incubator, will have produced a full collection, one that she hopes will attract buyers and local boutique owners. But for those like Conner Writt, a first year, this presentation is more out of reach—at least, for the time being. Writt just graduated from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in 2015 and, prior to discovering the incubator, was at a loss at how to enter the industry without compromising his intrinsic design sensibilities. It wasn’t that he lacked experience; he started designing sneakers in high school, a passion that soon led him to collaborate on a line with Converse at just 21 years old. But, when offered a design position at Macy’s after interning at their corporate headquarters, he turned it down. It just didn’t feel right. “I always wanted to have the opportunity to create my own line,” he says. “I truly don’t think that I would’ve been able to get that opportunity this soon if it weren’t for the incubator.” Writt has an astute sense of what his future plans are. Though, if you ask him where, exactly, his professional streetwear line will take him, he’ll answer with a nervous grin: “All I know is that I need to be close to every aspect of the product—the manufacturers, the fabric suppliers,” he said. “And if this perfect storm comes into the city and I can design out of Chicago, then great.” For the sake of the city’s industry, we sure as hell hope he does.
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DJ HYPERACTIVE WORDS BY BRENT LYLE + PHOTOGRAPH BY WIL FOSTER
“He’s been called “a founding father of house” music and one of Daft Punk’s “teachers.” “EDM” has been a buzzword for the last few years, but Electronic Dance Music has been here for decades. You – yes, you – you’ve heard it before. Perhaps by some other name: maybe you nodded your head to a Trap track, Shazamed a house music song, fell into Dubstep, or featured your fancy footwork to a juke joint. It’s bigger than you ever could imagine. This family of music is truly a global music phenomenon, from Paris to Ibiza to Tokyo…to Chicago. Chicago native DJ Hyperactive, is a silent force who’s shaken the earth with his work. He boasts an absolutely enormous discography, having produced and remixed some of the biggest sounds around the world for more than 20 years. He’s been called “a founding father of house” music and one of Daft Punk’s “teachers.” Despite two decades of mind-bending sounds and world travels, Hyperactive is still just Joe to those closest to his heart. “I grew up around music. My dad was an entertainer from the islands—Polynesian blood. So music is a part of my DNA,” he says. And surely being in Chicago had helped. “We were big into disco and roller skating, so my love of big sounds evolved from birth. My first gig was
in my high school gym on the southside of Chicago,” he recalls. The gigs kept coming. The new DJ quickly made a name for himself in college. So much so, he made the bold decision to leave three years in. “I left college not knowing where it would go,” DJ Hyperactive says. “I needed to do this as career. So, like any artist, I laid it all on the line. Mixtapes were a big thing in the ’90s, so I started making them, too.” The ’90s was especially kind to pop culture. Typically, the world’s eyes are scanning for our trends, but for techno music, Europe was the measuring stick of what’s going on in the industry. Only a handful of American DJs were doing shows overseas, so Hyperactive saw this as an opportunity. “I hired an agent in Marseilles, France to book foreign shows,” he recounts and that’s when everything changed. “We brought that vibe back here to get the underground scene jumping off with raves and warehouse parties. I survived on doing music full-time from 1990 to 1998.” But how? Where did that kind of support come from? Turns out, from the most unlikely of places, the Midwest. The magic was in the raw, urban parties and in farm towns where the kids didn’t have anything on the
radio. “We’d blast our BMX and GCI mixes, and it was the first explosion for a lot of them. We grew a following and didn’t look back.” DJ Hyperactive may be a great unknown to many. But he has album credits, remixes, collaborations, and solo projects a mile long. “Nowadays, I prioritize my label, 4-Track Records, and production. With no 9-5, I discipline myself, knuckle down, and keep the label full steam with digital and vinyl releases of my own and others,” Hyperactive says. He puts those “others” high on his priority list, too, offering support to budding DJs. “We used to record reel to reel or in studio. Now, computers make it so easy to write and record music. The excuses are limited, so get out and participate in the scene. Support the people already doing it. Get plugged in--that’s crucial.”
