As part of Wabash Walls 2019, this mono-chromatic mural was created by Paola Delfin. Although…read moretucked away on a side street, it is worth winding around to find this on the east wall of Korty's Insulation. (It is not visible from the street, so you have to go to their parking lot.) The mural consists of portraits of four people of diverse ethnicity. The artist from Mexico City uses murals to express her own sensibilities. Review #3339

We were cruising all around the city of West Lafayette, and they had a lot of public art…read moreeverywhere. This was another awesome public display called the Wabash walls. We thought it was really awesome to see all the colors in different types of murals. I would highly recommend it.

As part of the Wabash Walls! mural program (Sept 2018), a number of artists collaborated on…read morepainting the title "WABASH WALLS!" along the retaining wall that holds up the train tracks as it crosses the street where 2nd street becomes Wabash Avenue. Many of the artists who painted the letters spelling out the program name also contributed other murals to the south along or near Wabash Avenue. Here are the artists who worked on each letter: W - Jenna Morello A - Cameron Moberg (Camer1) B - Nicole Holderbaum (Nico) A - Zach Medler (ZMED) S - Aaron Vickery (Fasm) H - Cameron Moberg (Camer1) W - Ella V A - Jeff Guichelaar (Geoff) L - Nicole Holderbaum (Nico) L - Andres Cobre S - Zach Medler (ZMED) ! - Bekki Canine Each of the letters is the same height and is done in a capitalized block form. They have different patterns and images, some of which relate to other murals in the program. Review #1540

Here I was, all set to claim that I was the first person to write a review about a wood and steel…read moreblock in downtown Lafayette. Because, surely, no one had written a Yelp review about a public art piece called cRRossings, right? But wouldn't you know! My good buddy Ken N., may he rest in peace, had written about this cubed wood-and-steel art piece eight years ago. Of course he beat me to it. Of course. You can see this artwork in downtown Lafayette, kind of at the outskirts of the downtown area, at 11th and Main Street. Like Ken N. describes, the cube is angled to look like it might fall over at any minute. The piece pays tribute to Lafayette's railroad history, and cRRossings is placed very close to where railroad tracks used to be before the railroad was relocated. Scott Frankenberger, an artist from West Lafayette who mostly specializes in pottery, is responsible for this art piece.

The last train ran through downtown Lafayette in 2001 due to a track relocation project. Just a…read moreshort distance from where the track crossed Main Street, local artist Scott Frankenberger created a sculpture to pay tribute to the railway. In 2009, "cRRossings" was completed using old railroad ties and steel brackets to form a large cube that is partially buried and rests on an angle as if ready to topple over. The cube is 54" per side and lights from within at night. Review #1444

If you visit the parks in West Lafayette, you are bound to encounter some public art as you enter…read moreand leave the park. In 2019, Happy Hollow Park received four new sculptures: one for each entrance. The West Lafayette Public Arts Team commissioned the four pieces from Pennsylvania artist Bill Secunda. Taking nearly 2 years to complete, the four sculptures are made from steel and depict different insects that can be found in the area. Seems like a great complement to the woodsy nature of the park. At the main entrance, a 26' Praying Mantis can be seen hunting for lightning bugs (3). To the west at the park entrance along Kingston Road is a cricket that is much smaller in scale. Northwest of that along Salisbury Street can be seen a Dragonfly resting on cattails. And along the the north side of the park at the Indian Trail entrance can be found a Luna Moth. The steel is already oxidizing, so I hope that the material will last for many years to come. Excellent, life-like depictions of the insects show a great deal of skill in manipulating of such a large scale sculpture. I can't wait to see what the other parks continue to add. Review #3710

I went on a guided walking tour of all of the murals and public art around downtown Lafayette, and…read moreit made me love Lafayette even more than I already did. This city really invests in art and artists -- you can see it on almost every wall and on every street corner. Small Spaces is a project by the city to turn some of the blank walls into canvases for artists. You'll find these artworks hidden in back alleys and also plastered across major buildings. Some are just images painted on doors, and some are gigantic murals that can be seen from blocks away. The whole downtown area of Lafayette is alive with art, and I love it. You don't need a guided tour to appreciate the art. Just park somewhere downtown and start observing. You'll see art pieces everywhere.

