Bicentennial sculpture celebrates Lafayette's sense of place

"On the Banks of the Wabash" planned for corner of South and Ninth streets

BY KATH MATTER

HERE’S A RIDDLE:

What flows like water but is not water, is playful and glowing and has the ability to stop traffic upon a glance?

If you give up, that’s only because an exciting sculpture named “On the Banks of the Wabash” has yet to be installed. It will rise, dip and flow over a corner lot at Ninth and South streets in downtown Lafayette.

From our country’s beginning, monumental occasions have generated memorable art. So why should the 200th anniversary of the founding of Lafayette be any different?

In time for the Marquis de Lafayette’s birthday on Sept. 6 this year, the sculpture you see in this illustration (left) will become part of downtown Lafayette’s landscape. Years ago a convenience store was located on the corner of South and Ninth streets, then the city needed the site for utility connections and built a low-profile brick pump house surrounded by grass — about as attractive as a utility can be.

Lafayette’s Director of Economic Development Dennis Carson says the space was always on a list of sites for “monumental” artwork, and this undulating brushed stainless-steel river fits the bill, filling a space that’s 34 feet by 19 feet with varying elevations as high as 12 feet.

Out of 24 sculptors from around the country who expressed interest in the project, Cliff Garten of Venice, California, easily won the hearts of the sculpture committee, made up of government people, arts supporters and site neighbors.

Members of the committee, like Marianne Rose, found all five finalists intriguing, but Garten’s “On the Banks of the Wabash” was not only visually exciting but connected with the community’s history on a deeper level.

It was the Wabash River that attracted Lafayette founder William Digby to plat a city on this particular site. Indigenous people lived on, and fished, its waters for hundreds of years. French fur traders plied its waters to swap trade goods for furs. Steamboats brought dream-filled settlers from the east.

“This speaks to the fact we haven’t forgotten what brought our forefathers to this community,” says Rose, retired development director for The Community Foundation. “Now we look to the banks of the Wabash to be major green space for all of us to use. We look for its trails to enjoy the environment around us.

“This sculpture raises up the fact of how important the Wabash, and its aquifers below us, are in sustaining us.”

Garten wasn’t aware that city and county residents were rallying to the defense of the Wabash’s water resources after a state project called LEAP proposed taking millions of gallons a day from the river’s aquifers for business development in Lebanon. But he did historical research, and that led him to state that “the Wabash River is not just a geographical feature but a cherished emblem of Lafayette’s history, its resilience and its enduring connection to the land.”

Cliff Garten is an internationally recognized sculptor and founder of Cliff Garten Studio in Venice, California.

Working between sculpture, engineering, architecture and landscape, Garten has been an important voice in advocating for what he calls “the expressive potential of public infrastructure.” His sculptures are built with careful attention to the development of each piece by seeing the development of landscape and its functions as a part of the total composition of sculpture. He refers to this hybrid art that forms urban spaces, plazas, infrastructure and memorials as “landscape sculpture.” Garten believes that the necessary facts of our public infrastructure are cause for the possibility of a public expression through the conscious design and integration of art. "Sculpture defines our interaction and movement by creating energy between things, generating interest in public activity, reframing our private lives and creating a sense of place within public and private," he says.

Carson was the first to open Garten’s sculpture proposal, which arrived through email.

“I was pleasantly surprised because his submission was very different,” he recalls. “Of all the things he could have used, he picked the Wabash River and really captured it” in the sculpture’s flowing lines.

“The development of the river is something the community has really been rallying around for several years now. The river has played an important role throughout our history, and it’s playing a big role now in our future with all the riverfront developments and planning we’ve been doing,” Carson says.

Garten was aware of published studies of the changing meanders of the Mississippi River by Army Corps of Engineers cartographer Harold Fisk. It led him to take a closer look at the geologic history of the Wabash River.

“We looked at the larger scale path of the ancient preglacial river, the Teays, whose bedrock valley converges around Lafayette. This massive river and its meanders shaped the entirety of the landscape of Lafayette,” he says.

Garten included a map of the meanders of the Teays in his proposal, and those meanders can easily be seen in the finished plan for the sculpture. “Its shifting path was a source of inspiration for our sculpture,” he affirms.

When the sculpture is in place people will be able to walk under parts of it and kids can duck under parts of it. “Garten really made good use of the Ninth and South space, which is constrained by a lot of utilities,” Carson says. “There’s a larger lawn area by the pump house, and then there’s a little bit of lawn right on the corner of Ninth and South streets. He decided to use both.