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WORDS BY PETRA SLINKARD + PHOTOGRAPH BY POLINA OSHEROV
“He sees beauty everywhere, capturing it as he goes.” I meet artist and designer Ian Sienicki to do the interview and make sushi at the Logan Square apartment he shares with girlfriend Kim Vachon. To me, the meal symbolizes what makes the couple so special. They are driven to create, get their hands dirty, and challenge themselves with new and exciting tasks. By day, Sienicki is a graphic designer with NRC Realty & Capital Advisors, a national commercial and residential real estate firm. But that is just his 9-5. A day job could never truly satisfy this designer because he also draws, paints, and plays guitar. As a freelancer, he completed album art projects for jazz player and composer James Davis and R&B singer/songwriter Sarah Marie Young. He also volunteers as art director for CHIRP Radio– the “Chicago Independent Radio Program.” Sienicki’s first love has always been music. He jumped at the chance to collaborate with the online community radio station when he learned the nonprofit organization was awarded an FM broadcast license.
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Inspired, Sienicki updated the station’s branding for their new direction. His initiative impressed the station director so much, she promoted him to art director. In this role, he works collaboratively with the station’s marketing and program directors creating design for all of its initiatives. He says he sees beauty everywhere, capturing it as he goes. This is clear by the number of striking photos populating his Instagram feed (@ayedoc). Photography was one of his first forays into art. He soon learned his talents were better suited for graphic design. After getting a bachelor of fine arts at Indiana University, he moved to San Diego with artist Owen Mundy, and eventually landed in Chicago in 2007. From that point, while freelancing on occasion, he occupied a number of jobs, from janitor (for two days) to designer for the free pet publication, Tails, eventually securing the job at the real estate company. But it is in his role with CHIRP that he receives the most satisfaction. He enjoys the balance of art direction, design, and production--his ideal triad. He prefers working
in branding--developing logos and identities to create a complete look and feel for organizations. He finds collaborating with nonprofits, artists, and performers to be rewarding. Sienicki, who loves living in Chicago, is the perfect example of a creative urbanite. Whether he is biking, beaching, or attending festivals, concerts and art openings, he is always careful to stop and capture the beauty along the way.
RYAN BESHEL
WORDS BY GABRIELLE POSHADLO + PHOTOGRAPH BY POLINA OSHEROV
“Ryan Beshel of Six4 Creative insists he didn’t choose a career in public relations. Rather, he says, it chose him.” Ryan Beshel of Six4 Creative insists he didn’t choose a career in public relations. Rather, he says, it chose him. And to be sure, while he counts among his clients some of Chicago’s poshest dining and fashion brands, the tattooed man who sat opposite me at happy hour recently in Chicago’s Old Town did not embody the PR executive stereotype. In a teal tank top, hat cocked to the right, the showpiece of his ink collection spanned his chest: the enormous, menacing black bird spying some enticing prey, mostly metaphorically, but I suspect sometimes not. “I’m the one with the bird tattoo,” he says over the phone before our meeting. “And I’m wearing designer socks, because of fashion.” I was sold on his brand already. Seven years ago, when Beshel was a tender 26 years old, his personal style was different than the measured casual look I admired in person, but most certainly just as distinctive. As the author of The Bowtie Memoirs, a blog documenting fashion and the good life around the Windy City, he jaunted about town wearing his signature accessory (he estimates his bowtie collection tops 50), snapping photos and making new friends. His memorable blogger image, paired with the contacts he made by day working at Michigan Avenue magazine led him to channel these assets into an honest
to goodness publicity business, boasting clients like chic eateries Ruxbin and NAHA, and menswear shop Notre. Backed by a small team, Beshel prides himself on his ability to multitask and the personal service he’s able to deliver. If NAHA requires a photoshoot, he shoots the food and occasionally has a friend style it He’s been known to befriend the staff at client restaurants in search of ripe social media content for the posting. Proof of this ingenuity came as he dashed off weets at our happy hour. “Excuse me, babe,” he says with a wink and a smile that told me we were already friends. “I’ve gotta PR for a minute.” Recent legislation eliminated the City of Chicago’s longstanding support of the fashion industry, delivering a considerable blow to the same community that brought us the Merchandise Mart, the Miracle Mile, and Michelle Obama signature style. While replacing government funding is a tall order, Beshel sees it as an opportunity to try his hand at something new. “Things are up in the air right now,” he says. “Who will take it, and continue to make things happen?” Together with friends from the local media and those formerly with the City of Chicago, Beshel hopes to make filling that void a part of his legacy. While this group has no name or mission statement, they do have a first task in mind: develop an exhaustive website that connects
retailers with makers as a replacement for the defunct Chicago Fashion Resource. Beshel’s playful tone grew serious as he talked about this project, his voice reflecting both the uncertainty he clearly feels toward its outcome and the resolve he has to complete it successfully. I made a comment about how he’s the perfect person to take it on. He laughs: “My dad always says, ‘Don’t forget, you’re not a big deal.’” As Beshel rose from the table to hug me and run off o the first of several events on his itinerary, I was struck by his 6’4” frame, for which his company is named. His height isn’t menacing like the bird on his chest nor is it intimidating. Instead, I think it’s a small part of what makes his dad incorrect.
