Published: March 31, 2008 10:52 pm         

Onlookers being drawn to new mural as artists begin work on ‘story’

New artwork expected to be complete by early May

TERRE HAUTE — The picture beginning to emerge on the north wall of the Booker T. Washington Park Community Center already has begun to attract some attention from curious onlookers, according to the artist.

Tom Torluemke, a painter from Hammond, began this weekend on the painting he proposed as part of the Gilbert Wilson Memorial Mural Project, commissioned by Indiana State University.

Torluemke’s proposal was chosen from “lots and lots of proposals from all over the country,” said Nancy Nichols-Pethick, assistant professor of painting education at ISU.

“We didn’t want something that people would just drive by,” Nichols-Pethick said. “We wanted something that people would be compelled to stop and look at.”

Torluemke arrived March 17 and began drawing, and just this past week began working with ISU students who will help him complete the mural, Nichols-Pethick said.

The project is expected to last through the end of the spring semester, which ends in early May. Depending on the weather and other factors, Torluemke may be done sooner.

Torluemke said he submitted his proposal because he liked the fact that organizers were “looking for something right in the heart of … an urban environment, maybe in sort of an underserviced area.

“Those sorts of things are very interesting to me,” he said, adding that he thinks of it as an outreach project.

The other reason Torluemke said he was interested was that “it’s kind of hard to find people that will fund or support a mural that has some … uplifting social content,” he said. “And be willing to pretty much let you do what you want to do, so you can kind of tell your story or some sort of lesson you’d like to present, where the content is not dictated to you.”

In addition, Torluemke said he likes the idea of providing college students with the opportunity to work with the project.

“That’s real nice, too, because they get a chance to experience it and kind of learn from it,” he said.

The current mural project was not initially planned for the community center, according to Nichols-Pethick.

The initial plan was to use a Terre Haute fire station, but that building ended up being “in transition” Nichols-Pethick said, and couldn’t be used.

Proposals already had been solicited with the fire station in mind, she said, and it wasn’t until the last minute that the group got approval to use the Booker T. Washington Park Community Center – the former Charles T. Hyte Community Center – at 13th Street and College Avenue.

Torluemke said the change didn’t affect his proposal.

“The content was what I wanted it to be,” he said. “The idea [behind the mural] is that younger people can learn lessons sometimes from older people who have lived for some time, so as long as it was in a community where it would make a difference,” he said.

Torluemke says he feels at home in the neighborhood, and that it feels very similar to where he comes from in Hammond.

“It’s a very similar industrial sort of area, people are kind of poor and struggling,” he said.

“I think one of the artistic elements in the mural is that there’s a passage of time … the mural takes you a little bit through the passage of time, and this community, of course, kind of mirrors a sort of passage of time that might be reflected in the mural.

“But the notion of art being just … forced upon the community is interesting in regards to whether it does any good for the community,” Torluemke said. “Of course an artist would like to think it does, but it doesn’t really feed anybody or it doesn’t give anybody a job. It’s maybe a little bit foreign to people who are struggling.”

Torluemke, who is joined in his artistry by friend Jim McKern, also of Hammond, and his administrative partner Linda Dorman, said they’ve enjoyed a crowd of kids always around the table while they’re working.

He added that there has been a lot of interest in what he’s doing.

“At first people approached with trepidation,” he said. “They don’t quite know what’s going on … It takes some time to embrace it, they want to make sure it’s coming from the right place in someone’s heart.

“Once they figure out it is, they really warm up,” he said.

Deb Kelly can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or deb.kelly@tribstar.com.