“With the piece going over the sidewalk and connecting down to that corner, it’s really interesting how it makes a kind of enclosed area. In his rendering he had a band playing underneath a loop of the sculpture. He created a nice little public space within the sculpture.”

The sculpted “river” will boast the city’s name, Lafayette, laser cut into its surface as well as excerpts from the first verse and chorus of our state song, Paul Dresser’s “On the Banks of the Wabash.” The large letters in Lafayette will be made up of many smaller words and phrases describing the city, which were crowdsourced in late 2024. Lights incorporated into the piece will make the words glow at night.

Money was budgeted by the city to pay half the cost of the $500,000 sculpture project, with private fundraising paying for the rest. But the sculpture has generated so much positive buzz that fundraising will likely cover the entire cost of the artwork along with landscaping and interpretive materials, says Carson.

Come September the sculpture will arrive in sections from Metal Arts Foundry in Utah, where it’s being fabricated. It is expected to take a couple days for installers from Indianapolis along with local workers to put it in place. The task may generate traffic congestion at the busy intersection as gawkers keep an eye on its progress.

Arts and culture projects like “On the Banks of the Wabash” are good for the city’s economic development and quality of life, says Carson, who hopes it will generate community pride.

“People will come here to see the public art and see the other things we are doing and that, in turn, attracts people to live here and attracts companies, too. When we recruit companies, they comment on our downtown and the arts and cultural offerings we have here because those kind of things are important to their employees.”

Whatever larger impact the “On the Banks of the Wabash” sculpture will have, Jane Turner, a Columbia Street “neighbor” on the selection committee, feels it will definitely have a local impact. She predicts: “It’ll be a gathering place for the neighborhood and the city, and the shape of it accommodates that.

“I think it will bind the 19th century to the 21st century.”

She points to St. Louis, where its monumental Arch sculpture provides a modern frame for the city’s 19th century courthouse. Will Lafayette’s curvy sculpture provide a frame for the 19th century houses around it, like the Moses Fowler House across the street? It’s designed to do that.

Knowing there are always skeptics ready to question anything new and different, Turner says, “I believe that in 20 years no one will want to take it apart. It will be a fixture here like the Arch is in St. Louis. The younger generation will embrace it and it’ll be a great unifier of the old and the new.” ★

“On the Banks of the Wabash joins a growing list of downtown sculptures

“Ouabache,” a wind sculpture installed in the 1980s, was the first modern sculpture in downtown Lafayette. It was originally placed on a surface parking lot that later became the building site for the Columbia Center. It was moved to its current home, an open space on the Lafayette side of the river between the east and west bound spans of the Harrison Bridge. There are currently more than 15 artworks in the downtown.

“We have locations for other sculptures identified in our streetscape projects,” says Lafayette’s Director of Economic Development Dennis Carson. “But right now we don’t have any plans to do a call for artists. They’re mostly on Main Street, but in the future we’ll probably see some on Columbia and South streets as well.”

Here are other outdoor sculptures:

• “Millennium Sundial,” John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge

• “Gateway” made up of “What Lines?” and “The Flame,” corner of Second and Main streets, erected to honor Indiana’s Bicentennial in 2016

• “Tribute to David Ross,” 320 Main St.

• “Transcend,” 102 N. Third St.

• “The Forge,” 1100 block of Third Street

• “George,” a bison, Tippecanoe County Courthouse lawn

• Marquis de Lafayette Fountain, Tippecanoe County Courthouse, Fourth and Main streets

• “Sandhill Cranes” bench, 133 N. Fourth St.

• “Farm Family,” Fifth and Main streets

• “Mattock,” 605 Main St.

• “We Rise Above,” corner of Seventh and Main streets

• “Edmund Guy,” a bison, 900 Main St.

• “Cloud Over Mountain and Markers,” 102 S. 10th St.

• “Crossings,” 1100 Main St.

• “Wabash Waves” and “Resting Dancer,” Art Museum of Greater Lafayette

A year for celebrating in Lafayette

Look forward to these events during Lafayette’s 2025 Bicentennial year. And this is just the beginning. Details and dates may change. Go to Lafayette200.com for up-to-date information.