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EDGE
WORDS BY GABRIELLE POSHADLO + PHOTOGRAPH BY MACE FREEMAN
“My goal is to make the Alkemy name dangerous in the battle scene.” It took maybe four tries to get ahold of the Chicago-based dancer named Edge. It wasn’t that he didn’t respond—“I’m in Las Vegas and I’ve got battles all day,” he sent me one day in a text. “I may have some availability tomorrow,” he told me in another. When we finally found a time, at an hour when neither of us were at our energetic peak, it all became clear. Edge, contrary to what his dancer moniker may imply, is a very generous spirit; which extends to his talents, his dialog and perhaps most impressively his time. I listened with my mouth half open as he told me about two tours in Afghanistan with the National Guard, during which he had injured not one but both of his knees. The doctor told him that even with physical therapy, his joints would only ever regain 80 percent of their young strength. Maybe that’s why after returning from his first tour, he resigned himself to a life of retail, working two jobs at Circle Center Mall in downtown Indianapolis. While stocking shoes at Journeys and folding cotton Henleys at Pacific Sunwear, dancing hadn’t yet intersected with his day-to-day. “I was shot at, and I shot people,” he recalls. “Things blew up, and it was intense. When I returned I struggled to be around people. I didn’t have any choice at the mall, which is why I did it. I wanted to challenge myself.”
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Then one day two girls shopping at Journeys began testing out their new shoes with Hip hop moves, and Edge scored an invitation to a local Hip hop night. After that, everything changed. The cadence of Edge’s speech quickened as he recounted for me those early days of learning to dance, and teaching himself to counteract his injuries through his technique. He told me about the new friends he met and how they had selflessly helped him to elevate his skills as a dancer, always using their DJ names: DJ City B, Diamond, M1. “Sorry if I got off on a tangent there, I just get real hype talking about this,” he says. Now with his own crew, the Alkemy Collective, Edge is concentrating on paying forward that patience and willingness to educate. And so far, it’s working. Alkemy already has an ESPN feature, international competition credits and several music videos under its belt. “I mostly hang out with kids right now because they’re fun and they teach me things in return,” he says. “They make up moves, and they don’t even know it.” Edge was careful to explain that Alkemy’s artists are not full-time dancers, nor do they necessarily have to be dancers at all. It was an interest in dance--or maybe it’s just rhythm--that brought this group of nine individuals together, but they all have day jobs.
“My goal is to make the Alkemy name dangerous in the battle scene.But more than that, everyone should know that no matter what any of our members do, it’s going to be dope,” he says. “The collective is there to support each other’s projects and make sure it’s all successful, like an artistic family.” There it was, the word that summed up all that Edge is thankful for and to which he clearly feels he owes his success as a dancer: family. The way he talked about the people who encouraged him to move to Chicago and pursue his dream of starting a dance crew (Brave Monk, ManOfGod, Jungle) was the same way people talk about those who mean the most. Before we hung up, Edge stopped me and asked whether he could pass along some shout-outs: his mom Christina Martin, his girlfriend Athena, and of course, his crew, Alkemy.
