Published: August 03, 2007 05:50 pm         

TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORAL: The 30 bright horses theory

Community art display sends message that people really care about this place

TERRE HAUTE — Decades ago social scientists studied the origins of neighborhood blight and came up with “the one broken window theory.” The reasoning: A single broken window pane, left unattended, sends a subtle but powerful message that someone in the building — and by extension the neighborhood — doesn’t care.

The slide toward deterioration and decay begins. In relatively short time, the process gains momentum. Reversing course gets more difficult, if not impossible. Good people give up and move away or disconnect from their neighbors and any sense of community.

Every time we pass one of the 30 brightly painted colts currently on display in Terre Haute, we are reminded that each negative phenomenon has a positive counterpart. The whimsical and colorful herd of 41⁄2-foot-tall fiberglass horses seems the polar opposite of the one broken window theory.







Painted by local artists, sponsored by local businesses and embraced by children of all ages, the colts are a fund-raising project for the Swope Art Museum. They send a variety of messages (all good) to even the most casual observer.

Like the happy epidemic of construction raging along Seventh and Eighth streets and Wabash Avenue, the horses say, “There is life here. People walk around here, work around here and play around here.”

On corners or in the middle of blocks, colts stand decorated like the sea, like English gardens or like phantasmagorical dreams. Each affirms, “People care about this place.”

The painted horses also say that civic leaders understand something about public art, that it is not an incidental for a city on the move, it is a necessity. Attention to aesthetics elevates and invigorates a city, whether it involves architecture, street and lighting design or outdoor sculpture. Such a commitment assures residents and visitors that the place and its people are about more than mere survival.

Terre Haute in general and downtown in particular have much work remaining. Even along Wabash Avenue, a handful of once-beautiful old buildings still offend with ratty-looking, empty display windows, blown-out upper stories and a black-hole air of abandonment. Their owners should look around at their responsible, active neighbors and get with the program.

If they need inspiration, they can get it right from the horse’s mouth — or all 30 of them.