★ JANUARY

• January - LSC and TSC will kick off 200 hours of community service for the year in celebration of William Diby’s January birthday

• January 23 - Haan Museum - Legacy in Clay: Remembering Hay, Herrold, Kemp Kirchmann & Tuck, opening reception Thursday, January 23, 6-8 pm, exhbit runs through April 26, 2025

• Bicentennial retail items introduced to community; visit Lafayette200.com

★ FEBRUARY

• February 1 through July 13 - Art Museum of Greater Lafayette – Bicentennial Exhibition: Regionally Related Works from the Permanent Collection

• February 14, ‘200 reasons we love Lafayette’ banner and social posts

• Bicentennial pop-up history exhibits on display; locations and dates to be determined

★ MARCH

• March 1-2, Imagination Station’s ‘Magnificent Me’ exhibit with Bicentennial pop-up history exhibits on display

• Kick-off Bicentennial ‘Walk & Talk’ Tours downtown for spring break activity

• Rock it Out – painted rocks by LSC and TSC schools to be distributed around Lafayette; rocks donated by Wrede Rocks

★ APRIL

• April 6, Duncan Hall Afternoon Tea

• Downtown business window painting by LSC and TSC art classes and orgainzations

• Bicentennial ‘Walk & Talk’ Tours

• Kick-off of Bicentennial Poetry and Essay Contests with LSC and TSC schools

★ MAY

• May 2-30, TAF Exhibit – Quilting Connection, Lafayette Quilters at the Bicentennial

• Open Mic Night - Duncan Hall

• May 3 - Haan Museum - Generations 2025 Fine Art Exhibition and Sale; opening event Saturday, May 3, 2-5 pm. Exhibit runs May 4-31, 2025

• May 24, 25, 26 Memorial Day Weekend - Community events at Columbia Park:

Saturday – Discount Day on padel boats, train rides and zoo entrance

Sunday – Free inflatable amusement on Loeb Stadium field with movie night that evening

Monday - Lafayette Citizens Band’s Bicentennial Concert, Memorial Island Amphitheatre

• May 25 - City Founder’s Day

• Bicentennial ‘Walk & Talk’ Tours

★ JUNE

• June 8 - Afternoon Tea at Haan Museum, 2-4 pm

• June 12 - Haan Museum - Celebrating 200 Years of Lafayette Art & Culture, opening reception Thursday, June 12, 6-8 pm. Exhibit runs June 13 - August 9, 2025

• June 21 - TAF’s TASTE of Tippecanoe, Downtown Lafayette

• June 28, Premiere Event - Bicentennial Costume Ball with dinner/dance and live entertainment, Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds

• Bicentennial ‘Walk & Talk’ Tours

★ JULY

• July 1 - Long Center - Kick-off of Sydney Pollack Film Festival in celebration of Lafayette native’s birthday; festival runs July 11-13.

• July 11-August 1 - TAF Exhibit by Michelle Wood-Voglund - Grand and Gone: Lost Buildings of Lafayette

• July 4 - Citizens Band’s Stars and Stripes Concert with Fireworks, Riehle Plaza

• July 12 - Riverfest

• Bicentennial ‘Walk & Talk’ Tours

★ AUGUST

• August 2 - Lafayette’s Past and Future, Civic Theater Youth Performance, Jeff High School

• August 21 - Haan Museum - Hoosier Heritage on Canvas: Indiana Farms & Gardens; opening reception 6-8 pm; exhibit runs August 22 - December 28, 2025

• August 21 - Haan Museum - The Best of Scott Frankenburger, opening reception 6-8 pm; exhibit runs August 21 - October 26, 2025

• Bicentennial ‘Walk & Talk’ Tours

★ SEPTEMBER

• TCHA Bicentennial Book Launch Event - date and location to be determined

• September 6 - General Marquis de Lafayette’s birthday (tentative monument/sculpture dedication)

• September 12 - October 26 - Bicentennial-themed Corn Maze at Exploration Acres

• September 21 - Afternoon Tea at Haan Museum, 2 - 4 pm

• Bicentennial ‘Walk & Talk’ Tours

★ OCTOBER

• October 11-12 - Feast of the Hunter’s Moon

• October 13-17, Schools' Fall Break - Family Game Nights at Duncan Hall

• Bicentennial ‘Walk & Talk’ Tours

★ NOVEMBER

• November 28 - December 28, Holidays at the Haan Museum

★ DECEMBER

• December 6 - Christmas Parade - Christmases Past, Present and Future