PETRA SLINKARD WORDS BY MARIA DICKMAN + PHOTOGRAPH BY POLINA OSHEROV
“I loved the stories and the idea that you could teach fashion history utilizing art history in a different way,” As curator of costumes at the Chicago History Museum, the intersection between objects and stories is Petra Slinkard’s sweet spot. In fact, it’s what got her started in the field. “I loved the stories and the idea that you could teach fashion history utilizing art history in a different way,” she says. “I came from a long line of women with strong identities, and they were all eclectic in the way they presented themselves. I would spend as much time as possible watching them put makeup on and getting ready to go out. I was dressing myself in crazy things, and as I developed as a teenager, I became more aware of the downside of the fashion industry--commercialization, waste, etc. In college, I didn’t want to major in fashion because I didn’t want to be part of what I saw as this corporate greed. But, I’d still go in department stores and was just totally drawn in by the quality and felt elevated by the environment around me. So I gave in! I started doing fashion history as an elective, and that was it! I was hooked. All of a sudden, all these different moving parts came together and gelled--art history, fashion, museums.” Her career began at Indianapolis Museum of Art, assisting costume curator Niloo Paydar on projects such as Project IMA. “We did [Project IMA] on no budget, and looking back, it was an excellent example of community engagement--it was about family and friends,” Slinkard recalls. “Fashion was an emerging industry that hadn’t had a platform in the city yet. My time at the IMA was invaluable, nine months turned into six years.” Enter the Chicago History Museum, which has one of the strongest and largest costume collections in the country--an industry secret. Slinkard applied to the
job, she says, “out of a duty to myself--it was too perfect. I had just the right amount of experience, and it was just the right next step. I never thought in a million years they would hire me.” Three years later, she says, “it feels great to walk in everyday and know that I’m a part of something that’s going somewhere. There’s something inspiring about being in the process. We’re a small institution. We’re understaffed, underfunded. It’s scrappy. It’s been a good time.” The collection itself is inspiring. What sets the Chicago History Museum apart from many throughout the country is that they have a more anthropological approach to their collection, featuring garments that have been altered “sometimes within an inch of their lives.” The collection very much traces culture and a person’s social history through the garments. Slinkard oversees the collection’s 50,000 to 60,000 pieces, including haute couture from Dior and Balenciaga, rare pieces from Schiaparelli and Chanel, and a strong collection of American designers like Bill Blass, James Galanos, Geoffrey Beene. A Jean-Charles de Castelbajac teddy bear coat and a Paul Poiret lampshade dress are just two of the incredibly rare pieces in the collection. But it’s not just designer fashion. Military uniforms, sport uniforms, and political clothing from Chicago’s mayoral campaigns also feature heavily in the collection. And while Michelle Obama’s fashion legacy isn’t yet a part of the collection; hopefully, it is just a matter of time. Slinkard’s favorites, however, aren’t the rare or the intricate; although, there is some Christian Lacroix that she adores.
Instead, it is the pieces that may not be as aesthetically interesting, but whose history is so amazing that it stops her in her tracks. “The first time I saw a Norell mermaid gown, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve read about this dress for so long, and now I’m seeing it in the flesh.’ That’s huge!” The most powerful moment, however, came from a simple black velvet cape. “We have the cape that Mary Todd Lincoln wore the night that Abe was assassinated. She was very small. There is blood on the cape. And as I’m looking at this object, I was just totally overwhelmed. It was really emotional because I can’t imagine what that’s like. We think of these figures as ‘figures,’ not as people. You know it happened, but this object brought it all into perspective for me. Just try to imagine what it would be like to be sitting next to your husband and have him be shot. It produced a range of emotion. It made me awestruck--that this garment survived; and it represents this huge point in our nation’s history. I felt proud and reverent for her and her experience. It’s all wrapped up in a black velvet cape, which if you found it in a box somewhere, you wouldn’t give it a second look, ” she says. “You can tell a great story, but then you see the object, and the object makes the story real. That’s the power of the combining object and story.”