If you spend much time in downtown Lafayette, you will see a bonanza of murals filling back walls,…read moreshuttered windows, nearly any place that would be either ignored or a target for graffiti. SmallSpaces is a collection of art and artists (around 30) who have transformed the downtown to a place where you can't wait to see what is around the corner. After a blitz of painting in 2014, there were over 50 murals/paintings identified around town. I haven't found them all, but have included a decent sampling of some of the groupings and larger pieces. One of the more abundant locations is the building on the northwest corner of 5th and Ferry Streets (Haywood Printing). There are murals all around the building including a seven panel stretch on the south wall that has a different style for each panel. Some use lifelike portraiture. Another does a parody of American Gothic. One is a geometric study. All kinds of art. Diagonally across the intersection can be seen three more murals on the wall of Lafayette Printing. About a block to the south at 536 Main Street, the upstairs windows have images that look out over Main Street that resemble old time Muppet characters Statler & Waldorf. One of the larger murals in the collection is a few blocks to the east (10th) and another block south on Columbia. It fills a wall with the image of two kids speaking to each other through a pair of tin cans connected by a string. It was painted by "FLEX" in 2014 as well. Walking through Lafayette can be a fun experience if you take the time to look around. You never know what you will see next! Review #1406

In front of the Veterinary School on Harrison Street, a large installation called "Continuum" is…read morededicated to the relationship of humans to the domesticated animals that make up home and farm life. The installation has seven stand alone pieces that are lined in a parade fashion along the front plaza. A pair of sculptures have veterinarians. One is holding some test tubes in the air while another is kneeling beside a calf/heifer checking its vitals. In another piece, a young boy is playing with a dog. The other pieces include a cat, a horse, a pig. The final, and tallest piece is a flat panel that has cutouts of animals shapes. This piece is supposed to represent early cave drawings. Another odd, but appropriate for the location, feature is that on one side of each animal, instead of appearing smooth like fur or skin, you can see a relief of what the animal's skeletal structure might look like on an X-ray. Very odd to see, and a little creepy, but definitely takes the installation from being a typical farm scene to a place of study. Review #1461

Is it a place to sit? A fun thing for kids to play on? A piece of public art? Yes, yes and yes. I…read morecame across this sculpture in Tapawingo Park, and I didn't understand what I was looking at until I learned the name of this art piece: Pearl of the Wabash. Oh! That's a pearl! And it looks like a clamshell. OK, I get it now. Except it's actually supposed to represent a freshwater mussel, which are abundant in the Wabash River, which runs along the Tapawingo Park. I'm a bit of an idiot and didn't know that mussels can produce pearls. I thought that job was reserved for clams. But I learned that fun fact because of this sculpture, which is a representation of an endangered riverine mussel. How nice to not just gaze upon a unique piece of art in the middle of a park, but to also learn something new. Pearl of the Wabash was created by Esteban Garcia Bravo, a former assistant professor of computer graphics technology at Purdue. It's made of concrete and was created by a 3-D printer. It also has lights on it that change color, so I bet this sculpture looks really cool at night.

Firefly is an awesome public art display that I came across while we were in West Lafayette…read moreIndiana. We had to stop and see this for sure. It was really neat took up the entire side of the building. It was very very colorful and I thought it was just super awesome.

In September 2018, a series of murals called "Wabash Walls!" decorated the neighborhood along…read moreWabash Avenue south of downtown Lafayette. Of those murals, my favorite is "Firefly" by Max Sansing. The image shows a profile of a boy who has discovered and captured a firefly, but instead of being an insect, the firefly is a glowing golden boy small enough to fit in the palm of the larger boy's hand. The imagery is lifelike and done with brilliant colors. I really like how well the artist made it appear the larger boy is looking directly at the smaller boy. I've seen far too many paintings where the artist was unable to capture that connection. I also like that there is an element of fantasy and the unknown in the mural. Review #1544