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY ESTHER BOSTON STYLE BY ERIN CARTER @10MGMT HAIR BY GOSIA GORNIAK @10MGMT MAKEUP BY KATHY MOBERLY MODEL LAUREN H. (BMG CHICAGO MODEL MANAGEMENT) DESIGN BY LINDSAY HADLEY WRITTEN BY TIM LISKO
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I WAS WEARING: SHIRT, ELENA BOBYSHEVA SHORTS, HIDE SHOES, NASTY GAL
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I WAS WEARING: JACKET, HIDE DRESS, J.O.A NECKLACE, VINTAGE SHOES, JEFFREY CAMPBELL
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SPENT THE LAST FIVE YEARS IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU. WALKED BESIDE YOU THROUGH A THOUSAND CITY BLOCKS TO A THOUSAND NORMAL THINGS. WOULD LIKE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, SOMEDAY. I WAS WEARING: TURTLENECK, J CREW JACKET, ELENA BOBYSHEVA PANTS, J CREW SHOES, JEFFREY CAMPBELL
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I WAS WEARING: SKIRT, ELENA BOBYSHEVA SWEATER, J CREW
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YOU DESTROYED ME, YOU KNOW. TOOK OFF YOUR JACKET AND PLAYED THE LOBBY PIANO FOR TWO PERFECT MINUTES. PICKED UP YOUR COFFEE AND WALKED OUT WITHOUT ASKING WHAT I WAS GOING TO DO, NOW THAT I KNOW WHAT I’M MISSING. I WAS WEARING: TANK TOP, ELENA BOBYSHEVA BLOUSE, STYLIST’S OWN NECKLACE, STYLIST’S OWN PANTS, J CREW SHOES, NASTY GAL
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CARLOS ROLON
A Chicago artist’s nostalgic installations invoke feelings between celebration and regret. WORDS BY SHAUTA MARSH + PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANALU MARIA RODRIGUEZ + DESIGN BY AUBREY SMITH THE POWER AND A/C ARE OUT AGAIN, UNEXPECTEDLY, IN CARLOS ROLÓN/DZINE’S STUDIO ON the edge of Chicago’s Chinatown. Rolón’s studio covers 5,000 square feet on the fourth floor of a century-old building where they used to make the Ford Model T. The air is still and hot but Rolón and his team of eight continue to gold leaf, making new paintings with repurposed shattered tempered glass; Those pieces and new tropical floral oil paintings are inspired by Rolón’s homeland and second home, Puerto Rico. A lone power line snakes to a hanging lamp providing a glow across light blue and gold patterned baroque patterns in the kitchen area. There is still much attention to details considering the circumstances. There’s plenty of water, coffee, plenty of space, plenty of materials, but not enough time. Rolón has multiple new works and shows to create: paintings for the newly established Midwest International Art Fair, Expo Chicago, various works for a soloexhibition at the Museo de Arte de Ponce, commissions for American megastar collectors like Glenn Fuhrman, who opened the Flag Foundation in NYC. Rolón is one of the art world’s fastest rising stars. His works transcend class, melding painting, sculpture, and found objects, Rolón/ Dzine’s art practice explores the ways culture, both popular and historic, influence public and private spaces. It sells well, but it’s also socially conscious. A first-generation immigrant of Puerto Rican descent, he is interested in issues of identity, integration, and
aspiration. He uses his work to question the concepts of luxury and craft-making. Many of his pieces, like Imperial Nail Salon (My Parent’s Living Room), Barbershop, BOXED, and Flea Market Botanica, all require the audience to participate. These site-specific installations are sometimes artistic reincarnations of his childhood home. With Imperial Nail Salon (My Parent’s Living Room), he explores domesticity and community by creating an exact replica of his ’70s childhood living room where his mother ran an unlicensed hair and nail salon. Aside from the smell of perm chemicals, Rolón enjoyed hearing the women gossip about current events or personal issues while getting a makeover. “I felt a genuine need for the general public to understand the sense of community this bootleg salon created and that my mother indirectly created,” says Rolón. “There were no boundaries of color, gender, age, or cultural background.” With a recent installation, Barbershop, Rolón offered the perspective of barbers as sculptors. Participants received a custom fade or graphic haircut that would suit or create their personal identity. Inspired by his weekly visits to various neighborhood barbershops, this piece was a hybrid of those spaces and a lone photograph taken by Jack Delano (Barbershop in Bayamon, 1941). Rolón’s installations offer the viewer a firsthand account of personal stories, behavior, and free-flowing creativity. Though many of his works have personal stories 145
BARBERSHOP. SUBMITTED PHOTO.
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SUBMITTED PHOTOS.
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: 1 + 2; MY PARENT’S LIVING ROOM. 3 + 4; IMPERIAL NAIL SALON.
MY GOAL IS TO TELL STORIES THAT YOU NORMALLY DON’T SEE IN AN ART INSTITUTION OR WITHIN THE CONFINES OF A GALLERY
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attached to them, they only hint at his personal life and past, instead allowing his audience to have the last say. “My goal is to tell stories that you normally don’t see in an art institution or within the confines of a gallery,” explains Rolón. ‘The idea of doing the barbershop was completely organic since I spend time in public spaces I find very intimate. I admire the freedom and the idea of being true to one’s self. You find that within the barbershop, but it’s difficult to find in the fine art world.” Despite his interest in art, Rolón didn’t always feel at home at museums or galleries. His studio works, especially his installations, help break down barriers between the audience and the institutions. He recently turned Chicago’s Monique Meloche gallery storefront into a bootleg barbershop, drawing in families looking for haircuts. The response is usually one of confusion. “People have literally walked in with kids in tow, looking to see if they can get a haircut, and the attendants have to let them know it’s an art Gallery,” says Rolón. And when the visitor lingers, he says, “That for me is the artwork. That is the performance. That is the part where the community is now engaged. All of a sudden, they are discovering they can walk into an art gallery and feel welcomed,” says Rolón. Part of the appeal of Rolón’s work and what makes it approachable is his use of identity, culture, subculture, domesticity, and popular culture. He infuses it all with stories and a fine art aesthetic. He doesn’t worry about cultural appropriation or possibly mainstreaming subculture when a person or museum purchases his work. “A lot of people want to live vicariously through artists. I think that’s wonderful. I personally live vicariously through different mediums and experiences. I live vicariously through listening to a rock-and-roll song that was made 30 years ago or through an installation by Olafur Eliasson,” says Rolón. He is also using his work to challenge stereotypes. For example, the three-channel video, Bladez of Glory, which he made with filmmaker Joey Garfield. “In the film, one of the characters is a woman chosen because she is visually stunning. She’s beautiful. She’s also a proud lesbian and a bit street. She died at birth for two minutes. She had her chest cut open and now has a tattoo of a beating heart line above her chest. She’s quite funny and sassy, putting the men in check because they all want something from her, but she wants nothing to do with them,” says Rolón. “Based on her appearance, the viewer usually ends up being wrong about her personality. Ninety percent of the time, people are not who you think they are. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” However, Rolón does appreciate a fine cover. Fashion is very important to him both in
his work and personally. He travels a lot so he appreciates nice things, especially luggage. “I work hard and travel hard. I’m a very particular shopper. Have you heard of Rimowa Luggage? The German manufacturer has been in the business for over a century. They make the steel cases that get banged up, which makes them unique and classic. They’re an icon of the ’50s travel industry,” he explains. “I’m the kind of person who will buy something that could be considered expensive, but will last for a very long time. Same with clothing. I don’t mind buying something nice for myself, something by Tom Ford, Yves Saint Laurent, or Burberry. It’s ok to be kind to yourself.” Rolón’s newest body of work consists of using repurposed, shattered, tempered glass from auto body shops. The glass arrives at his studio labeled “1984 Caddy” or “1979 Regal.” Though these pieces aren’t as interactive, he’s excited about the stories they contain. “Those come from automobiles that someone has lived in or drove for years. We’re combining stories with people’s personal identities that are tied to their vehicles,” says Rolón. “How many times are you listening to the radio or having a private conversations with people within the confines of a car? Obviously, glass is not keeping secret recordings, but that car is tied to your individuality and holding your energy.” His new work also has loose ties to growing up in Chicago’s Brighton Park during the 1980s. “People would get cars customized. This idea of a custom Trans Am playing Led Zeppelin or a young hip hop kid customizing his newly purchased Conion Boombox by drawing on it or decorating it with stickers. Both cultures had their own fashion statements. Both have inspired the idea of customization within my studio practice.” He also reflects on how in the ’80s it wasn’t uncommon to walk along the street and sporadically see vandalized cars with the radio ripped out. “There’s something very beautiful about freshly broken window glass glistening in the sunlight, but you know something violent has just happened,” says Rolón. “I am very proud that my studio practice is multifaceted. I allow space for the creation of identity, hope, and chance. There’s an immediate connection I’m able to make with the viewer. Once that viewer connects with the work, and they begin to investigate, they find out there’s an underlying story. I’m really proud of the fact I can make work that is personal but able to cross over to a pop-culture level.” This is why whether you are an artist, an insurance salesperson, a fashionista, a waitress, or a day-trader, Rolón is a person to watch. See his work at Tube Factory artspace in 2017. ✂
THERE’S SOMETHING VERY BEAUTIFUL ABOUT FRESHLY BROKEN WINDOW GLASS GLISTENING IN THE SUNLIGHT, BUT YOU KNOW SOMETHING VIOLENT HAS JUST HAPPENED
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VOLUME NO. 9 LAUNCH PARTY PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER WHONSETLER
Our Youth Issue launch party was epic. From the venue to the crowd to the entertainment to the weather - everything came together for the best bash yet. We’re so grateful to have so many amazing supporters, friends, and talented people who love PATTERN and what it stands for - POWER TO THE CREATIVE CLASS! Thank you all! # B L OT T B OY Y FO R E V E R A BIG THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS FOR MAKING THE NIGHT A SUCCESS:
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OP ED
MILESTONES
Indiana has come a long way from its rough and rugged days in its early statehood. As so many great Hoosiers have been reflecting on the many steps it took to get our state to where it is today, I can’t help but think about the smaller chunk of Indiana I call home. My husband Bill and I moved to Indianapolis and our home in Herron-Morton in 1991 when liquor stores, low-performing schools, abandoned homes, and vacant lots dominated the landscape. Some people thought we were crazy, but we loved the historic architecture, the urban context, and the idea of being a part of bringing a house and a neighborhood back to life. We have experienced big change in our time here. The beautiful thing about big change is that it can often come in small steps. As I’ve watched Herron-Morton become the thriving place it is today, these are some of the moments that I can now look back at as milestones that paved the path to the place I love.
I have to admit, it took me a while to get out of the car habit despite having an office just a few blocks from home. Bill was first in our family. He was one of the rare bike commuters downtown when we moved here. He was also an early adopter of the Monon Trail, when
The day we celebrated the rewiring of our 1898 Victorian by running
it seemed a bit desolate and unsafe to me. Our children followed
the vacuum cleaner without blowing a fuse.
in their dad’s footsteps collecting bikes, and two of the three even
It was an early step in the process; and even 25 years later, I have to admit that we still aren’t done with our rehab, but we have truly
delayed getting their drivers’ licenses. To this day, they have resisted owning cars.
created a home. From that wonderful, electric day, we continued to
Today, Bill is one of many bike commuters and enjoys the Indiana
celebrate as new neighbors moved in, window units were replaced
Pacers Bikeshare from time to time. I now leave my car at home and
with central air, new kitchens were installed, and houses all along the
walk to work most days, including meetings downtown. I just joined
block received fresh coats of paint.
BlueIndy [car sharing service], and we are even starting to think about
Today, abandoned houses have been reclaimed by homeowners who have built a community. This used to be a part of town people moved out of when they had kids, but now we have a neighborhood park full of children and some of the best schools in the city. Our calendars are full of well-attended community gathering events including Oktoberfest, home tours, progressive dinners, porch parties, and supper clubs. Sidewalks are bustling every evening with dog walkers, families, and runners waving to their neighbors, enjoying what has truly become a healthy neighborhood. Herron-Morton is just one of many strong and vibrant neighborhoods that are reversing 60 years of urban population loss with robust new growth. The day I dropped my eldest daughter off for her first day of school. It was also the opening day for the Oaks Academy. Rebekah was one of only 50 students that very first year bravely attending a new school just four blocks away in what was then called “Dodge City.” When it was time for 9th grade, she joined the 99 students in Herron High’s inaugural class. Today, The Oaks Academy serves more than 600 children at three urban campuses (Fall Creek, Brookside, and Martindale). Herron High School serves 765 students and will soon add 575 more seats when it opens its second campus in Riverside. Both schools are models for reuse of historic buildings, academic excellence, and student diversity (racial, socioeconomic, and geographic), and symbolize the rising standard for many more schools in our community. It is exciting to see the growing support for Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), private and charter schools and the enthusiasm our neighbors have for raising kids in the city.
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becoming a one-car family, as there are even more options with bus rapid transit coming in 2018. We are just one of the many families walking more, using bike lanes and trails, and benefiting from a new culture of driver awareness that has made biking safer and more pleasurable, while at the same time helping relieve congestion in our streets. The first time I got coffee at Foundry Provisions. We had waited 21 years to have a coffee shop close enough to walk to. Once it opened, its presence led the economic development of our commercial corridor. Within a year, Thirsty Scholar opened and soon all things Tinker followed—Tinker Street Restaurant, Tinker Coffee, and Tinker Flats. Other businesses sprang up and Kroger upgraded. This economic development is a direct result of a movement in Indianapolis that celebrates place. We are no longer India-no-place. In our state’s bicentennial year, we know we are a very special place. And that our milestones are part of that story. Indiana has come a long way, and Herron-Morton has come a long way. It is good to be reminded that these changes are a result of small positive steps. I am inspired that I can continue small positive steps knowing that in another 25 years, Bill and I will have more to celebrate about our neighborhood. The inspiration is true for our state, too. When Indiana reflects and celebrates again, Hoosiers who carry on for us will be able to look back at more milestones that paved the way to a place that they love.
JOANNA_TAFT
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